Jean-Baptiste Favory
UNISONO
CD (E146)

 

Belgium £13 (including postage)

Europe £15 (including postage)

Rest of world £17 (including postage)

​

Edition of 200 copies

UNISONO I (11.00; 2008)

For Gérard Pape

 

Eight musicians play the same virtual synthesizer (programmed by myself with Max/MSP) following a precise score. They start with the same sound but while slowly modifying each parameter they
transform it from within, grinding up its entrails. The listener is positioned at the center of a sound at once unique and multiple. The version on this CD is a live recording made at Les Voûtes in Paris 

in June 2008 by the CLSI (Circle for 

the Liberation of Sounds and Images)

directed by Paul Méfano. The players

are Rodolphe Bourotte, Jorge Campos, 

Jean-Baptiste Favory, Michaël Kinney, Emmanuel Miéville, Lissa Meridan,
Gérard Pape and Stefan Tiedje.

 

UNISONO II (15.40; 2010)

For Paul Méfano

 

Based on UNISONO I (eight synthesiz-ers, eight players) but with  a new, more complex score. “One must get inside the heart of sound, sound has a heart, it is spherical, it has a center, the center of the heart. It is there one must get to...”

— Giacinto Scelsi (1987)

 

UNISONO III (15.40; 2011)

 

UNISONO III is a piece for eight virtual
instruments based on the UNISONO II score. The synthesized sounds are the model for the virtual instruments (flute, oboe, English horn, two cellos, violin, viola and bass). Their parameters — usually programmed to be as realistic-sounding as possible — are extended
to their limits, reaching frequencies 

and speeds unimaginable otherwise. Authenticity is no longer important

and in this case, the frontier between acoustic and synthetic becomes blurred.

 

UNISONO IV (15.40; 2011)

 

UNISONO II and UNISONO III combined.

 

http://eljibi.free.fr
 

See also
Out of print

—
Review

A series of compositions written for eight players using digital synthesizers — 

part one finds all using the same synth, seemingly each controlling a separate parameter. It’s a tasteful slur of buzzing
oscillators, beating and modulating against one another in a spacious stereo field. Part two is more complicated, 

with each player controlling his/her 

own synth, the patches changing more quickly, and the piece’s narrative logic becomes hard to follow. But skip through to the real gem, the third part, where Favory’s own Max/MSP-programmed
synthesizers are replaced by virtual synths designed to emulate acoustic instruments in the manner of presets on a Casio keyboard. A wonderful auditory
trompe l’oeil occurs when what sound 

like flutes, violins and cellos all hold impossibly sustained notes, and play 

well out of the frequency ranges allowed
by physical instruments. 

William Hutson in The Wire