Output details

putting two and two together

This work for solo piano (first performed and recorded by Andrew Zolinsky), is one of a series of compositions that research and investigate predetermined constraints in material and process. Its seed motif is a sequence of four notes in bars 1 & 2 in the left hand, which are then repeated consecutively up a tone to form the twelve bar cantus firmus of the first section, underpinning a freely composed right hand melody. A second constraint is the requirement for the music to proceed in strict two parts throughout through an alternation of notes going to-and-fro in even and unchanging note values from one hand to the other: this becomes impossible to maintain towards the end due to the imposition of the final process constraint - that note values halve every two sections, superimposing new lines that fill the intervening space within the template of the previous two sections. Section 1 (bb.1–12) is therefore present within Section 3 (bb.25-36), which is itself present within Section 5 (bb.49 – 60), which is itself present within Section 7 (bb. 73 – 85), creating a nesting of four separate ‘lines’ in each hand comprising a web of counterpoint developing through the piece, while still maintaining the strict two-part texture. The alternate sections follow a similar pattern of development, but with the original cantus firmus inverted in the right hand, and the freely developing melody in the left. A final section resets the process back to the beginning. The work represents a development of the composer’s previous postminimal compositional approaches through the stricture of the superimposition of simultaneous voices across a grid of displaced note values.