In Ignorance

A strug­gle to inflate a few chords; a pianist fail­ing to dance; an absence that isn’t a vacuum.

A strug­gle to inflate a few chords; a pianist fail­ing to dance; an absence that isn’t a vacuum.

In Igno­rance began as a pho­to: An old­er man walk­ing alone through one of the sev­er­al mar­gin­al­ly pros­per­ous malls in Buf­fa­lo, New York. Har­monies through­out the piece are drawn from this image, the hue, sat­u­ra­tion, and bright­ness of var­i­ous col­ors pro­ject­ed into pitch space. The piece wan­ders across the image like one’s eye might. But this notion is com­pli­cat­ed by sev­er­al more essen­tial­ly musi­cal con­cerns: Only some of the image’s many shapes are cho­sen to be heard, arranged into a pro­gres­sion that seeks in vain glacial­ly to recon­struct a moment from Brahms’ Ger­man Requiem. And, in a kind of nascent con­cer­to, the piano strug­gles to pro­pose a way in which it can con­tribute to an oth­er­wise through­ly micro­ton­al music.

Details

For Jean-Philippe Wurtz and Ensem­ble Lin­ea, with sup­port from the Robert and Car­ol Mor­ris Cen­ter for 21st Cen­tu­ry Music. Pre­miered April 2016 by Ensem­ble LIN­EA with Jean-Philippe Wurtz, con­duc­tor.

Year Completed

2016

Duration

10 minutes

Instrumentation

For ensemble and noise machine

More Info

In Igno­rance began as a pho­to: An old­er man walk­ing alone through one of the sev­er­al mar­gin­al­ly pros­per­ous malls in Buf­fa­lo, New York. Har­monies through­out the piece are drawn from this image, the hue, sat­u­ra­tion, and bright­ness of var­i­ous col­ors pro­ject­ed into pitch space. The piece wan­ders across the image like one’s eye might. But this notion is com­pli­cat­ed by sev­er­al more essen­tial­ly musi­cal con­cerns: Only some of the image’s many shapes are cho­sen to be heard, arranged into a pro­gres­sion that seeks in vain glacial­ly to recon­struct a moment from Brahms’ Ger­man Requiem. And, in a kind of nascent con­cer­to, the piano strug­gles to pro­pose a way in which it can con­tribute to an oth­er­wise through­ly micro­ton­al music.