Jordan Alexander Key

For a video presentation of the conclusions of the work see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fN4fU4laue4

Three times in the history of Western Music - at the end of the 14th century, the end of the 16th century, and the beginning of the 20th century – has there been a flowering in the development of non-dyadic rational rhythmic hierarchies. Only in the last of these occurrences has this development persisted continuously to the present; each time before, rhythmic complexity collapsed into a system dominated by dyadic- and/or triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies. By the 17th century, even triadic-rational rhythmic hierarchies had totally disappeared from musical discourse to be supplanted by our modern system of dyadic-rational time signatures. Even into the 21st century, dyadic-rational time signatures remain predominant, despite work by composers like Henry Cowell and Conlon Nancarrow, which suggested the possibility of a rhythmic paradigm shift during the early- and mid-20th century.

Despite the persistent hold of dyadic-rational time signatures, developments in prescriptive rhythmic complexity during the 20th century have continued to the present, persisting over multiple generations of composers and forming distinct schools of musical discourse popular in contemporary classical music today. Among these composers are not only Charles Ives, Henry Cowell, and Conlon Nancarrow, but also Thomas Ades, Brian Ferneyhough, Michael Gordon, Karen Khachaturian, Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, and Jonathan Dawe among others. Within their oeuvre, each of these composers have encountered the need for a broader exploration, development, and notation of rhythmic structure beyond our current dyadic-rational system, allowing in their music pan-rational time signatures, irrational time-signatures, and/or dense and/or indivisible rhythmic hierarchies – all of these levels of rhythmic prescription either not seen since the 16th century or altogether never before seen in Western music.

Given the present state of our system of music notation and rhythmic prescription within it, what are we doing and what can we do now in the 21st century with the rhythmic tools developed in the past one hundred years? By thoroughly understanding the history of prescriptive rhythmic experimentation in Western Music, we can possibly better understand why certain systems of rhythmic notation have persisted while others have been forgotten; through such better understanding of the history of rhythmic notation we might fashion a notational system today that overcomes our present limitations in rhythmic prescription better than previous failed models. To this end, I will trace the historical development of systems of rhythmic hierarchy from Medieval to Modern music, focusing on music with exceptional prescriptive, precise, mathematically defined rhythmic structures, excluding aleatoric and spatially based rhythmic notation. In doing this, we will gain a historical contextualization of the rise of pan-rational systems of rhythmic notation. Following this, we will survey a variety of modern compositional methods that expand standard prescriptive rhythmic notation, beginning with Charles Ives and Henry Cowell and ending with living composers like Thomas Ades and Michael Gordon. Last, this dissertation will address my own compositional work in the context of pan-rational systems of rhythmic hierarchies and propose a new addition to the lexicon of rhythmic notation that will emancipate the composer from traditional dyadically-rational rhythmic notation.

Though Europe through the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries is often characterized by the aesthetic and political revolution of Humanism, there were other aesthetic trends counter to this resurgence of Classical culture. While many artistic European minds were enraptured with the rebirth and development of Greek art, math, and philosophy, some continued to find expression in reinventing and redefining Gothic aesthetics, carried forwards from the late Middle Ages. There is no better case for this than in the work of composer Alexander Agricola and painter Hieronymus Bosch. While we know very little about both of these men, their work is monumental, respected, and very odd. Bosch’s art is in the vein of a late Medieval practice, featuring rudimentary perspective and an overwhelming sense of hidden symbolism, often verging on the grotesque. In the same regard, we see Medievalisms in Agricola’s rhizomic counterpoint, bizarre form, and complicated polyrhythmic conceits.

These two artists stand as paragons for a pan-European cultural rejection to the revolution of Humanism during the Renaissance. Since the seminal 19th century survey of Renaissance music by musicologist August Wilhelm Ambros, Agricola’s work has been mostly relegated to the historical periphery as an anomaly, since it did not clearly conform to Humanist expectations of of the era. However, Ambros’s critique of Agricola’s music stands against all documented evidence from Agricola’s life, which attests to this composer’s fame and prominence, surpassed only by Josquin DesPrez according to the contemporary music theorists and composer Johannes Tinctoris. Upon closer inspection across artistic disciplines and national boundaries, Agricola’s and Bosch’s atypical aesthetic reveals itself as a cultural zeitgeist paralleling, if not countering, the revolutions of Humanism, intentionally exploring the incommensurate, arcane, surly, grotesque, and gothic side of European culture at the dawn of the early modern age.

This paper examines the aesthetic impetus for Milton Babbitt’s rhythmic systems of composition and his use of complex rhythmic strata. The author examines the history of two of Babbitt’s early works including synthesizer with live performer, Vision and Prayer and Philomel, addressing issues in the composer’s rhythmic notation, particularly in Philomel. The first section of Philomel is rhythmically analyzed and re-notated in an effort to challenge Babbitt’s use of 3/4 time signatures as an arbitrary delineator for his system of time-point serialization., providing a more accurate rhythmic demarcation for the phrases of the section according to event onsets. Rhythmic notational errors in Babbitt’s score are also addressed, with possible solutions given.

