Danish concert premiere performed by Robert Curgenven – Struer Tracks Festival, Struer kirke, Denmark, 23 August 2023 (A/B/C) – filmed by Jacob Erikson, Director Struer Tracks Festival and Sound Art Lab, DK.

Piece A & Piece B (from quadraphonic PA) & Piece C (live on Bruno Christensen & Sønner 16ft pipe organ).
Pieces A, B & C were developed through a commission by Richard Thomas Foundation(RTF) to compose 3 pipe organ pieces for MONOM Sound (Berlin) and Orgelpark (Amsterdam). The commission was supported by the Irish Arts Council’s Music Commission Award and APRA Art Music Fund.

Tuning and recording of A, B & C:
Piece A (recorded: 2021); tuning: Neidhardt Grosse Stadt; Studio Acusticum, Piteå, Norrbotten, Sweden - built by Woehl Orgelbau (2012)
Piece B (recorded: 2023); tuning: meantone quarter comma (tracker action); Norrfjärden Church, Norrbotten, Sweden - built by Grönlund, 1997, reconstruction of northern German MÜLLER organ in it's 1651 layout (tracker action)
Piece C - live - Bruno Christensen & Sønner 16ft pipe organ

Please listen with headphones or speakers (the piece isn't intended for laptop speakers).

Six pieces each in a diferent tuning system

Sound for bardovärldar comprises 6 parts, 5 of which can be heard here with 3 playing at any given time (fading in and out during the trailer).
Sound: Parts 1 & 2 recorded at Studio Acusticum (Piteå) on a pipe organ the size of Sydney Town Hall in Neidhardt Grosse Stadt tuning; Part 3 recorded on Norrfjärden Church's replica of a 17th Century German organ in meantone 1/4 comma; both Piteå & Norrfjärden organs are in the far north of Swedish Lapland. Part 4 is composed using individual pipe control; Part 6 is architectural roomtones & overtones.
Video: elements from the six 3channel films that accompany the six audio parts (video presented here in single channel for simplicity).
Filmed in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Belgium & Ireland 2020-2023
Filmed & edited by RC. Colour grading by Colm Walsh (Clap Media).

0.00-0.50 - St Fin Barre's Cathedral - performing Part 3 of Tailte Cré-Umha at pipe organ console
0.50-2.18 - World premiere for Cork Midsummer Fest (20/06/2018), Part 1 extract + light show
2.19-4.53 - Sydney Town Hall - Australian premiere for Sydney Festival (21/01/2020) - Part 2 extract + light show - sold out audience (300 lying downstairs, 300 seated upstairs) - pipe organ is 70metres from camera, organ is 20metres high by 30metres wide

Tailte cré-umha ('toll-cha cray oo-va'- Bronze Lands in Irish) is a piece for pipe organ & soundsystem developed during two months exclusive after-hours access to the largest pipe organ in Ireland, in St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, along with a range of turn-of-the-century unmodernised pipe organs across Cork and Cornwall. The world premiere was at St Fin Barre's Cathedral for Cork Midsummer Festival on 20 & 21 June 2018. The Australian premiere was at Sydney Festival in January 2020 on the 64ft Sydney Town Hall grand pipe organ.

In the piece the audience effectively hears two pipe organs at once in different tunings to produce a wholly new work - the two halves of the piece sound together in the Cathedral for a physical and architectural experience. A live part is played on the standard tuning of the Cathedral pipe organ. This works with & against the custom-tunings of the older tracker-action pipe organ recordings made in Cornwall & Ireland - heard through the soundsystem. The piece is complimented by a custom lighting show (programmed by Curgenven & done wirelessly to 20 lights through Cathedral in Cork).

This extract from "Ressuscitant de l'étreinte de la Sirène" is the first excerpt from Robert Curgenven's solo album "SIRÈNE - Selected Pipe Organ Works 1983-2014" on transparent vinyl