Fire EcologiesChristopher Stark & Unheard-of//Ensemble

Christopher Stark’s six part Fire Ecologies is a musical homage to the global environment as it faces a perilous future. Written for and performed by New York based Unheard-Of Ensemble, the piece received its premiere in a unique setting, performed on a dock in the Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn. Presenting Fire Ecologies in outdoor settings, and particularly in locations like the Gowanus that have critical needs with respect to cleanup of toxic materials and pollution, underscores the work’s intent to draw attention to the fragility of our natural landscapes and promote preservation efforts.

Stark was first inspired to write the work after traveling the American West in the summer of 2020 and observing several wildfires ravaging the landscape of California, Montana, Oregon, and Colorado. The influence of nature had been a key component of Stark’s work previously, but the trip catalyzed his sense of urgency to bring climate related topics to the fore in his work. Included in the electronic sounds that accompany Unheard-Of’s performance are field recordings from the California wildfires and other locations on his travels. Stark’s expansive score is matched to the vast subject matter; the large scale structural movement of the work happens on a stretched time scale, as the trajectory of climate transformation unfolds in slow motion in human terms, albeit alarmingly fast in light of geological and biological trajectories.

The opening movement, or “scene”, Terra incognita opens with waves of white noise that fill the stereo field with immersive sound. The ensemble emerges with halos of harmony, as individual voices swell in and out of the texture in their respective registers. Subtle pitch bends lend the texture an otherworldly character. As the movement evolves, activated elements such as trills and oscillations animate the sonic mix. The enveloping white noise returns to close the movement, eventually darting around the stereo field punctuated by electronic glitches just before the track’s end.

Jeux d’eau places Unheard-Of in a more conventional ensemble role as Stark looks back to Maurice Ravel. The piano plays moto perpetuo arpeggiated figures in dialogue with a pointillistic electronic part. A long sustained melody is supported by swift toggling figures in the clarinet and hairpin gestures in the cello and violin. A forceful groove of repeated unison attacks emerges, with polyrhythms intertwined into the rhythmic fabric before the orchestration gradually thins out to delicate electronics in a free coda that elides into Scene 3.

Louange à l'éternité de Mère Nature hearkens to the ethereal slow movements of Messiaen’s Quatour pour le fin du temps, reveling in temporal expansion and poignant melodic lines in the cello over pacific, long harmonic pads. At spaced out intervals, the ensemble adds enlivening figuration as a supportive element, and the scene closes with a windswept field recording.

Infernal dance opens with an ominous ticking clock before the ensemble enters with brusque, jagged unison figures. The electronics enter with a syncopated ostinato as the instruments weave an elastic line of brisk fills and pointed motives that reinforce the groove. The driving rhythm breaks for a series of disembodied gong sounds and mournful sighs in the strings before the insistent pulse from the opening returns with increasingly virtuosic, mechanistic variations.

At the opening of Dypt inne i barskogen, we hear the luminescent chorus of crickets before the clarinet enters with a clarion call echoing through the soundscape. The strings play modulated sustains with slight microtonal pitch bends as in Scene 1, painting a constantly shifting, refracted image. Grieg’s Peer Gynt is the source of inspiration for this wooded, forest scene.

Marche funèbre closes the work (a nod to Berlioz?), opening with the clarinet outlining an harmonic progression and the strings contributing a simple, folkloric melody. The electronics churn away in the background with a fluttering effect that comes closer and closer to the fore. When the piano joins, it integrates the melody into swooping arpeggio figuration. Scene 6 closes the work with an extended passage of ambient field recorded sounds in the electronic part, allowing the natural environment to have the final word.

- Dan Lippel

Recorded at Big Orange Sheep, Brooklyn
Engineered by Chris Benham
Mixed by Christopher Stark
Mastered by Guy Davie at Electric Mastering, London
Cover photo by Christopher Stark
Graphic Design by Sarah Downen