Malcolm Goldstein, violin
Marc Sabat, viola

In the piece “3 Chorales for Harry Partch”, my music explores Partch’s concept of “utonality”, which constructs the minor triad as an inverted mirror-image of the major triad. Since the major triad is derived from the harmonic series, i.e. 4-5-6, and may be extended upward by taking additional overtones, i.e. 4-5-6-7-9-11, Partch suggests a parallel notion for the construction of the minor triad, by taking intervals from a subharmonic series. There is an inherent paradox in this construction, since the overtone chords “fit” into a fundamental (1) and form a consonant blend, whereas the undertone chords tend to produce much more complex-sounding (dissonant) structures. In my composition, a single “utonal” chord is gradually constructed, pitch-by-pitch, over three phrases. The undertones appear in the following sequence:    

(1) 12 (D) - 8 (A) - 9 (G)      
(2) 12 - 10 - 8 - 11    
(3) 8 - 11 - 12 - 14 - 10 - 9

3 Chorales for Harry Partch (1993)

live performance by the Sonar-Quartett Berlin 11.April 2010 Köln
Susanne Zapf & Kirsten Harms (violins)
Nikolaus Schlierf (viola)
Cosima Gerhardt (cello)

Beautiful city (1994)
for string quartet in a scordatura tuning
 
This piece was written and premiered in Toronto for a workshop and performance of experimental music by the ensemble “Critical Band” with guest composer/violinist Malcolm Goldstein. The texture of the slowly-evolving sound was inspired (in part) by working with Malcolm and by his style of improvisation. I had also been thinking about a 1960s article by Steve Reich, “Slow-Motion Sound”, in which he envisions the utopian possibility of microscopically examining every possible detail of a sound expanded in time.
 
At the time, I had recently encountered the theoretical ideas of Harry Partch, expressed in his book “Genesis of a Music” (1949). Partch recasts the conventional understanding of “harmony” and “tonality” in terms of Just Intonation, proposing an expanded understanding of musical intervals, tone systems, consonance and dissonance. His system is based on ratios of natural numbers, primarily ratios built from the first 5 prime numbers: 2, 3, 5, 7, and 11. I was already then convinced that Partch’s conceptualization was sound, radical and of crucial importance to any future evolution of musical harmony.
 
The piece “Beautiful city” is a slowly moving chorale which explores harmonies based on the “neutral” third produced between the 9th and 11th partials of a harmonic series.

Beautiful City (1994)

live peformance by ARRAYMUSIC: Michael J. Baker and John Thompson

For Michael Baker 
(Composition for High Trumpet and Bass Drum, 1996)

ARRAYMUSIC 25th anniversary miniature


Composition for trumpet and bass drum was composed in Toronto in November 1996 after a suggestion by Stephen Parkinson. It is dedicated to the memory of Michael J. Baker, composer, conductor, and long-time artistic director of the ARRAYMUSIC ensemble. Michael performed the trumpet part in the premiere performance.

Tempo remains constant and very slow throughout. Both instruments play on the threshold of inaudibility. Trumpet pitch is as high as possible (at least C). Use whisper mute and/or any other technique to achieve desired dynamic. Bass drum plays with soft timpani mallets. Re-articulated (accented) notes should be slightly separated and played with a delicate stress.

For Michael Baker (Composition for high trumpet and bass drum) (1996)

Four piano inventions #1

Mein Mantel ist weg (1998)
composer: Marc Sabat

1. Der letzte Zug
2. Ich fahre nach Köln
3. Fräulein Klein aus München
4. Ein ganz neues Haus
5. Unbedingt zu Hause bleiben

performed by
Stephen Clarke, Matteo Fargion, Marc Sabat, Chiyoko Szlavnics

Mein Mantel ist weg (1997/98)

composed by Martin Arnold, John Oswald, Marc Sabat and Richard Wagner

for 11 strings:
6 Violins, 2 Violas, 2 Violoncellos, Contrabass
note:
“Idyllily” is the result of a series of experimental
tranformations applied to Richard Wagner’s composition
“Siegfried Idyll”. The accidentals and dynamics have been
removed, the music has been diatonically transposed, legato
articulations have been replaced with separated bowing, tempo
has been substantially increased, certain pitches at the end of
phrases have been sustained to produce modal pedal points. The
music should be played with detailed and idiosyncratic phrasing
in the individual parts, whilst remaining for the most part
within a mp – mf dynamic and maintaining a light, baroque
articulation. It is a kind of imaginary “time-shifting”
dissolving the typically Romantic surface
characteristics of Wagner’s score.
Open strings and harmonics may be used often,
vibrato ought to remain modest and ornamental.

