Deux Intimes (2008-24)
Mandolin and Guitar
Duration: 5 minutes
Program Note
This was one of my first forays into writing music entirely in a quarter-tone harmonic world.
I had done some explorations in earlier pieces, but here, presented with the combination of two
fretted instruments whose strings could be easily tuned, there was the opportunity
to write music where I could be certain the quarter-tones would sound properly.
To access the 24 tones of the scale, I asked the players to retune their instruments so that
adjacent strings alternated quarter-tones and tempered tones. As a result of this the resonances
of the instruments were compromised and chromatic passages would require string and position
changes. In the disconnect between what was played and what sounded, the players became,
in a sense, blind to their instruments.
At the time, I conceived of quarter-tones as a means to ratchet up the dissonance level in a piece
and so I leaned heavily on false octaves and unisons assuming that they would yield a sound that
was more crunchy than major sevenths and minor seconds. With the benefit of hindsight and experience,
I realized I was wrong: instead of grating on each other, quarter-tone harmonies tend to cannibalize
themselves, the overtones of the individual pitches conflict and players struggle to make
simultaneities sound. I have also discovered that there can be a certain beauty and a whole world
of new harmonies and tonal analogues in a quarter-tone space. I knew none of this at the time I was
writing this piece and so for me this duo has the feel of trying to find a way forward in a new
world; more contrapuntal than harmonic, more atonal than tonal.
This was a difficult and not entirely pleasant piece to write. The scordatura limited its harmonic
world and the challenge of finding my way to compose it, trying to hear what it sounded like, and
then determining what exactly a player must play to achieve those sounds was mind-numbing. On
finishing it, it was rejected by its commissioners. And so 'Dialogues and Dances' sat on the shelf
in a state of near completion for more than a decade, like close friends, now distant, with whom
I had a long and not always satisfying history. It was originally four movements: one has been spun
off as a work for guitar quartet; another will someday exist as an impractical miniature for two
player pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart, if anything. What’s left are two enigmatic move- ments
that have been revised after fourteen years. Re-engaging with their world was like breathing air
of a different planet.
I am thankful for Dan Lippel for convincing me to return to the piece and he and Bill Anderson for
programming and premiering it and it is to them that I dedicate this new version.
- Nelsonville, 5 August 2024
Premiere:
Awaiting premiere
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Score
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