Due to the 20th century mathematical and scientific developments of Georg Cantor, Max Karl Planck, Albert Einstein, and Werner Heisenberg, concepts once relegated to obscurity, such as irrationality, infinity, insolvability, and chaos, were brought to mainstream attention, ultimately changing the course of technological and scientific development into the 21st century. Before these seminal thinkers, concepts like numerical irrationality and infinity were considered by many to be worthless if not amoral; such attitudes can be found persisting back to the ancient Greeks under the Pythagoreans. Interestingly, the aesthetic of irrationality follows a similar historical trajectory, mostly finding relegation in peripheral movements and specific artists before the 20th century. However, the 20th century has seen the greatest and longest persisting resurgence in mathematically irrational thought within the arts. This paper compares the visual and musical experiments in irrationality, incommensurability, and infinity in the works of MC Escher and Conlon Nancarrow during the early and mid-twentieth century, showing a correlation between contemporary mathematical and physical innovations and specific aesthetic pursuits in art and music.

Crowned by many as one of the immortal composers, George Frederick Handel (1685 – 1759) was the central figure in forging England's cultural identity amongst its European neighbors during the late 18 th and early 19 th century. The identity Handel forged in the crucible of the early English nationalism movement was not that of a German composer, but one of a robust, refined, altruistic, righteous, straight, Protestant Englishman. Despite numerous character flaws by 18 th century standards, this was the identity he ardently upheld in the public eye. How did Handel – a German-born, bad tempered, gluttonous, and possibly homosexual man –transform himself from a Hanoverian writing Italian opera to a true " British-worthy " through the power of his musical entrepreneurship?

For Hermann Schroeder (1904 - 1984) – German composer, conductor, organist, and pedagogue – music was a "practical" commitment to the "mandatory inheritance" from Bach. When asked what composers he considered “modern leading figures”, his list would hardly be considered “modern” by contemporary standards, citing predominantly Paul Hindemith and Max Reger. Seeming unquestionably old-fashioned, his music is typically characterized as Neoclassical, especially when compared to his prominent avant-garde peers and modernist predecessors. However, rather than merely attempting to mimic or return to aesthetic precepts associated with Classicism, Schroeder saw himself in a continuing lineage, able to look both forward and backward while interacting with and reacting to his contemporaries to create an eclectic yet internally cohesive modern musical language. In what ways has Schroeder synthesized old and new styles in his music? What particularly in his music is “modern” in mid-20th century Germany and even today? Schroeder’s concert and chamber oeuvre composed during the 1950s and thereafter form a repertoire of music that demonstrates his commitment to recasting sounds, styles, and forms of the past. Through examination of some of the pieces from this artistically productive and mature period in Schroeder’s life, not only will it become apparent that he is worthy of the further scrutiny of American scholars, but also the label “modern”.

Despite the frequently critiqued prolixity in much of his oeuvre, Alexander Agricola (1445/46-1506) crafted music comprehensible enough to elicit great praise from numerous contemporaries. What is then inherently praiseworthy in this abstruse music? In his Salve Regina I, Agricola crafts a musical argument for his garrulity, the thesis of which aims to clarify and justify the virtue of his style. While Agricola employed cantus firmus conventions to provide formal scaffolding, he also imbues discursiveness with comprehensibility through rhetorical techniques, such as inflection of cadence, clearness of imitation, phraseology of text, and varied implementation of cantus firmus. Articulating the micro-structure of his music, these components are then couched in the discourse of the classical argument: an introduction, confirmation, and refutation of a thesis. In Agricola’s Salve Regina I, motet becomes a medium for the exhibition and logical justification of his musical thesis of abstract polystylism.

PREMISE: How can music allow a man to see the face of God? How can music direct the spirituality of those creating, practicing, and listening to it? Music and sound have played a significant role in religious practice throughout and across human history and culture, but this sonic aspect of religious and spirituality has been significantly ignored. This thesis attempts to explore spiritual manifestations of people, both generally and specifically, through musical and sonic experiences, redirecting the focus of study in religion and spirituality from the visual to the aural, creating a concept of Spirosonance as compared to Theosonance. METHODS: Part One of this dialogue begins by deconstructing and reconstructing notions of religions, religion, and spirituality along with music, sound, and noise to first lay a foundation of definitions for the study, while also questioning common notions of these human constructs. This section hopes to begins creating better tools to define, discuss, and understand these constructed notions, employing subjectivity as a priority to objectivity in forming definitions. This sections ends by outlining the general concept of Spirosonance and how it can be used to better understand people's spiritual experience of sound. In Part Two of this discourse, a particular case study is used to demonstrate concepts discussed in Part One, outlining Christian monastic practices and experiences of music as related to their spirituality. Further in this section, outsider's experience of this same monastic music is examined to understand how people outside this tradition are also gaining spiritually from this same music. CONCLUSION: Many possible reasons can be given as to why monastic chant is so popular among such wide varieties of people as a spiritual enhancer. The reasons given here are just a few, focusing on the most cited characteristics of chant that people find attractive or exceptional. Ultimately, why someone is moved or attracted to the chant is personal and could be for any reason. What was attempted here was to show how, in a few ways, people are perhaps experiencing something personal, something spiritual, within this chant that does not necessarily tie itself to religious practice. There is clearly something about this music that speaks to people beyond the terms of religion, moving into more "spiritual" realms. Most importantly, what was attempted here is the creation of better tools of understanding music as both a tool of religion and a catalyst for spirituality, forming spirituality as a character of those experiencing the music, not a character of the music itself.

