This work was inspired by an article about Endlings, animals that are the last of their species, and by a set of piano miniatures composed by Pierre Boulez in 1945.

In her award winning article entitled Endlings: On Love and Extinction, Harriet Riley explores some of the psychology of dealing with extinction. She suggests that the notion of extinction is too overwhelming for us to face and that we associate it with "fantasy," as "nothing but the epic scale of myth can capture the immensity of losing an entire species."

In one part of the article Riley describes her emotional response to a report in the Living Planet Index that "more than half of all creatures have died out in the last 40 years," as "a deep, primal pain - a disturbance in the force."

"To feel grief is to admit that we loved. And sometimes it's easier to pretend the lost thing didn't matter than to confront the fact that it's gone. That's why we call endlings such a fanciful name, because pretending that they never existed means that there's nothing to grieve. But any psychologist will tell you that you have to grieve to move on."

Boulez composed Douze Notations while he was studying with both Messiaen and Leibowitz  at the end of World War II. The pieces are free extrapolations of a 12 note row, with each movement lasting exactly 12 bars. The pieces represent Boulez's desire to leave the old world in the past and to embrace the new musical language of the post war era.

Initially I found his use of extreme limitation very interesting, but as I explored some approaches to 12-tone composition and serialism, I was unable to find the appropriate materials for my composition. However, I did use the thinking behind serialism to organise my resources. I divided the piano, and piano playing into segments: two hands; seven registers; a range of articulations from very short to very long and at least eight graduations of dynamics. To this I divided each octave into groups of consecutive notes and explored the permutations of each group melodically and rhythmically.



Ultimately, the greatest impact of the Boulez pieces was purely musical. They inspired me to explore time, duration and resonance in a freer way than I had previously.

Both movements explore time and resonance. The rests, or spaces between the notes, are at least as important as the composed notes. Small gestures are separated by unpredictable measures of time and one is left to ponder the resonance left behind by each gesture, whether it be a short, sharp articulation or a sustained one. In this way, through the musical gestures, the performer explores the acoustic properties of their performance space.
Quotes from Island 146, Island Magazine, Hobart Tasmania, 2016.

The Endlings I for piano

Joel Roberts 5