Utterance

A 2-movement piece for solo piano. Performed by Edward Cohen. Movement 1: Deserted Roads, Movement 2: Remote Outpost.

Exile

Collapse by Greg Pfeiffer. Performed by Danielle Kuntz, harp.

Collapse (solo harp)

For string quartet. Composed by Greg Pfeiffer. Premiere performance by the RUSQUARTET with Xenia Gamaris, violin: Anna Yachishina, violin; Ksenia Zhuleva, viola; and Peter Karetnikov, cello.  Produced by Virtual Concert Halls and Vox Novus for the Composer's Voice concert series.  Performed in Moscow, Russia on Feb. 3, 2022.  

Written in 2015. It focuses on harmonies alternating from one 12 note equal-tempered tuning to another 12 note equal-tempered tuning a quarter-tone away. The chords are therefore "in tune" with themselves at any given moment, but subsequent chords shift into the other tuning.  The aesthetic effect of all this is somewhat peculiar in that on one hand it feels familiar locally but the harmonic progression seems detached and unresolvable. The title attempts to relate this sonic experience with something visually analogous.

Special thanks to the RUSQUARTET for their hard work. This piece is fiendishly difficult due to the tuning and they pull it off with style and skill. 

Thanks also to Robert Voisey, Executive Director of Vox Novus for all his efforts in making this performance happen and Virtual Concert Halls for making this performance possible.

https://www.rusquartet.com/

http://www.voxnovus.com/composersvoice/

RUSQUARTET

Vox Novus 

Virtual Concert Halls

Glare (for String Quartet)

The intro music to the greatest comedy game show since The Deer Hunter.

The Hamburger Show - Intro

If I were asked to write a score for an extremely violent samurai movie this would be my sample treatment.   Image is a painting by Utagawa Kuniyoshi circa 1843.  Written in Finale using Kontakt 5 samples.  Just composed for the fun of it.

Samurai Death Machine

Performed by Samuel Stokes on xylophone. 

The title is a fairly obscure line from the 1988 movie Die Hard.  In the scene, the main antagonist, Hans Gruber (portrayed by Alan Rickman), is making demands for the release of political prisoners supposedly in exchange for the hostages he is holding.  But this ruse is simply to delay the police while his entourage is breaking into the building’s safe. It is a funny moment because even his associate doesn’t know the ‘Asian Dawn.’  Hans tells him he read about them in Time magazine. 

Since the piece is obviously atonal, specific gestures or motifs are used instead to create a sense of cohesion. Further techniques are employed, such as the use of different mallets, dynamic changes, and various articulations, to generate novel contrasts and juxtapose different musical characteristics.

The pitches of the piece were derived from two interval sets: [minor 2nd, Major 3rd, minor 2nd, tri-tone, Perfect 4th] and [minor 2nd, minor 3rd, minor 2nd, Major 2nd, tri-tone, Perfect 4th]. The first set was approached systematically, in that the order of the changes in interval direction were approached sequentially.  To illustrate (using zeros and ones to represent ascending and descending) – 0000, 1000, 0100, 0010, 0001, 1100, etc.  The second set was approached more freely and the order in which the interval direction changes were chosen was premeditated so as to produce the pitches and patterns most pleasing to me aesthetically.


The Nine Members Of The Asian Dawn

This is just one of many outcomes possible from this patch in Pure Data. 

Sifter/Drifter (example of Pure Data output)

Here's an additional sample to give an idea of the similarities and differences between one "performance" and the next

Greg Pfeiffer

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