
Five movements on pendulum motion: I
Five movements on pendulum motion, for cello, electronics and video (2019) presents a solo concert for cello with an octophonic electronic device based on the phenomenon of pendular waves. As an introduction to the piece, the composer quotes from the text of one of the Harvard Natural Sciences Lecture Demonstrations: «Fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and random motion. One might call this kinetic art and the choreography of the dance of the pendulums is stunning!» This kinetic activation of a pendular choreography is the generating idea of a work in which, as in a baroque suite, each of the five component movements are associated with a different dance.
The fourth movement consists of a homage to Cellogram (1971), by James Tenney, one of his Postal pieces developed from ideas of internal canonical structure and of the reproduction of microphones on a large scale (advancing in time, to a good degree, the application of fractal designs to composition) and which, like a Zen koan, is ambiguous and paradoxical.
Instrumentation
Violoncello
Fixed electronics
Details
2019
dur. : 33'
World Premiere on November 23, 2019 by Erica Wise in Hangar | Centre de producció i recerca d'arts visuals (Barcelona/Spain)
Recorded by Neu Records
Publishing
Performances
5. May 2021 | Auditorio de Zaragoza (Zaragoza/Spain)