Gravitation
Abstract / Program Notes
This is an open-instrumentation work written in graphic notation. Each music gesture is specific in regards to timing, dynamics, and registers of the instruments. Although the timings are exact, there is no beat or standard rhythmic notation. Although the various registers are precise from low to high, the pitches are not, as they are only relative to each instrument. Thus, each performance will differ based on which instruments are used. The musical backgrounds of the individual performers naturally influence the interpretation. Although the gestures heard in each performance of the work are consistent, each performance sounds vastly different. The five- to eight-member ensemble is divided into two groups. Originally written for one gathered at the center of the stage and the other beginning in the corners of the performance space, this COVID-19-era revision has each performer socially distanced (recorded separately, but carefully placed in the stereo image to retain the original intention). For the second movement, “Attraction,” the outside group is attracted to the center group, and has moved closer. The sounds of wood hitting wood, metal hitting metal, and wood hitting metal can be found objects or an extension of the instrument. In the third movement, “Gravitation,” the musicians have “gravitated” to one another and have formed one group. References to earlier movements represent how the groups were once separate, but now one. Listen for the three-voice fugue at 2:00 to 2:20 in this final movement: fugue subject, answer, then another answer, but in inversion and diminution.
Gravitation
This is an open-instrumentation work written in graphic notation. Each music gesture is specific in regards to timing, dynamics, and registers of the instruments. Although the timings are exact, there is no beat or standard rhythmic notation. Although the various registers are precise from low to high, the pitches are not, as they are only relative to each instrument. Thus, each performance will differ based on which instruments are used. The musical backgrounds of the individual performers naturally influence the interpretation. Although the gestures heard in each performance of the work are consistent, each performance sounds vastly different. The five- to eight-member ensemble is divided into two groups. Originally written for one gathered at the center of the stage and the other beginning in the corners of the performance space, this COVID-19-era revision has each performer socially distanced (recorded separately, but carefully placed in the stereo image to retain the original intention). For the second movement, “Attraction,” the outside group is attracted to the center group, and has moved closer. The sounds of wood hitting wood, metal hitting metal, and wood hitting metal can be found objects or an extension of the instrument. In the third movement, “Gravitation,” the musicians have “gravitated” to one another and have formed one group. References to earlier movements represent how the groups were once separate, but now one. Listen for the three-voice fugue at 2:00 to 2:20 in this final movement: fugue subject, answer, then another answer, but in inversion and diminution.