Idyllily (2000)

John Jenkins (2001/2011)
music for 2-manual harpsichord and six instruments in 5-limit Just Intonation
based on Johann Sebastian Bach’s Ricercar a 6 from Musikalisches Opfer, BWV 1079

commissioned with the assistance of the Canada Council
by Continuum (Toronto) & Evenings of New Music (Bratislava)

The musical material has been taken from Johann Sebastian Bach's Ricercar a 6 in Musikalisches Opfer, BWV 1079 (1747), mm. 29-103 (all but the exposition). Bach’s original pitches and durations remain for the most part unaltered, but their vertical relations have been disturbed by presenting the individual notes largely in sequential (rather than simultaneous) order. Like an unfolded architectural diagram, the resulting melodic material retraces Bach's harmonic and motivic constructions as a kind of projection onto two dimensions. This music (contained in its entirety in the keyboard part) undergoes a second projection back into the six non-keyboard instrumental parts, which may be realised by any six appropriately registered instruments of flexible tuning. Each of these parts largely retains its original pitches from the Bach, separated by silences, producing a new music in hocketed correlation with the other five parts. This transformation of Bach’s music has been notated in 5-limit Just Intonation based on a lattice of interlocking pure fifths and thirds, allowing all intervals between pitches to be exactly tuned by ear. This intonation is written up using the Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation, developed by Marc Sabat and Wolfgang von Schweinitz. A diagram of the pitches used, and a legend of the notation, are provided below. In the 2011 revised version, an additional “sotto voce” shadow music of sustained tones has been composed to facilitate the tuning of pitches by mostly simple JI consonances. The instruments should shift as smoothly as possible between the playing of foreground and background pitches (indicated by small noteheads), helping each other play as a purely tuned consort. John Jenkins (1592-1678) was an English composer who wrote primarily instrumental consort music, often originally intended for home performances by amateur musicians. Unlike many other composers, who were in the employ of royal courts and/or the Church, Jenkins spent much of his life working privately for various families in remote country houses of eastern England. He is also known as the inventor of the “lyra consort”, an exotic mixed ensemble consisting of violin, lyra viol, bass viol, theorbo, and harpsichord. The melody is to be expressively phrased, with an abundance of local detail. The general sensibility is ornate and Baroque, with great attention to the collectively created phrases. Vibrato should be used very sparingly. Tones connected by slurs are to be played as a single connected gesture. A comma just before a note indicates the beginning of a new phrase; immediately after a note, or before a rest, it indicates the end of a phrase. Dynamics and articulations have been written to suggest and facilitate the natural flow of phrases, and may be interpreted freely by agreement of the performers. John Jenkins was written at the request of Jennifer Waring (for Continuum, Toronto) and Daniel Matej (for Musica Aeterna, performing at the 2000 Bratislava Evenings of New Music). It was commissioned with the assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Berlin, 24 January 2011

John Jenkins (2001/11)

For Magister Zacharias (1997)
for (amplified) Steinway piano mechanism
This piece is to be played by depressing the keys only partway,
so that the dampers lift but the hammers do not hit the strings.
On certain pianos (Steinway, Boston), the action of lifting dampers
produces a small plucking sound in the middle register of the piano.
In an intimate concert setting, the performance may be unamplified
and at the border of inaudibility. Alternately, the sound may be
highly amplified (on the border of feedback) so as to be audible as
melody. Additional sounds from the mechanism itself, and ambient
sounds reflected by the piano soundboard, will also be amplified.
The pitches are notated more or less equidistantly, to allow the
performer to choose the timing of the notes freely. The playing
should be quite legato throughout, with lifts at the indicated
commas.
The melodic material is a cyclic elaboration of a tune from
Magister Zacharias, a composer associated with the highly complex
contrapuntal Ars Subtilior music of the late 14th and early 15th
centuries.

