"Instruments are made by humans, for humans to play, and their relationship to us is so closely interconnected that we struggle to define what an instrument is without us. What would an instrument be without music? With no one to make them, no one to admire them and no one to play them, surely instruments are hollow of sound in our absence? But here, right here, in this quiet studio... we hear their voice. The noise they make without us, occurring beyond our control, existing beyond our intervention.

Vleugel consists of Cornford stood at a central sound desk, surrounded by two kettle drums and a piano with its delicate interior on display. From the sound desk leads a trail of cables and circuits which are in turn linked to microphones and four large amplifiers set in each corner of the studio. There is a mechanical vibrating device attached to a selection of the bass piano strings, which Cornford seems to manipulate. A scattering of tiny shells on the kettle drums skin can be seen only on approaching the drums after the performance, and from the perspective of the human eye, this is all that is visibly making the large impressive sound. The bass strings of the piano are amplified so loud they create entirely new resonances on the drums surface as the shells bounce and these noises are in turn picked up by the microphones and amplified back out in to the room. These three instruments create sounds that are repeating and building in momentum. Despite seeing all the elements on display; just how the musicality of the composition is created, whether by the technology, amplification or the small manipulative gestures Cornford makes on the sound desk, is still unknown.

Plugged in to the instruments interiors Cornford somehow taps into an alternative world in Vleugel, one where microphones inside grand pianos make the most engrossing and impassioned tones. Where kettle drums vibrate, as if they were responding to the strings of the piano. Vleugel is a sound-scape without humans, where objects have a life and a voice of their own and where they appear to be communicating on sound waves, vibrating and reverberating to each other. It is hard to get over the scale and power these instruments make, when amplified and ‘played’ by the artist. No hand touches any key of the piano, nor brush on the tight skin of either the two drums, but this composition is as profound, evocative and technical as any classic concerto.

Cornford plays the sound desk like a pianist. His black shirt and concentrated eye all affirming our notion of him as a musician, a composer and magician. We become accustomed to the noise he coax’s out of the striking black piano, through these new systems and devices. Yet the prominence of the instrument in this performance diminishes the significance of any person present or in operation of these objects. The concentrated efforts and clear technical experimentation that has been undertaken in order to hear these new and extraordinary sounds as they reverberate and on some level communicate, reverses our accepted dynamic of power in the relationship between object and creator. Here is seems that Cornford needs the instrument to be creative for this performance to occur, just as much as the instruments need Cornford."

Joanna Loveday (read full article)