Distant Images     Vinyl

Roger Reynolds

Less Than Two (1976-79)
Two pianos, two percussionists, and quadraphonic computer synthesized sound)

Aether (1983)
Violin and piano

Liner notes: Roger Reynolds
Primary Artists: Delores Stevens, Jean-Charles François, Daryl Pratt, Daniel Dunbar, János Négyesy, Cecil Lytle
Label: Lovely Music VR 1803
7-4529-51803-1-9
Recording, editing, mastering: Josef Kucera, Bill Kipper (1987)

About Less Than Two:

Our perception of life is frequently shaped by the habit of pairing thing – persons, circumstances, ideas. The elements of such pairs may be seen at one time as opposed extremes, at another as complementary aspects of one whole. I have never felt entirely comfortable with either dualistic opposition or views arguing for ultimate unity. Less Than Two can be thought of as hovering somewhere between the two. On the one hand, I have considered distinctions between traditional instruments and more recent machines, between the approaches of different performers to the same instrument and of differing instruments to the same musical aim, between the micro-structure of sounds them selves and the principles of formal structure that underlie my musical architecture. On the other hand, I have sought to minimize these incipient polarities, seeking richness with more than unity but less than duality.


About Aether:

Aether reflects the confounding diversity of attributes associated with its name. it is markedly heterogeneous at the outset, becoming whole by inference as the sections pass. Webster’s unabridged is measured, even a trifle wry: “the element formerly held to form the material of the heavenly spheres and bodies from the moon to the fixed stars”. Its elaborations continue indecisive but provocative.

– from the liner notes by Roger Reynolds