Caprice for solo violin, performed by Ari Streisfeld, June 2014

Caprice, for violin

"Animals moan and lurk behind my flatted notes; One note is just enough for something." -- Andy Costello

Ornamental Alphabets was written for Andy Costello, Weston Olencki, and Beth McDonald of the Morton Feldman Chamber Players, as part of a program of short works by young composers inspired by (or against) Feldman's music and legacy. 

This short work is a series of five panels, each of which is identical in length. The first four are very similar, but the fifth differs more substantially. It was inspired by F. Delmontte's Book of Ornamental Alphabets, Ancient and Mediæval, from the 8th-17th Centuries.  

Ornamental Alphabets [2015]

Composed for and premiered by Chamber Cartel

Program Notes:
Years ago, while taking an accompanying class in undergrad, two of my colleagues were working on the Brahms Violin Sonata No. 1, Op. 78. It is piece that continues to floor me. Of the many astonishingly beautiful moments throughout, the piano chords at the outset have always been of particular interest. Brahms takes simple triads and voices them perfectly—the register, the spacing of the notes, the way those chords provide a buoyant cushion over which the violin melody stretches out—all of these elements combine to create something sublime.

In a way, I’ve been trying to live within the world of those chords for some time now. Brahms’ chords serve a traditional role in harmonizing a melody, and yet, is the melody necessary? More simply put, can chords, these monolithic musical creatures, rome free?

//

Domination of Black is taken from a poem of the same title by Wallace Stevens. The notion of a singular color exerting “dominance” reminds me of a James Turrell exhibit I once attended. For one of Turrell’s pieces, I entered a room that seemed pitch black. My eyes, however, adjusted and I realized there was a light sculpture in the corner. The darkness, once absorbed, provided a focus that illuminated so much subtlety.  

//

Out of the window,
I saw how the planets gathered
Like the leaves themselves
Turning in the wind.
I saw how night came,
Came striding like the color of the heavy hemlocks
I felt afraid.
And I remembered the cry of the peacocks.

(closing stanza to Domination of Black by Wallace Stevens)

Domination Of Black

Pedro Alvarez 
Inherent Nodes (2009)
for soprano, alto, tenor, bass and contrabass guitars. 
Consort Guitarrístico de Chile. 
www.pedroalvarez.info

Inherent Nodes

Commissioned by Ensemble Apparat for their Science Fiction Double Feature. References include the Shrike from Dan Simmons' Hyperion Cantos and the collective consciousness of the Borg.

Performed by Ensemble Apparat on October 3, 2015 at the Akademie der Künst in Berlin. Radio broadcast rights held by deutschlandfunk.

Proxy

Live recording by Oerknal! new music ensemble.
Gregory Charette, conductor

Breather

Shield Your Eyes unreleased track

Performer:
Schuyler Tsuda

Plates I

live recording, first performance

Weston Olencki, trombone
Eric Wubbels, prepared piano

St. Peter's Church, Chelsea
New York, NY
June 10th, 2016



contraposition I. IMAGE

The two enharmonic madrigals found in "L'antica musica ridotta alla prattica moderna" (Rome 1555), played on a reconstruction of Vicentino's Archicembalo, built by Marco Tiella and Formentelli in 1974. Live performance by Johannes Keller. 

Ornamental Alphabets [2015]

Jacob Gotlib

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