PREMIERES BY JOHN EATON
The instrument can best be described as three 49-note keyboards stacked on top of one another, each attached to a computer. The electric sensors on the keys allow them to respond in a variety of ways to a finger’s pressure–with a sensitivity not possible for an organ or a piano. The triple keyboards add to the extensive sound possibilities, and playing them requires the dexterity of an organ virtuoso–which Eaton hopes will discourage dilettantes and pop performers from commercializing his new instrument.
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For the debut Eaton wrote a short piece titled Genesis that shows off the keyboards. A study in texture and density, the piece starts off rather like Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, with primordial drones, gurgles, groans, and whispers. Slowly it shifts into Asiatic tribal chants–Tibetan perhaps–punctuated by the clangor of anvils. The wails and croons that follow are chased away by celebratory chimes and whistles. It’s impressive special-effects music–Danny Elfman should check it out before writing the score for the next Batman. But how does one evaluate it when there are no other works to compare it with? Facing a bank of PCs and other electronic gadgets programmed by Pieter Snapper, the cheerful and intense-looking Eaton left no keys untouched in an energetic performance. One could almost mistake him for the Wizard of Oz. Yes indeed, the synthesizer is versatile and colorful, capable of generating sounds that are weird and wonderful. With it at one’s disposal, who needs an orchestra?
Eaton’s vocal writing, from songs to operas, is arguably his best-known work. One of the pieces that contributed to his reputation is A Greek Vision, written in 1981 for Chicago performers Elsa Charlston (soprano) and Carole Morgan (flute), and based on three poems by Angelos Sikelianos that deal with birth and redemption. “Sparta” tells the story of an elderly husband who urges a young man to conceive a child with the husband’s wife, from the husband’s ambivalent point of view. Curiously, the voice is the soprano’s singing mostly in the upper register, garnishing the words not with irony but rapture. In “The Return” a soul hovers over its fondly remembered native Greece, about to be reborn. Not surprisingly, the singer’s phrases echo and resonate with the aid of digital-delay manipulations, a technique presaging Eaton’s synthesizer; the piece ends with the phrase “to the sand’s edge” accented by the bellowing of a foghorn. “Aphrodite Rising” is the most atmospheric of the three and shows Karlheinz Stockhausen’s imprint. This poem describes the ecstasy of a beauty’s struggle against the forces of nature to be born. As conveyed by the flute (played by Jayn Rosenfeld), the air is briny. Every sound is stretched into infinity or retracted. Against the primal backdrop the singer (Aphrodite, one assumes) shrieks, screams, then halts. Her sensual utterances linger like tender caresses, and the erotic charge is palpable. Heidi Schmidt, who sang the part, confided during rehearsal that she almost had an orgasm. I’m not surprised, even though her interpretation lacked the knowingness of an Elsa Charlston.
