Johannes Welsch


(Copyright © 2006 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )

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Canadian producer and drummer Johannes Welsch collected gong improvisations on Sound Creation (Deep Listening, 2012). The pieces are performed on four groups of gongs, each named after one of ancient Greece's four elements (fire, water, earth and air). The results range from the "ambient" quiet of Fire to the terrifying holocaust of Storm, from the metaphysicial suspense of Water (listen carefully to the undercurrent of reverbs) to the glacial monoliths of Earth. The Stockhausen-inspired Symphony Part I ups the ante by drawing a parallel with droning music. Symphony Part II is the most sophisticated piece here, as the drones constitute a slow-moving organism that is left to evolve/expand over an infinite acoustic space. A bit of polyphony enters the picture in the closer Air when two singing bowls, one of crystal and one of bronze, interact with a gongs. Welsch has obviously a super-human ear for the sound of the gong, and his sound art may help train the ears of many more people, but, as far as art goes, there is something lacking in the development of these pieces, and in part it may be due to the composer's desire to "show off" the capabilities of the instruments. His Symphony is probably just an appetizer from what could truly be a gong symphony or concerto.

(Copyright © 2006 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )
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