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Astrorum Conscius

from Hemlock Stone by Richard Orton

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Astrorum Conscius (1986) constituted Orton’s first foray into computer-aided composition. A frustrated Orton expressed dismay that, in the late 1970s, composers were ‘banned by the scientists’ from using the University of York’s DEC-10 mainframe computer; ‘running Music-10 was’, he lamented, ‘too demanding of computer-time, and music too frivolous to compete with scientific calculations’. As York and Durham entered into healthy competition to become the first university to institute studio computing, Orton secured for his department a second-hand PDP-11/23 16-bit minicomputer from the campus Medical Centre, with engineer Dave Malham installing Music11, the software sound synthesis programme developed by Barry Vercoe at the MIT Experimental Music Studio which later provided the raw materials for C-Sound.

At the time, Orton was, as part of a course on the principles of musical analysis, also exploring the use of isorhythm - the complex interplay of rhythmic and melodic sequences - by English late mediaeval era and early Renaissance composer John Dunstable, as a structuring device. Intrigued by Dunstable’s ‘multi-faceted interest in all principles of the quadrivium - arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music’, Astrorum Conscius is, to some degree, a reflection of this synthesis; the data heard driving the sine waves at the opening of the piece are derived from star charts, for example, while much of the subsequent musical material characterising the piece is adapted from Dunstable’s use of proportional ratio in order to create a sense of propulsive movement and subtle acceleration in the isorhythmic motets.

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from Hemlock Stone, released March 24, 2023

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Richard Orton Loughborough, UK

As a composer, performer, educator, programmer, and author, the contribution of Richard Orton (1940–2013) to the development of electroacoustic tape and computer music in the UK cannot be overstated.

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