instrumentation:
2 flutes
bass clarinet
bassoon
violin
viola
cello
double bass
marimba
vibraphone
Chinese cymbal
piano four-hands
duration:
12'
first performance:
Ives Ensemble
February 5, 2004
De Rode Hoed, Amsterdam
special features:
listen/buy
(9 through 99, version 20a - Ives Ensemble)
No. 20a 9 through 99 (2003/2005)
2 flutes, bass clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, double bass, marimba, vibraphone, Chinese cymbal & piano four-hands
Commissioned by: Ives Ensemble with financial support from the Netherlands Fund for the Creation of Music
Info/Program Note:
In the course of 2003 I gradually found myself moving away from self-designed musical rules, to rules proposed by pre-existing mathematical or natural phenomena. One of the first pieces in this area was the work 9 through 99, written for a portrait concert by the Ives Ensemble in 2004. The work is an entirely faithful 'translation' of Pascal's famous Triangle and aims at portraying some of the inherent beauties and intricacies of the triangle itself, with all of its' many wonderful forms of self-similarity. The triangle is set canonically, Modulo 9 (thus entirely symmetrical) and gradually expands from one to ten triangles. The instruments enter in succession, with the piano leading off and being the only one to actually complete all 10 triangles. The other instruments enter at pivotal points and with different durations separating their phrases. Some catch up and some remain far behind by the time the piece ends. The original - and preferred - version of 9 through 99 was scored for 12 musicians (including piano four-hands, 4 winds and 4 string players) and included a high degree of hocketing between instruments, as well as an actual relay race for the four strings as they perform a foolhardy attempt to catch up with the others through omitting all possible rests from their musical figures. Subsequent versions of the piece were re-scored specifically for the available setups of the California EAR Unit and ensemble KORE and basically omit most of the hocketing, all of the canons and the four-part relay race. The order of the entries however remains the same and proved to work in those settings as well.
With entrances starting on either the first or fourth degree of the Phrygian scale on E, the score is characterized by a total absence of either expression marks or articulation markings… and not a single accidental.