For a complete annimated score video of this work containing the original manuscript, modern score, and translation, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcOtQNR8lzE

This is a pedagogical edition of Baude Cordier's' famous piece of augenmusik, "Belle, Bonne, Sage" from the 14th century. Find herein complete explanations of all parts of the piece (pictorial, poetical, musical, formal, etc.). Complete translations of all texts are provided along with an explanation of translations methodology and problems. Complete high-resolution graphics of the two sources are included.

For a complete performance recording with a score/manuscript animation video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTvMQgfygDY

Organum duplum on the Easter Sequence, Victime paschali laudes," realized following the Saint Martial rhythmic hypothesis of Theodore Karp.

For a video animation of this piece see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vm6WqK3cr_8

This is a pedagogical edition of Senleches' famous piece of augenmusik, "La Harpe de Mellodie" from the 14th century. Find herein complete explanations of all parts of the piece (pictorial, poetical, musical, formal, etc.). Complete translations of all texts are provided along with an explanation of translations methodology and problems. Complete high-resolution graphics of the two sources are included with two different possible realizations of the riddle canon.

For an audio-video animation of the manuscript with the modern transcription see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dO56v7qltNo

An edition of the anonymous labyrinthine ballade on three canons, "En la maison Dedalus" (In the House of Dedalus) from the Berkeley Manuscript.

This edition includes a modern transcription of the music, the original manuscript excerpted, poetic and literal translations of the text, reconstruction of the 11-tier labyrinth upon which the music is overlain, and pedagogical materials/explanations of the musical and poetic medieval Ballade forme-fixe.

This is a threefold transcription of Baude Cordier's "circle canon," two versions in rondeau form and one in perpetual canon. Included with the music transcriptions are full translations from Medieval French to English of all the accompanying texts as well as an English text underlay for the music.

Also included is a full explanation of the various mensurations and colorations that appear in the piece.

The design of the scores attempts to illustrate the rondeau form overlaying the canonic conceit.

For a score animation with the transcription and original manuscript, see this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaeOWdXM4Pg

A pedagogical transcription of Richard Sampson's (attr.) motet in double canon, "Salve radix," written to celebrate the union of Henry VIII to Catherine of Aragon and the birth of their daughter, Mary.

For a video with recording accompanying the modern transcription with side-by-side animated original notated music see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9wl1XqV6Nk

A modern edition of Nathaniel Giles (1558 - 1633/34) mensural bicinia, "Miserere," on 38 rhythmic proportions from the "Baldwin Commonplace Book" (1594). For a recording and animated score-video see this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRMx9koROOI

For a complete performance with an animated score video aside the original manuscript see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8glBQ_SaPxI .

The Faenza Codex, is one of the largest collection of late Medieval pieces for keyboard instruments. It was copied sometime during the early 15th century in northern Italy, but the pieces contained within are stylistically inline with music from the mid to late Italian Trecento (14th century). The codex contains 22 pieces, along with several musical treatises. The piece you will hear here, "Kyrie Cunctipotens Genitor Deus," is just a section of a larger collection of polyphonic duets, which set the entire Mass Ordinary.

In traditional chant practice, the Kyrie chant is broken into three distinct sections – Kyrie I, Christe, and Kyrie II – each of which contains three iterations of its component chant. This piece from the Feanza Codex only contains polyphonic settings for two of the three first Kyrie’s, one of the Christe’s, and two of the second Kyrie’s. Thus to complete the tripartite structure of each section, I inserted between each polyphonic section a simpler statement of the chant tune in various original styles akin to the 14th century. The original polyphonic settings from the codex are built by temporally elongating the chant and combining it with an upper florid voice. This compositional idiom represents the contemporary popular musical form called “florid organum” over a “cantus firmus”. The “cantus firmus” is the “foundational song” upon which the invented music is built. Here, the Kyrie chant is prolonged, and built upon it is a freely invented, melismatic counterpoint, utilizing regular motivic variation.

