DESCRIPTION:
Annie Gosfield: Tenacious Friction and Swerving Conviction
anniegosfield.com
Premiere by Max Mandel (viola) and Eric Huebner (piano)
at Roulette, NYC, March 25, 2014
Since this piece was commissioned for two great musicians, and intended to be only five minutes long, I chose to write something that was technically demanding but emphasized just a few elements. Clocking in at just over six minutes, it can clip along at a breakneck speed without taxing the players too much. Microtones are used to broaden the harmonic palette and provide some musical friction, not to achieve pure tone. In other words, the effect is fast and dirty (although as usual for me, the compositional process was slow and painstaking). Composing a six minute piece allowed me the extravagance of tenacious repeats: short figures and limited pitches are reconfigured, repeated, and unrelenting in the brief span of time.