For Magister Zacharias (1997)

Tristan, Isolde (2009)
for 2 pianos
NOTES ABOUT THE INTERPRETATION
This piece was composed in celebration of the Akademie Schloss
Solitude’s 20th year anniversary, to be premiered as part of a
series of miniatures all beginning and ending with the “Tristan”
chord from Wagner’s opera.
In the pedalling indications, which are marked with a gradually
upward-slanting line, it is intended that each player depress the
pedal before playing a new chord, and then gradually release it over
about 3 seconds whilst sustaining the written pitches with fingers,
thus creating an exaggerated (but smooth) diminuendo.
The Da Capo return to the initial chord should not be treated in any
special manner, rather it should be played exactly as all the
others, without any fermata or exaggerated fade-out.
Should a special intonation of the pianos be desired, the two sharp
notes may be lowered somewhat to approach a pure minor triad with
the B-natural, and the F may be raised to make a 45/32 ratio with
the B. However, it is not necessary that the two pianos be tuned
identically or precisely, some differences of shading between them
may even be desirable.
Berlin, 4 August 2009

Tristan, Isolde (2009)

claudius ptolemy (2008)
for violin and cello
for Johnny Chang and Jessica Catron
NOTES ABOUT THE INTERPRETATION
Tempo is free: as swiftly as accurate intonation permits, but
taking time whenever necessary. Each pitch may be considered to
have a ‘virtual fermata’, which may be held whenever more time is
needed to clearly focus the indicated just interval ratio. For the
most part, overlapping tones produce ‘tuneable intervals’ which
may be precisely realized by ear.
There are only seven pitch classes used in this piece, forming a
D Major scale tuned according to Claudius Ptolemy’s tense diatonic
(5-limit just intonation). The four pitches G - D - A - E are tuned
as a chain of pure (3/2) fifths, matching the open strings of the
violin. The pitches B - F# - C# are tuned as pure (5/4) major thirds
above G - D - E, and are accordingly notated with downward arrows
to indicate alteration by a syntonic comma (81/80). The resulting
thirds should sound beatless and resonant, and care should be
taken not to exaggerate the extent of the comma!
The two individual voices may also be played as solo pieces for
violin and cello.
Berlin, 15 January 2008

Claudius Ptolemy (2008)

performed by The Burdocks
(Julie Baumgartel, violin /  Colleen Cook, clarinets / Margaret Gay, cello / Eve Egoyan, piano)

Natalie Pfeiffer, harpsichord 
version for 2 manual French harpsichord in 
extended Pythagorean tuning (Helmholtz temperament)



Francois Couperin: Les Baricades Mistérieuses (1717)

Malcolm Goldstein, solo violin / Hemispheres Toronto
chamber concerto for violin and mixed ensemble in 
72-tone equal temperament (May 1996)

Quiet Winter (1996)

Barbara Hannigan, coloratura-soprano
performing the third movement of Air.Spit.Tune (1997)

Tune from Air.Spit.Tune (1997)

Daan Vandewalle, piano
IGNM Basel Portrait Marc Sabat piano music 2011

2 piano studies (1995)

Canadian composer Marc Sabat (*1965) is based in Berlin since 1999. He has made pieces for concert and installation settings, drawing inspiration from investigations of the sounding and perception of Just Intonation and of various music traditions — folk, experimental and classical. His pieces are presented and broadcast internationally at festivals of new music including the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Klangspuren Schwaz, MaerzMusik, Huddersfield, Darmstadt, Musica Viva and Carnegie Hall. Scores and artist editions are available from Plainsound Music Edition. Recent recordings include the LP “Les Duresses”, released by care of editions (Berlin) as well as discs on the labels Populist Records (Los Angeles) and World Edition (Köln).

Sabat studied composition, violin and mathematics at the University of Toronto, at the Juilliard School in New York, and at McGill University, as well as working privately with Malcolm Goldstein, James Tenney and Walter Zimmermann. Together with Wolfgang von Schweinitz he has developed the Extended Helmholtz-Ellis JI Pitch Notation and is a pioneer of music written and performed in extended Just Intonation. He teaches at the Universität der Künste Berlin, and as a guest at the California Institute of the Arts, the Escola Superior in Barcelona, the Janacek Academy in Brno and the Paris Conservatoire. In 2010, he was an artist-in-residence of the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles, followed in 2011 by a one year residency at the German Academy in Rome, Villa Massimo.

Marc Sabat

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