Anna Rubin

for fixed media and Baroque oboe, modern oboe, or violin

ca. 5'30"

Stolen Gold, for amplified baroque oboe (or modern oboe or violin), live electronics, and digital audio is a one-movement piece. The digital audio portion was created in the Csound synthesis program and uses three classes of sounds – glissandi varying in character from subtle to long and sweeping, clouds of pointillistic sounds, and drones. The oboe weaves sinuous and melismatic melodies around these events as well as emulating some of the synthesized glissandi. Amplification of the live instrument allows it to blend with the digital audio. The harmonic language of the piece is freely atonal and based on a variety of invented modes. The oboe/violin and the synthesized sound alternate in prominence, continually shifting in whether one or the other is more dominant. At other times they seem to meld, only to suddenly deviate. The title has a two-fold personal meaning – at the time of first learning Csound, a complex Unix-based application, I struggled to find an expressive outlet through the rigors of its program language. Achieving compelling sounds felt like a triumph of both will and wilyness, as if I had stolen the treasure from a heartless machine.