While this piece would typically be performed without any registration variation, I have chosen to go against “correct” medieval performance practice. Rather, I use a variety of instrumental colors to orchestrate the florid upper voice against the stable lower voice. Using four different instrumental colors within each section – Kyrie, Christe, Kyrie - Jordan has changed what would typically sound like a duet of similar instruments into a responsorial quartet of contrasting instruments.

Anonymous (c. mid. 14th century): Kyrie "Cunctipotens Genitor Deus" (II) from the Faenza Codex.
Source: "The Codex Faenza," Faenza, Biblioteca Comunale 117 [I-FZc 117], ff. 88r-90r.

Complete transcription and reconstruction of the canon a13 for Christ and his Twelve Disciples on the Apostles Creed. This piece is found in both the Eton Choirbook and the Baldwin Manuscript. This edition contained both the fully realized canon as well as a modern reconstruction of the original monophonic version of the canon, as found in the manuscripts.

For a recording with a score animation see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBu66rLAv7I

A transcription of a lesser known masterpiece from the early 16th century. The only known work by composer Johannes Mittner, this Mass, and particularly its Sanctus movement, demonstrates one of the largest mensuration canons from the Renaissance - five voices from one.

For a audio-visual animation with recording see the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCe7WGoJVLI

Johannes Mittner: Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarae, Sanctus
Sanctus a4,
Pleni sunt coeli a2,
Osanna I a5 mensuration canon,
Benedictus a4
Osanna II a3

A transcription of Leonin's "Viderunt Omnes" (c. mid to late 12th century), showing excerpts of the original two sources with comparative variations and a modern transcription.

For a recording and score-video see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_p9WQlyVPrA

A transcription of Machaut's Rondeau 14, "Ma fin est ma commencement" ("my end is my beginning"). The score is rendered to be read both forwards and backwards as necessitated by the music. For an animated video of the score with a performance visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcfPr4IN2MM

A transcription of Alexander Agricola's office hymn to the Virgin Mary, "Ave maris stella." Note the canonic inner tenor voices. This is one of Agricola's unicum.

For a recording and score video see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hE0rMPcBvo

A non-barred critical transcription of Alexander Agricola's contrafacta motet, "Virgo sub ethereis" (Source: Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek, MS 40021 ff. 131v-132r) as derived from his "Comme femme desconfortée".

For a video of the score with a performance recording see the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_nnTzNXeUY

A non-barred critical transcription of Alexander Agricola's motet-chanson "Belles sur toutes - Tota pulchra es" from Florence, Bibliotea del Conservatorio Luigi Cherubini,  MS 2439 ff. 63v-64r.

For a recording of the music with a score-video see link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2N_Ru9xjuA

A study and critical edition of Agricola's two voiced polyphonic setting of "Gaudeamus omnes", Introit for the Feast of the Assumption. This is intended for teaching various 14th and 15th century mensuration signs and their modern translations and persisting problems.

For two recordings and video-scores of the piece see the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZnRmQ-B2Zc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxK8zd2hLEM

Only the incipit "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" appears with Agricola's music. The Introit text set to the chant cantus firmus used in this transcription is the text for the Introit for the Feast of the Assumption (also Gaudeamus omnes in domino).

Furthermore, Agricola only set down as semibreves each of the first 38 notes of the "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" chant. This transcription, following the example of Edward Learner's edition, reconstructs the remaining tenor notes. This edition differs from Learner's in that it uses the Introit chant for Assumption from Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale [F-CA], MS B-12, fol. 49r-v (c. 1500), rather than a British version from the Sarum rite.

______________________________

Gaudeamus omnes in domino,
diem festum celebrantes sub honore Mariae Virginis:
de cujus assumptione gaudent angeli,
et collaudant filium dei.

Let us all rejoice in the Lord
celebrating this day the feast in honor of the Virgin Mary,
in whose solemnity the angels rejoice,
and praising the Son of God.

A performance and critical edition of Agricola's two voiced polyphonic setting of "Gaudeamus omnes", Introit for the Feast of the Assumption. For two different recordings and video-scores of the piece see the links below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZnRmQ-B2Zc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxK8zd2hLEM

Only the incipit "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" appears with Agricola's music. The Introit text set to the chant cantus firmus used in this transcription is the text for the Introit for the Feast of the Assumption (also Gaudeamus omnes in domino).

Furthermore, Agricola only set down as semibreves each of the first 38 notes of the "Gaudeamus omnes in domino" chant. This transcription, following the example of Edward Learner's edition, reconstructs the remaining tenor notes. This edition differs from Learner's in that it uses the Introit chant for Assumption from Cambrai, Bibliotheque Municipale [F-CA], MS B-12, fol. 49r-v (c. 1500), rather than a British version from the Sarum rite.

______________________________

Gaudeamus omnes in domino,
diem festum celebrantes sub honore Mariae Virginis:
de cujus assumptione gaudent angeli,
et collaudant filium dei.

Let us all rejoice in the Lord
celebrating this day the feast in honor of the Virgin Mary,
in whose solemnity the angels rejoice,
and praising the Son of God.

