This album is the third in the collection made in collaboration with the Amsterdam based Echonance Festival. After volume 1 by the wonderful Phill Niblock and volume 2 by composer and sound artist Gabriel Paiuk, Descendants by American, Berlin based Arnold Dreyblatt activates four historical organs at the Orgelpark in Amsterdam to magnificent effect.

Composed especially for the main hall of the Orgelpark in Amsterdam, Descendants was realized in the just-intonation “Dreyblatt” tuning system, derived from the first eleven harmonic overtones and their extensions based on the fundamental C (A = 415 Hz). The following intervals, identified on the four organs and corresponding to my tuning system, were used in the composition: 1/1, 9/4, 3/2, 7/4, 11/16, 21/16, 25/16, 35/32, 63/32, 77/64, and 81/64. These pitches and their registers were organized into five sections and distributed across four different historical and contemporary pipe organs in the space, filling the hall with gradually shifting resonances.

Tracklist

1. Descendants (50:42)

Descendants (excerpt)

BIOGRAPHY

Arnold Dreyblatt (New York City, 1953) is an American media artist and composer. He has been based in Berlin, Germany since 1984. Dreyblatt is the Vice-Director of the Visual Arts Section of the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. From 2009 to 2023 he was Professor of Media Art at the Muthesius Academy of Art and Design (Muthesius Kunsthochschule) in Kiel, Germany.

Among the second generation of New York minimal composers, Dreyblatt developed a unique approach to composition and music performance. He invented a set of new and original instruments, performance techniques and a system of tuning. His compositions are based on harmonics and thus just intonation, played either through a bowing technique he developed for his modified double bass, and other modified and conventional instruments, which he specially tuned. He originally used a steady pulse provided by the bowing motion on his double bass (placing his music in the minimal category), but he eventually added many more instruments and more rhythmic variety.  Bandcamp

CREDITS

Performers

• Claudio F. Baroni: “Verschueren” organ, (reconstruction, style of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, 19 Century, French)
• Reiner van Houdt: Cabinet Organ (1767, NL)
• Arnold Dreyblatt: “Utopa” organ, (Baroque / Contemporary, NL / Germany / Japan, 2018)
• Lucie Nezri: “Van Straten” Organ (1479, reconstruction, NL)

Recorded by Jasper Schonewille on January 7, 2025 at Orgelpark, Amsterdam.
Commissioned by Echonance Festival#3, 2025.
All music composed by Arnold Dreyblatt GEMA.

Album design by Isabelle Vigier.