Gz - A Vuza Canon for tenor recorder and shakuhachi (2017) by Yoshiaki Onishi

Tosiya Suzuki, recorder
Tadashi Tajima, shakuhachi

March 25, 2017
Yodobashi Church, Tokyo, Japan
Recorded live and mastered by Yoshiaki Onishi

Gz is an abbreviation of Gestaltzerfall, or “shape decomposition,” a psychological phenomenon where one experiences a temporary loss of the ability to recognize certain letters, particularly often experienced in Japanese Kanjis, or Chinese characters. The elements of loss, uncertainty, and doubt are the underlying motivations for composing this work.

Named after Rumanian mathematician Dan Tudor Vuza who researched it extensively, a Vuza canon is a rhythmic, tiling canon with some peculiar musical properties. Even at the maximal density of the canon where all the voices are playing, the overall perception is a continuous flow of the basic pulse unit (in this piece, it is an eighth-note). Furthermore, at that moment, each “pulsation” is enunciated by only one voice. In other words, when one voice is enunciating, the other voices are absent. The end result is something similar to a hocket.

While this piece does start as a 12-part Vuza canon compressed into two voices, its canonic structure becomes distorted little by little, and toward the end of the work, all dissolves into layers of breath sounds.

Commissioned by Tosiya Suzuki, Gz is dedicated to Tosiya Suzuki, Tadashi Tajima who premièred this work, and to Fabien Lévy, who introduced me to the fascinating world of the Vuza canons.