Music Listening on Robert Dick’s Recording of Density 21.5 for Solo Flute (ISDN: 84743362) by Edgard Varèse

I. A performance – interpretation of
The act of performing is one of interpretation. Acting as a liaison between listener and composer, performers are interpreters engaging in musical communication by creating and imparting meaning through the act of performing the musical work. Robert Dick’s recording on his album, The Other Flute, reveals an insightful interpretation to Edgard Varèse’s Density 21.5.
Edgard Varèse is known as one of the quintessential Western musical futurists of his time. He introduced an original principal of organizing the materials and forms of sound. Rejecting both traditional melody and harmony, he combines pure sounds, creating music from texture, tone color(timbre) and rhythm. The originality of his work can be seen in all of his 12 completed compositions. In her dissertation, Anne Florence Park commented that “Varèse thought of sound as being an imaginary living matter which had different surfaces or planes that projected into space. Animat...