A scroll realization of Johannes Mittner's "Osanna" 5-voice mensuration canon from the Sanctus of his Missa Hercules Dux Ferrarae. For a recording of the Sanctus with the Osanna, please see the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCe7WGoJVLI

A critical and performance edition of Alexander Agricola's chanson "De tous biens plaine" for three voices. The cantus firmus of the tenor is extracted from Hayne Van Ghizeghem's (c. 1445 – 1476 to 1497) eponymous chanson.

The text of the first verse is underlaid in this edition, though only the first few words actually appear in the manuscript. The complete text as found in a number of Ghizeghem's sources with a complete translation is given at the end.

It seems unlikely that the outer voices should be sung, given their continual motion, frequent awkward leaps, and extreme ambitus.  However, the inner voice certainly could be sung.

This motet is the second "Salve Regina" motet composed by Alexander Agricola.
For a recording and score-video of Salve Regina II see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoQLA3BXvQs

For a transcription of his first Salve Regina see here:
https://www.academia.edu/21795600/Alexander_Agricola_Salve_Regina_I_Brussels_Bibliotheque_Royale_MS_9126_fol._138v-143r_
For a recording and score-video of Salve Regina I see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3B-j3fUbqc

"Salve Regina II" is not only based off the classical "Salve Regina" (solemn tone) chant. The tenor of this piece is derived from Walter Frye's (d. 1474?) Marian motet, "Ave Regina".

For information and a video-score on Frye's motet see the link here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH43f-yd9oA
For a transcription see here:
https://www.academia.edu/31933857/Walter_Frye_-_Ave_Regina_tenor_for_Agricola_Salve_Regina_II_-_Full_Score.pdf

________________________


Ave Regina (Latin text):

Ave Regina coelorum mater Regis angelorum.
O Maria flos virginum velut rosa, velut lilium.
Funde preces ad filium pro salute fidelium.
O Maria flos virginum velut rosa, velut lilium.


Hail Queen (English translation):

Hail, Queen of heaven, Mother of the King of angels.
O Mary, flower of virgins, like the rose, like the lily.
Pour out prayers to the Son for the salvation of the faithful.
O Mary, flower of virgins, like the rose, like the lily.

________________________


Salve Regina (Latin text):

Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiæ,
vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve.
Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevæ,
Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes
in hac lacrimarum valle.
Eia, ergo, advocata nostra, illos tuos
misericordes oculos ad nos converte;
Et Jesum, benedictum fructum ventris tui,
nobis post hoc exsilium ostende.
O clemens, O pia, O dulcis Virgo Maria.


Hail, holy Queen (English translation):

Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
Our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To you do we cry,
Poor banished children of Eve;
To you do we send up our sighs,
Mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
Your eyes of mercy toward us;
And after this our exile,
Show us the blessed fruit of your womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving,
O sweet Virgin Mary.

A score analysis of Alexander Agricola's first "Salve Regina" motet by Jordan Key. If you are interested in this analysis, my paper "Rhetoric, Prolixity, and Agricola: Alexander Agricola's Salve Regina I as a Defense of Polystylism During the Late 15th Century" discusses at length this piece as a model of rhetoric in music during the 15th century.


See:
https://www.academia.edu/27395799/Rhetoric_Prolixity_and_Agricola_Alexander_Agricolas_Salve_Regina_I_as_a_Defense_of_Polystylism_During_the_Late_15th_Century


For a performance recording with a score, see:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3B-j3fUbqc

Edition of Lorenzo da Firenze's caccia, "A poste messe" with english lyrical text underlay. For a video-score of this edition with a recording see the link below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UN1dFq0jK-U

Transcribed from the Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana [I-Fl], MS Mediceo Palatino 87, “Codex Squarcialupi”, fol 25v-26r and the
Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale, Florence (Firenze), Italy [I-Fn], MS Panciatichiano 26, "Panciatichi", fol. 76v-77r.

The form of this piece is canonic with monophonic (?) ritornello. As indicated in the codices, the first part of the piece is clearly a canon for ether two or three voices. The second part, however, gives no sign that it should be performed canonically. Furthermore, there seems to be no reasonable way to render the second half of this piece as a canon without numerous and egregious counterpoint errors. Thus, it is generally accepted that the Ritornello is not a canon like the first part.

The second part can be performed monophonically or by many voices in octaves. However, many recordings have taken the liberty to arrange polyphonic parts to fit with the given monophonic line. Most such arrangements borrow material from the monophonic line, parts of which work contrapuntally well together when isolated and extracted arbitrarily.

Performance score of Francesco Landini's madrigal, " Musica Son - Già Furon - Ciascun Vuol" transcribed from the Squarcialupi Codex (121v-122r). For a video of the score with a performance see the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNcfZSBF9ow

Perhaps Walter Frye's most famous piece, "Ave Regina" was a significant work during the early Renaissance. Its idiomatic english style (called Contenance Angloise) helped ignite the transition to tertian polyphony in Burgundy during the first half of the 15th century.

