16
minutes
chamber
ensemble (14 performers)
I. ...like grains of sand
II. Elsewhere is a negative mirror
...an emblem among emblems.
...la sabbia, ancora.
Emblems was composed, in part, as a response to the writings of Italo Calvino, which I have found to be provocative and creatively nurturing. In particular, his novel Invisible Cities (Le città invisibili) interested me both by its use of images to describe the charm of possibility and in the way those images are channeled through a unique, and beautiful, formal architecture.
My work uses quotations from Invisible Cities as well as from Calvino’s book of essays, Collezione di sabbia, as points of departure for the sonic explorations that follow. In addition to the formal sections listed above, each of the four mini-ensembles (ordered from left to right on the stage, not in order of appearance) is accompanied by the following texts: 1. "There is no language without deceit." 2. "...the power of emblems..." 3. "Futures not achieved are only branches of the past..." 4. "...only departures, not returns." These texts are intended to characterize the musical activity for the entire piece, but in an admittedly idiosyncratic manner that is decidedly non-programmatic in the Romantic sense. Rather, Emblems is a fantasy, of sorts, on a theme by Calvino filtered through my own poetic predilections.
My work of this period is marked by a preoccupation with a process in which a small number of highly-differentiated — even contradictory — materials are able to develop and grow throughout the course of the piece by steadily intensifying the focus on each individual. In the case of Emblems, each mini-ensemble is distinguished by its unique timbric identity, spatial location, and gestural palette. These mini-ensembles alternate quite rapidly, with tutti soundings of the entire ensemble acting as intermediary states. As the piece progresses, however, the alternation between mini-ensembles slows; thus allowing each to occupy its own space without fear of immediate interruption. At the same time, as each individual's voice is extended and elaborated the common features between them begin to emerge. Or is it rather the case that as the piece progresses the previously differentiated individuals dissolve together? The emblems that finally appear at the end of the work do so only briefly, slipping "…like grains of sand…" through our fingertips. Emblems accommodates a broad range of interpretations, I believe, which begins to capture the fluid, even amorphous quality of Calvino’s writings.
Listen
to excerpts:
The first movement proceeds though a series of phrases
where mini-ensembles sound alone followed by "responses" by
the complete ensemble.
The tendency for the ensemble treatment to emphasize heterogeneous
characteristics is transformed gradually in the second movement, eventually
accommodating an "orchestral" sound world to emerge.
