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Surface forms (repeating)

Surface Forms (repeating) was commissioned by the ELISION ensemble and premiered at the 2009 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, conducted by Manuel Nawri. Further performances in 2010 were given by ELISION at Kings Place, London and Radio Bremen, Germany, where the work was recorded for CD and broadcast. The research underpinning this work considers how the production of fluttering, ephemeral surfaces can actively engage the listener in the passing of fleeting events. Successions of notes that operate at a speed and density beyond that which can be immediately apprehended are repeated over and over, allowing the listener to gradually build up an understanding of the composite elements of the textural surface. The research takes as its starting point a statement from the philosopher Hulme, who reminds us that repetition changes nothing in the object itself but does change something in the minds of those that perceive it. The piece therefore avoids a deliberate attempt at the manipulation of form through an imposed developmental structure, instead setting up a more implicit form of variation through which development may occur as an emergent quality of the work. The issues outlined above are discussed further in the peer-reviewed article Harrison, B. (2013) ‘Scanning the Temporal Surface: aspects of time, memory and repetition’, Divergence Press, Issue 1, 10.5920/divp.2013.15, as well as in the book chapter ‘Repetitions in Extended Time: Recursive Structures and Musical Temporality’, in Harrison, B. & Glover, R. (2013) Overcoming Form: reflections on immersive listening, Huddersfield University Press, which itself develops ideas first discussed in the conference paper Harrison, B., Glover, R. (2012) ‘Phenomenology and temporality in the composition of experimental minimal music’, Time Theories and Music conference, Ionian University, Corfu, 2012.