Robert Rich - Gaudi

Robert Rich's album that was inspired by the life and work of Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi.

For Robert Rich, the life and work of Spanish architect Antonio Gaudi served as a touchstone and inspiration in the lengthy process of creating this music.  His work embodied an awareness of both physical and metaphysical perceptions. For harmony - that is to say equilibrium - contrast is necessary: light and shade, continuity and discontinuity, convexity and concavity. 

Antonio Gaudi - Even though his work has been internationally acclaimed since the 1930's, I suspect that the name of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudi will be new to many of you. A quick glance at the pungent sculptural form of one of the towers of his Church of the Sagrada Familia [reproduced on the inlay card of the CD] should make it clear that Senor Gaudi was an artist of extraordinary sculptural inventiveness.

Less obvious is the profound and rigorous play of scientific structural, geometrical, and mathematical principles hiding under the fascinating surfaces of his work. Rainer Zerbt's 1985 book on Gaudi (from which the cover graphics were derived) is a wonderful introduction, balancing biographical and historical detail with the splendid photographs of Francois Rene Roland.

For ROBERT RICH, the life and work of Gaudi served as a touchstone and inspiration in the lengthy process of creating this music. "While working on the album," he says, "I often used Gaudi as a model. His work embodied an awareness of both physical and metaphysical perceptions, plus the quality of organic growth - very rare in an architect. He combined mathematical underpinnings with the ability to improvise, just as my music has both compositional and improvisatory elements."

For Rich, Gaudi represents a considerable step forward in the direction of integration and balance. The music, he says "deals with the tension and interplay between the physical and the metaphysical, the sensual and the mystical, the material and the abstract. These concerns have been shared by the architects of sacred structures throughout the world. A balanced union of light and shadow, power and subtlety, symmetry and flowing form, can trigger emotions which provide a glimpse of the sublime."

Credits

Robert Rich analog and digital synthesizers, samplers, lap steel guitar;
bamboo and ceramic flutes, dumbec, Udu and talking drum,
Waterphone, glurp
Pranesh Khan tabla on Tracery
Produced by Robert Rich. All music composed by Robert Rich, © 1991,
BMI. Recorded and mixed to digital 1990-91 at Soundscape Studio,
Mountain View, CA. Digital assembly and mastering at Hearts of
Space Studio, San Francisco by Stephen Hill. 1630 transfer, Paul
Stubblebine, Rocket Lab, San Francisco. Graphic design and production
by Stephen Hill. Film and scans by Star Graphics, Foster City, CA.
Architectural photos by François René Roland, and drawings from
'Antoni Gaudí' by Rainer Zerbst, Taschen (Cologne), 1988. Dedicated
to Antoni Gaudí, 1852-1926.

2-HOS-11028