Stephan Mathieu - Radiance

Radiance I
Alap for Steel Needle, Record and Theorbe
A dedication to early music pioneer and instrument maker Arnold Dolmetsch, taking inspiration from his 1929 recording of Thomas Weelkes' "Fantasy for a Chest of Six Viols" and the music of Zia Mohiuddin Dagar

Radiance II
Music for The Answer
Original score by France Jobin and Stephan Mathieu for Cedrick Eymenier’s film "The Answer"

Radiance III
Black Square for Robert Fludd
For mechanical-acoustic gramophones, 78 rpm records and equalizer

Radiance IV
A Rainbow of Moonlight
Dedicated to the work of Hieronymus Bosch

Radiance V
For Franz Wright
Recorded at Fønix Kristiansand, Officine Grandi Riparazioni Turin and Sala Santa Cecilia Rome in 2013, edited at Studio Schwebung during Summer 2016 and Spring 2018
The titles are a line from "Kindertotenwald" by Franz Wright, used with kind permission from Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC

Radiance VI
Kepler
An entropic system for piano and loudspeakers imitating the planets orbiting the Sun
Recorded at Galerie Martin Wikström, Bad Godesberg

Radiance VII
Process
A consort of viols transferred to four double sided 78rpm acetates for playback with four mechanical-acoustic gramophones
Process is dedicated to Petar Milat who commissioned the piece in 2008 for the 25th Zagreb Music Biennale

Radiance VIII
To Have Elements Exist in Space
An interpretation of Earle Brown’s seminal graphic score "December 1952", commissioned by the Earle Brown Music Foundation, New York in celebration of the composer's 90th Birthday

Radiance IX
Feldman
An entropic system for percussion, strings and loudspeakers, commissioned by the Earle Brown Music Foundation, New York in celebration of Morton Feldman's 90th Birthday

Radiance X
Her Dark Gaze Drowns in Light
A re-narration of Carl Theodor Dreyer’s 1932 film "Vampyr"

Radiance XI
Music with Magnetic Strings
Version II recorded at CosmoCaixa, New Sience Museum, Barcelona on June 16, 2010
Version I recorded at Studio Entschleunigung, Schafbrücke on August 5, 2007
"Music with Magnetic Strings" is dedicated to Alvin Lucier

Radiance XII
Pacific
Radiance XII was performed on the Farfisa Professional piano recorded through a contact-miked 16" gong. While most of the Radiance pieces were shaped by the spaces in which they were recorded, the coda to the series reflects the basic mechanism of hearing: sound waves hitting the ear drum being converted to structure-borne vibrations, transmitted through bones in the middle ear.

On wallets and insert:
Design by Caro Mikalef for Cabina

Schwebung 2018 | www.schwebung.com

From the liner notes, June 2018:
Radiance was recorded between 2004–2017, I think of each part as one piece in a long album.

Incidental information:
Radiance is a subscription series available as 12CD box and 12 digital editions, released from June, 2016–October, 2017 in various formats via the label's Bandcamp page. The 12CD box is issued in a signed and numbered, limited edition of 150 copies (THIS) and in an unsigned, unnumbered edition of 130 including 30 artist copies.

12 CDs, PANTONE printed
Gatefold CD wallets, PANTONE printed
custom made slipcase, PANTONE printed
a 42*50 cm fold-out print
an 8.5*5.5 cm card, 150 individual copies with printed numbering, signed