Latin American Electroacoustic Music Collection

Rajmil Fischman, Barren Lands, 1997
(Peru)



Recording time: 10 min 10 s.

Other resources available:
- About Rajmil Fischman
- Compositions by Rajmil Fischman

About this composition:

Lands that are barren may have trees,
they may have water in abundance or be dry as deserts,
they may be desolate or densely populated,
they may be found everywhere…

What makes a land barren is not its statistics;
it is rather the effect it has on our spirit,
like the void instilled by a pale winter sun in a damp morning,
or by the thousands of heads and limbs of a grey 'concrete forest'.

In fact, barren lands may not be physical,
and yet, they are definitely real …


The structure of Barren Lands is modelled on the periodicity of surf, consisting of repeated series of waves of increasing size and power. When the most powerful wave is reached, the cycle begins again. In the case of Barren Lands, there is one cycle made of three waves which are preceded by an introduction and followed by an epilogue. Each wave begins with the thinnest of sounds, builds towards a climax and, finally, dissolves.

Barren Lands was composed using Composers' Desktop Project software and a SoundScape mixing and editing suite. Final equalisation was carried out on a Pro-Tools system. broadcast in Fronteras del Silencio, Radio of the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina; Electroacoustic Gallery by Latin American Composers, University of North Texas, USA; VII Brazilian Computer Music Symposium, Curitiba, Brazil, 19/7/00.

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