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Song of the Nahuatl. 1977.

Dur. 17:08.

Stereo audio composition

  • 1979 World premiere of 8 channel version.

  • 1979 Recorded on Orion Records.

  • 1980. Newer version Recorded on Folkways FTS 33450 and still available on Folkways/Smithsonian.

  • 1997. Recorded in revised and greatly enhanced version 1997 on CRI CD 764, available on New World/CRI.


  • 2006. Slightly updated version recorded on EM Records in Japan as EM 1060CD with excerpts from the visual score made by Gary Pyle in a 24 page booklet.  This score, along with this latest version, is the one featured in the YouTube video here.

 

This work was inspired by ancient Nahuatl (Central American native) poetry, to be further explored in subsequent works (see below). It is contemplative, occasionally rising to climaxes.   What is now one of the seminal stereo audio creations of Barton McLean originally started out as an 8 channel work premiered at the Univ. of Florida, Coral Gables, in 1979.  The 8 and 4-channel versions no longer exist. It was begun in the IUSB Studio in South Bend, Indiana, and finished at McLean's Electronic Music Center at the Univ of Texas, Austin, using Moog, Arp, Electrocomp, and Kincaid synthesizers along with tape manipulation and external reverb. The haunting string chords were made with eight tape loops recorded separately and then mixed together. The work has had more versions and resurrections than most of McLean's compositions.

Song of the Nahuatl © & ℗ 2006 Barton McLean


 

Song of the Nahuatl with Gary Pyle's graphic realization of the music. Latest version (2006). Follow along.

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