"Maximum Clarity" and Other Writings on Music

On Sonata for Microtonal Piano

on sonata for microtonal piano My Sonata for Microtonal Piano deploys chains of just tuned (untempered) triadic intervals over the whole piano range, in interlocked consonant patterns . Only seven of the eighty-eight white and black keys of the piano have octave equivalents, one pair encompassing the distance of a double octave and the remaining six pairs separated by almost the entire length of the keyboard. Thus there are eighty-one different pitches, providing a piano with almost no consonant octaves. Effectively,for the listener,there are three main gradations of consonance/ dissonance: (1) smooth untempered thirds and fifths, which have the least amount of harshness caused by acoustical beats; (2) compounds of these such as sevenths, ninths, elevenths, thirteenths, and fifteenths (which turn out to be slightly sharp double octaves); and (3) chromatic or enharmonic intervals comprising all the even-numbered keyboard distances such as seconds , fourths, sixths, octaves, tenths, twelfths, and fourteenths, and which sound “out of tune.” This suggested to me the possibility of two opposite systems for the deployment of pitches: one that synchronizes pitch choices with the layout of consonant and dissonant intervals on the keyboard,and a violently contrasting one in which the system for choosing pitches, a twelve-tone-row procedure derived largely from certain practices of Berg and late Schoenberg, either ignores or flaunts the consonance/dissonance keyboard layout. There are two contrasting movements of each of these types. This makes possible a Janus-faced work, in which, with only the third movement similarly located in both versions, permutation of the placement of the other three movements creates an alter-ego relationship between the two versions,called respectively Sonata for Microtonal Piano and Grindlemusic . In the Sonata version, the movements correspond to the classical sonata scheme: the “sonata-allegro,” the “scherzo,” the songlike “slow movement,” and the “finale,” which is in this case a meditative adagio. All movements, 186 some compositions however, are cast in the common ballad mold, AABA, as is each of the two entire versions, the Sonata and Grindlemusic. All tempos, all phrase and section lengths, and in certain parts of the “finale ” (which opens Grindlemusic, the sequence closing with the “scherzo”), even note-to-note timings conform to a proportional scheme derived from a single pattern of changes in AABA form. This pattern is associated with two distinct motivic groups at different points in the work. Tempo and time period normally relate inversely in a proportional system , but in this composition these two sets of time proportions relate without inversion, resulting in an enormously complex rhythmic shape involving elaborate metrical modulation, interrupted bars and beats, and rapid passages of enormous virtuosity. The Sonata, whether presented as beauty or as the beast, is a monstrous parody-enigma,allusive,referential,sometimes derisive,distorted,a tissue of familiarity in radically strange garb. In the Grindlemusic sequence the movements (arranged in the order “finale,” “sonata-allegro,” “slow movement,” “scherzo”) have these titles: “Premises,” “Questions,” “Soul Music,” “Mood Music.” Whatever the closing mood brings to mind, it is overlaid with irony and derision.The Sonata sequence poses the challenge: fast,faster,slow,slower . When, in the Sonata’s finale, the knots are finally untied, will it be clear from what Houdini has escaped? Sonata, what do you want? Candy? ...