Frye's "Ave Regina" appears in 13 difference sources, (only one of which is English), demonstrating its staggering popularity on the continent. Surpassing his two other widely popular shorter works, "Tout a par moy and "So ys emprentid", Ave regina also appears with notation in three paintings from the period. Frye's "Ave Regina" is quoted by musical theorists and rearranged and plagiarized by later composers. Its tenor was borrowed by Obrecht for a motet and mass of the same title; Alexander Agricola in turn borrowed Obrecht’s borrowed tenor as the basis for his Salve Regina II.

It is in ballade form and may have originated with an English text. Whatever its original form however, Frye’s "Ave regina" played an important part in establishing the taste for the song-motet in Burgundy during the 15th century.

For a recording and score-video of Frye's "Ave Regina" see here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH43f-yd9oA
____________________

Ave Regina (Latin text):
Ave Regina coelorum mater Regis angelorum.
O Maria flos virginum velut rosa, velut lilium.
Funde preces ad filium pro salute fidelium.
O Maria flos virginum velut rosa, velut lilium.

Hail Queen (English translation)
Hail, Queen of heaven, Mother of the King of angels.
O Mary, flower of virgins, like the rose, like the lily.
Pour out prayers to the Son for the salvation of the faithful.
O Mary, flower of virgins, like the rose, like the lily.

This is a performance edition of Gherardello da Firenze's (c. 1350) caccia, "Tosto che l'alba." This edition is a combination of the three available sources for this piece, selecting those options which are optimal when differences arise between the manuscripts. If one desires to see the other available options in each source, please refer to the related title under "comparative manuscript edition". The complete text of the piece is provided with a translation at the end of the score.

For a recording and video of the score see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok4VOFvLE2Y

This is a comparative manuscript edition of Gherardello da Firenze's (c. 1350) caccia "Tosto che l'alba". Herein you can see the difference between the piece's three available sources listed below. For a performable realization of this piece taken from these three sources, see the related title under "performance edition".

Biblioteca Medicea-Laurenziana [I-Fl], MS Mediceo Palatino 87 “Codex Squarcialupi”, no. 40 fol 25v-26r
Bibliothèque Nationale [F-PN], MS fonds italien 568 “Pit”, no. 40 fol. 25v-26r
British Library [GB-Lbl], Add. MS 29987, no 31 fol. 25r

For a recording and video of the score see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ok4VOFvLE2Y

A critical transcription of the three-voice Caça (“chace” or canon) known as “O Virgo Splendens” (“O splendorous virgin”), the first in the small collection of music from the Llibre Vermell. It is perhaps the oddest of the set, being the most stylistically remote. It is the only piece not notated or composed in the contemporary style of the Ars Nova. Rather, its notation and style harken to previous centuries, possibly as recent as the discant style of the Parisian school of Notre Dame or of Santiago de Compostela from the 12th and 13th century, or as old as the free organum style of the 10th and 11th centuries such as that found in the Ad organum faciendum. Given its apparent lack of rhythmic mode of any kind, its relation to the 10th and 11th centuries seem more likely.

For a video of the score with a recorded performance visit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BkzBK5-oDw

A Prolation Canon for three voices by Johannes Ciconia (c. 1370 – 1412). this piece is a unique example of irregular prolation from the French Ars Subtilior. Utilizing a 4:3:1 proportion, this piece creates an interesting rhythmic phasing effect between the triplum and the cantus (top two voices) nearly 600  years before the 20th century composer Steve Reich popularized such musical textures. Check out the score in motion at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrOEOuwYy3M

“Clap, clap, par un matin – Sus Robin.” is a motet of unique quality with an intriguing text. The medieval motet originated as highly embellished liturgical music during the 12th and 13th centuries, but by the late 13th and 14th century had evolved into the most popular form of secular art music. “Clap, clap” is one of, if not the most, bawdy piece in the Ivrea Codex. The piece features two corresponding poems, which tell two accounts of a raunchy and probably adulterous sexual encounter between a man, Robin, and an unnamed woman, who appears to be married to a man named Guerin, with whom she is sexually frustrated. Both texts are provided in English translation as subtitles in the above video and as verse below. To view the score with a recording visit https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JtDOHvTTb2k

A transcription of French 14th century Ars Nova Chace, "Se je chant," from the Ivrea Codex, B.C. 115 fol. 52v possibly by Denis le Grant (died 1352). Watch the score with a rare virtuosic recording at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_Yn9y0BjR8

For a video performance of the work see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfxvyU9UxvY .

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Fractal Music No. 3, "Convolutions and Revolutions" for Flute, Bass Clarinet, and Piano. Premier performance: Apply Triangle.

