Sin Ninguna Imperfección (1991)
For one to eight instruments and stereo fixed media
Duration: 13′20″ | Fixed-media part: 13′15″
Completed December 1, 1991
Later developed as a 31-minute, eight-channel sound installation
Sin Ninguna Imperfección — LISTEN version (2017) | 4′36″ excerpt
In-situ binaural recording of the eight-channel installation at 924 Projects, Miami Beach.
The Work
One Sunday afternoon in El Portal, I was watching the calm surface of the Little River while listening to lawn mowers nearby. A cloud of freshly cut grass floated slowly downstream. Its outer limits kept changing as it approached—somewhat like the map of Venezuela each time it has been revised.
The cloud was composed of small pieces of grass, cut to similar lengths and displaying different shades of green and brown. Each piece moved forward at its own pace, approaching and separating from the others without colliding. Other kinds of activity continued beneath the surface of the river. Sunlight changed as clouds crossed the sky, sometimes concealing and sometimes revealing these different levels of motion.
A great deal of my music has to do with experiences like this one.
The instrumental score for Sin Ninguna Imperfección grew from that observation. Its eight parts unfold through a matrix divided into ten-second cells. Each cell may contain a pitch class and a number, or a dot indicating silence. The pitch may be played in any octave. The number specifies how many evenly spaced repetitions must occur within the cell.
The pacing remains open. A performer may play all the notes quickly and leave the remainder of the cell silent, distribute them evenly across its ten seconds, or choose another pacing. Pitch, octave, articulation, dynamics, timbre and instrumental technique remain largely open, although the score asks that dynamics never rise above mp. A pitch may also be replaced by silence.
The number of performers may vary from one to eight. Each musician follows an independent part, using a stopwatch, while the stereo fixed-media composition proceeds independently. The instruments are positioned as far apart as possible so that each remains distinct. Amplified instruments may use separate amplification.
Original score: Sin Ninguna Imperfección (1991) — PDF
The Portrait
The fixed-media part comes from Portrait: Ricardo Dal Farra—also titled Retrato: Ricardo Dal Farra—an electronic sound portrait I composed earlier in 1991 at the request of my Argentine colleague.
During Ricardo’s visit to Miami for Subtropics 3, we staged and recorded a conversation. From one complete sentence, I extracted and composed the sounds that became the portrait:
“Porque la costa no es algo que vaya derechito, derechito, derechito, sin ninguna imperfección.”
“Because the coast is not something that goes straight, straight, straight, without any imperfection.”
Ricardo’s instrument is electronics. The portrait was intended either to function as the background for one of his performances or, preferably, to be routed through his equipment and transformed freely. Like my other sound portraits, it was meant to be performed in that form only by its subject. Ricardo later performed it in Buenos Aires by processing the fixed composition through his modular synthesizers.
The portrait was strong enough to suggest another possibility: placing the recorded composition, unchanged, within a chamber-music situation. Sin Ninguna Imperfección grew from that possibility. The instrumental score and the portrait proceed against the same running stopwatch but remain independent layers.
Only while revisiting the work many years later did I notice an unplanned correspondence between Ricardo’s sentence and the observation that shaped the instrumental score. His coastline refuses to proceed in a perfectly straight line; the floating grass continually changes the outline of its collective form. The relationship was not designed. It emerged from bringing the two compositions together.
From Performance to Installation
In September 1994, percussionist Jan Williams and I recorded all eight instrumental parts separately on the stage of the concert hall at SUNY Buffalo. Jan performed six percussion parts and I performed two piano parts.
These recordings later allowed Sin Ninguna Imperfección to move from concert performance into spatial installation. For the installation version, I expanded the instrumental material, retained Ricardo’s voice portrait and added articulated electronic tones with occasional frequency sweeps. The resulting composition lasts approximately 31 minutes.
The materials were distributed across eight channels. Individual instruments occupied different physical or virtual positions, preserving the score’s sense of independent activity. Some remained stationary while others moved slightly and slowly toward another location.
Each installation became one possible realization of the piece, including decisions about where Ricardo’s portrait entered and where it ended. The emphasis was not on mapping architectural resonances, but on the spatial perception of distance, separation and gradual movement.
The 2013 version was adapted to the extended linear architecture of Listening Gallery. The 2017 and 2018 versions used eight-channel listening-room configurations.
Performance History
April 8, 1992 — World premiere
Composer’s Forum: New Music/New Composers
Myra Melford, piano; Michelle Kenney, cello; Jeffrey Schanzer, guitar
Roulette, New York City
May 22, 1993
Subtropics 5: Residency Outreach Project Concert
Gustavo Matamoros and Armando Rodriguez, guitars
Ground Level, Miami Beach
December 6, 1993
For Sun Ra
New World Music Ensemble
Florida State University, Tallahassee
February 25, 1994
Outpost Experimental Music Series
Tom Guralnick, reeds; Gustavo Matamoros, sampler
Outpost Performance Space, Albuquerque
February 26, 1994
Explorations in Music Series
Tom Guralnick, reeds; Gustavo Matamoros, sampler
Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Fe
April 21, 1994
Subtropics 6 Festival
Wolfson Auditorium, Miami
September 2, 1994
Sound Portraits and The Syntax Violations
Jan Williams, percussion; Gustavo Matamoros, piano
Music Gallery, Toronto
September 9, 1994
Sound Portraits and The Syntax Violations
Jan Williams, percussion; Gustavo Matamoros, piano
Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo
September 15, 1995
SHIM and Guests: An Evening of Experimental Music
David Irwin, clarinet; Keith Hedger, trumpet; Philip Gelb, shakuhachi; David Pate, reeds; David Manson, trombone; Gustavo Matamoros, found objects
Salvador Dalí Museum, St. Petersburg, Florida
December 9, 1996
Gustavo Matamoros: In A Fishtank
Jan Williams, percussion; Fred Lonberg-Holm, cello; Thomas Buckner, baritone; Gustavo Matamoros, piano; Anthony de Mare, piano; Davey Williams, electric guitar
Interpretations Series, Merkin Hall, New York City
For In A Fishtank, six specially prepared parts placed Sin Ninguna Imperfección between minutes 36:00 and 49:30 of the larger overlapping concert composition.
Six-part realization for In A Fishtank (1996) — PDF
from In A Fishtank
Interpretations Series, Merkin Hall, New York City
Installation History
January 16–March 31, 2013
Subtropics 22 Festival
Public sound installation adapted to Listening Gallery
Lincoln Road, Miami Beach
July 5–September 3, 2017
Subtropics 24 Festival: LISTEN
Eight-channel sound installation
924 Projects, ArtCenter/South Florida, Miami Beach
November 3–December 15, 2018
Audiotheque 2.0
Eight-channel sound installation using eight K&H speakers positioned around the audience at ear level
Audiotheque, Miami Beach
CREDITS
Composition, fixed-media realization and spatial adaptations: Gustavo Matamoros
Voice and portrait subject: Ricardo Dal Farra
1994 instrumental recordings: Jan Williams, six percussion parts; Gustavo Matamoros, two piano parts
LISTEN exhibition design: Gustavo Matamoros and Freddy Jouwayed
LISTEN installation photograph: Luis Olazabal
2013 Listening Gallery graphic and featured image: Gustavo Matamoros, using a public-domain aerial photograph