Program notes to Prosit
The substance that floats through Prosit! is a fine wine, and the opening of the bottle and the pouring of wine serves as a formula, albeit in a loose sense, for the development of the piece.
The three existing versions, Prosit!, Highlights from Prosit! and Prosit! explained, all employ exactly the same material, but in different degrees of condensation and in slightly differing order of presentation.
The idea of formula composition has influenced much of the methods in Prosit. A brief recording of the pouring of wine into a glass is used as the formula. Further analyses of this recording are used to control synthesis parameters in a program that has been used to generate much of the material. Apart from this, various features of the material are superimposed on each other, such as timbre through convolution; a pitch contour is imposed on sounds and passages of various durations; and in particular time proportions derived from the formula control the general unfolding of Prosit. Both Highlights from Prosit and Prosit explained depart from the scheme of the formula as they strive towards the greatest possible concentration, or essentialisation, of the substance in the wine glass.
Prosit! was realized at NoTAM (Norwegian Network for Technology, Acoustics and Music) 7 december 1998, the two shorter versions in january 1999.
Overview of the formula (0'18).
Overview of the whole piece (11'22).
Sound example: Prosit at 10 times original speed.
***
Highlights from Prosit! is available on the CD Sinus Seduction on Aurora, ACD 5018. Well, at least in theory.