the cut cool of the air

About

The temporal framework of this piece had certain characteristics even before the first sound entered. The pitch space that the musical material would eventually occupy was defined as two bands of frequencies that expand and contract while gradually ascending and descending through the available range. In some places, such as at the beginning of the piece and between its main formal units, the upper and lower limits of each of these two bands are clearly stated by glissandi in the the four string instruments. Elsewhere, the sonic material is always strictly confined to the frequencies within the two bands. The other characteristic of the temporal framework is a network of impulses that radiate outwards from certain points in time like ripples on the surface water, with the distance between each ripple gradually increasing as it moves away from the central point. The result is a network that gradually expands and contracts, with some zones being characterised by a concentration of impulses and others by a scarcity of impulses.

The compositional process was therefore characterised by the organic growth of material into this pre-existing environment (the temporal framework). The aim is to try to enrich each individual moment with significance, so that the characteristics of each musical gesture, each musical present, are the result of forces exerted by multiple simultaneous structural trajectories. Thus the richness of the moment is determined by the architectonic completeness of the whole, just as the significance of each of our individual perceptions is conditioned by our overall experience.