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Requiro (I - Ex uno, II - Per aevom)

from De Proportionibus by Benedict Slotte

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about

The title of this piece is Latin for “I ask”. It is based on two short passages of text from the major didactic poem De rerum natura (On the nature of things) written by Roman poet Titus Lucretius Carus up until the year 55 BC. Many descriptions of nature and its phenomena in the text, which is based on the thinking of the Greek philosopher Epicurus, are surprisingly similar to concepts in modern science.

The passages of text for this piece were chosen to be a kind of poetic analogy of modern cosmology (i.e. the science of the origin and evolution of the universe). Part I, Ex uno (Out of one), with its mention of fire, is in this context chosen to indirectly allude to the early expansion of the universe from an as yet unknown initial state at extremely high temperature. This event is popularly better known as “Big Bang” (although thinking of this as some kind of ordinary explosion would be a misleading oversimplification). Also, of course, such an event is not what Lucretius actually referred to, as no such theory was known at his time. Part II, Per aevom (Through ages) describes the formation of more and more complex structures, and finally also living organisms, by “primordials” (called “primordia rerum” in De rerum natura, conceptually similar to what would nowadays be called atoms and molecules) during a very long time.

Part II was conceived much later than part I. Since part I expresses a question, it was natural to add a part II to answer that question.

Both parts of this piece include a semi-artificial choir that was created by a polyphonic granular pitch shifting process acting on a single voice. In fact the whole part I of this piece started out as a demonstration of what is possible to do using advanced granular pitch shifting (originally in the sound engine of the Haken Continuum synthesizer, later in Native Instruments Reaktor). The human voice is notoriously difficult to resynthesize at a higher or lower pitch. Ordinary pitch shifting makes it sound very unnatural. This is because all formants (resonances due to the vocal tract) need to be preserved in spite of the overall shifting of pitch. The special pitch shifting employed here achieves this by treating the formants in parallel using a separate process.

The “converging cluster” effect heard in the choir part was done by controlled randomization of pitch. It is quite similar to the effect of using individual glissandi to a common note in an actual choir.
It also so happens that the COVID-19 virus pandemic, which struck during the making of this record, would have made it hard to assemble and record an actual choir. The voice processing thus turned out to be an unexpected blessing.

English translations of the original Latin texts: W. E. Leonard (the texts are from books I and V of De rerum natura).

Instrumentation used in this piece: Haken Continuum synthesizers, Native Instruments Reaktor, processed voice. Original voice: Benedict Slotte.

lyrics

Nam cur tam variae res possent esse, requiro,
ex uno si sunt igni puroque creatae?

Propterea fit uti magnum volgata per aevom
omnigenus coetus et motus experiundo
tandem conveniant ea quae coniecta repente
magnarum rerum fiunt exordia saepe,
terrai maris et caeli generisque animantum.

(From Titus Lucretius Carus: De rerum natura)

For how, I ask, can things so varied be,
if formed of fire, single and pure?

Because of this it comes to pass
that those primordials,
diffused far and wide through mighty aeons,
the while they unions try, and motions too,
of every kind, meet at the last amain,
and so become oft the commencements fit
of mighty things: earth, sea, and sky,
and race of living creatures.

(Translation by W. E. Leonard)

credits

from De Proportionibus, released October 4, 2020

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about

Benedict Slotte Finland

Specialist in areas of acoustics, doing artistic things on the side. Specialties: choir singing, overtone singing, synthesizers (mainly Haken Continuum), sound design, sound synthesis, photography.

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