Teruggi: the Shining Space

The Shining Space collects four works by Argentinean electro-acoustic composer Daniel Teruggi. When this CD came out he was director of the Ina-GRM in Paris. Does it mean his music remains stuck in the institutionalized musique concrète mold? Yes and no. These works, created between 1997 and 1999, follow acousmatic guidelines, but they sound fresh, exciting, and very little like something put together by old university teachers. Each piece develops its own distinctive atmosphere from a single kind of sound source. The five "Images Symphoniques" derive from snippets of orchestral music transformed and re-composed. They make an unsettling introduction. "Crystal Mirages" is a work for piano (the impressive Philip Mead) and a tape that is actually a second piano part. The pianist interacts with a ghost image of himself. Even though it sounds like it has been done before, the piece works very well, thanks to Teruggi's talent at creating movement within short time frames (something that applies to all the works included here, no segment ever going over five minutes). "Fugitives Voix" blends the voices of Brazilian singer Anna Maria Kieffer and French actor Jean Bollery. More academic, this one recalls some works by Francis Dhomont. The way the voices seem to trade places in the end (the singer narrating, the actor singing) makes it interesting to follow. Finally, the sounds heard in "The Shining Space" originate from an electric guitar. They are being thoroughly scrutinized in terms of time and space — this piece is the most ethereal of the set and deserves to be heard on good loudspeakers. This CD is one notch above what can be expected from an acousmatic album, not because of any novelties in the approach — Teruggi is simply a good composer, he can make listeners "see" what he sees. Recommended. ~ François Couture, Rovi