Fractal Music No 3 uses techniques in algorithmic and fractal-based music composition, which I have developed over the past six years. The fractal-based processes used to generate much of the rhythmic and pitch material in the piece are created in conjunction with a simple machine learning neural network. When I first began developing some basic algorithmic and iterative processes to generate related but rapidly developing and diverging musical material from rudimentary pitch and rhythmic cells, I found the process very long; these algorithms could generate vast arrays of potential musical variations and derivations, but most of these possibilities generated by the computer I would find uncompelling. I had to sort through a lot of data and modify many satisfactory results into something I found more compelling.

Upon the suggestion of my husband, I began to use a simple neural network to teach the machine the results I liked best and, consequently, teach the computer to find solutions that I would like based on the “training set” of successful matches. Rather than try and prescribe limitless parameters of what pleases me in music, I let my computer attempt to learn through sorting many results into best, good, satisfactory, bad, and poor categories, even using extant pieces of music I had previously written. Consequently, the computer would produce mostly results that would theoretically compel me and sound like me. As such, I am teaching my computer to not write music blindly based only on an iterative process, but to sort through those iterations and produce those which I will potentially think are the best. As the artist, I have the liberty to use or not use these generated fragments, reorder them (or not reorder them) in whatever way I find compelling, and orchestrate them as suits the goals of the music and the ensemble for which I am writing. Thus, the computer is not “writing the piece for me” but generating material based on a process that I have defined from my own musical kernels; what I do with this material is up to me.

This process, I have found, creates a highly cohesive musical work, since nearly all the music ideas are derivative from one initial germ. Fractal Music No 3 attempts to add a level of unpredictability and multifariousness to this process. I asked myself, “what if rather than starting with one germ and applying a process to it, I start with multiple germs and define a process where these germs are superimposed, intertwined, and filtered through each other?" Thus, I used the notion of mathematical convolution to attempt this. The process of convolving one function onto another, in some rudimentary sense, involves the mapping of one function onto the other by multiplying the mapped function by the value of mapping function at every point on the specified domain of the mapping function and then collating or combining these mapped functions via additive operations (this is only a basic explanation). The process of convolution is already used in sound engineering for many things, but most commonly one does a convolution process if they are artificially adding reverb to an audio recording (this is done by mapping the audio recording to an impulse response of a room).

Thus, my kernels of music became "mapped" and "mapping" functions. Just like one can apply reverb to one’s liking, I fashioned a convolution process such that I could adjust the degree of convolution of one kernel onto another, choosing how much of the mapped or mapping function (musical idea) I wanted to dominate the texture. Thus, sometimes only a tiny bit of one kernel will emerge within another while at other times their mixing will be equal or somewhere between.

The process of “revolution” merely refers to where within a kernel I begin the convolution. While generally, one will convolve one function entirely onto another (apply reverb to an entire audio file), one can begin or stop convolution at any point they desire (specify the domain). Thus, I can control both the degree of convolution (how much one kernel is filtered through another) and wherein each kernel this process begins and ends.

Thus, rather than have a continually growing and developing single idea that transforms under one process, this work has three ideas which variably are controlling the development of each other through various convolutions. The narrative arch of the work displays more and more equal mixing of the kernels as the piece progresses.

For a complete performance recording and score video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYl8Kf-Ubi8

This is a simple fugue in an odd time signature upon the notes G, A, B, E. The motorism of the work was inspired by a fugue by Johann Heinrich Buttstedt, a lesser-known but exceptional Baroque composer of keyboard music.

For a complete recording and score video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mszMFFpfzkU

ABOUT THE MUSIC:
This work, Rosalind Unravels the Bundle of Life, was written for organist Anne Laver and was originally intended for performance on the Italian Baroque Organ at the Memorial Art Gallery at the Eastman School of Music (further information about the organ given below), though this piece can be played on any organ. The form of the work is intimately tied to both the program of Rosalind’s contributions to the discovery of DNA’s helical structure and to the tuning of the pipe organ itself. The title of the work is referential to the epitaph on Rosalind Franklin’s tombstone.

The form of the work generally is taken from the rather obscure 15th and 16th century form of a “modal spiral,” wherein through a progressive application of musica ficta one modulates either one semitone up or down by the conclusion of the piece. This odd modal modulation is necessitated by an initial, carefully placed contrapuntal moment, wherein if one chooses to apply some seemingly logical or necessary ficta to one note often to avoid a tritone harmony) another ficta is required on some nearby subsequent note, which itself will necessitate another ficta on some subsequent note. This domino effect of ficta continues until the end of the work, by which time all flats are either flattened or sharpened. Pieces of this style tend to follow progression of flats and modulate from some modal center of C or G to some center on C-flat (B) or G-flat (F-sharp). The pieces are rarely (perhaps only one know example) notated with the ficta given; these conceits are often obscured and only suggested by the text (title or lyrics), shape of the music given (as in the circular work Salve Radix), and/or by some canonic key. This conceit gives the work a modal “spiral” progression, spiraling around the circle of 4ths, and hence the name “modal spiral.”

We, however, are not dealing with spirals in this work, but helices. Thus, this work has two contrasting spirals, one moving forward through the piece and one moving backwards. Though we will not hear the piece played backwards, the modal scaffolding of the work presents two intertwining modal layers. At times, one layer will be more present than the other, but occasionally both appear together in equal proportion, creating moments of high pitch density and dissonance. Consequently, the harmonic scheme of the work follows two intertwined and chirally opposed modal spirals, namely a “modal helix.”

In addition to these two contrasting modal spirals, this work also presents two intertwined and contrasting rhythmic layers, which emerge both through cross-related, indivisible accent patterns and through the alternation between two tempos, which are related through a dectadic rhythmic hierarchy.

This helical, modulatory form was selected due to the tuning of the pipe organ, which is not in equal temperament. Thus, “key signatures” distal from C-major will sound very “out of tune.” Consequently, the work slowly progresses us from something that will sound highly “in tune” to something that sounds highly “out of tune:” G-major/mixolydian to F-sharp (G-flat) major/mixolydian. In my mind, this progression from a harmonic space familiar to us (“in tune”) to a space that is perhaps wholly alien sounding (“out of tune”), stands as a musical counterpart to X-ray crystallography.

In X-ray crystallography, one takes images that are simple geometric projections of more complex structures; these simple images, taken from various angles and giving various projections, must then be collectively interpreted to understand the 3-dimensional structure of an object that is not directly or easily observable. For example, the famous Photo-51 is not a helical image but an X-shape. It takes much experience as an X-ray crystallographer and understanding of the chemical structure of crystals to know that such a shape is indicative of a helix.

Thus, when we see or when Rosalind saw Photo-51, we are only seeing a projection, something that only points to the complete reality of something but does not and cannot give us a complete representation of it. To get a better understanding of the real object itself, we must take many projections (or have foreknowledge of many projections) and consider them collectively.

Similarly, a tuning system is like a complex crystalline structure, and a key (or mode) is only a particular projection of that pitch space, which itself is only one possible pitch space (or crystalline structure) possible in the universe of pitch. Thus, we can take a projection of our pitch space, let’s say G-major; given the pitch space we are imaging, G-major is clear and seemingly understandable, but taken from another vantage point, let’s say F-sharp major, the image is very different and seemingly unrelated, though both are projections of the same pitch object. To understand all this pitch space, we need to take and compare each projection, each key/mode progressively, juxtapositionally, and collectively. Ultimately, our pitch space resides behind these projections, and the universe of all possible pitch spaces is behind this singular crystalline pitch structure, which itself is merely a one configuration or metaphorical projection of all possible pitch spaces.

Photo-51 is only one projection of a vastly dense and complex 3-dimensional structure. Similarly, when we listen to the harmonic transformation of this organ from “in tune” to “out of tune,” we are observing singular projections, sometimes in succession and sometimes in juxtaposition, of a vastly more complex structure, which itself is not as easily observable. As Rosalind unraveled the mystery of life through the lens of X-ray projections of a crystal, we similarly unravel the life of an instrument through the various projections of its inner, metaphorical DNA that determines all its pitch capabilities: melody, harmony, counterpoint, mode, ambitus, and timbre. We cannot necessarily see the mechanisms (physical or mathematical) that give it such a “crystalline” structure, but we can indirectly observe the crystal through the projections of various tonalities and modalities.

ABOUT ROSALIND FRANKLIN:
Rosalind Franklin (1920 – 1958) was a British chemist and X-ray crystallographer, whose pioneering work was pivotal to our present understanding of the molecular structure of DNA, as well as RNA, viruses, coal, and graphite. Rosalind is best known now for her work on the X-ray diffraction imaging of DNA crystals during her time at Kind’s College in London. Her X-ray diffraction pattern, Photo-51, was the image that ultimately led to the deduction that DNA has a double helix structure.

Rosalind’s significant contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were largely unrecognized during her life, her work and data having been taken, used, and uncredited by the commonly recognized scientists James Watson (b. 1928) and Francis Crick (1916 – 2004), who were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1962, along with Maurice Wilkins, “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material.”

Rosalind’s contributions in deciphering the structure of DNA also went unrecognized by the Nobel Prize committee. Franklin was dead by the 1962 Nobel Prize award.  The current rules prohibiting posthumous nominations or splitting the Prizes more than three ways were not extant until 1974, thus allowing the Prize committees to nominate Rosalind anytime between 1962 and 1974. However, the seminal papers of Watson and Crick did not properly cite Rosalind’s work and so few people knew of her contributions until much later.

Beginning in 1975, Rosalind Franklin’s contributions have been publicized and vindicated.  Watson and Crick, despite their highly questionable research and citation practices and perhaps conscious exploitations of a disempowered female colleague, still hold the recognition of the Nobel Prize and title “discovers of DNA.”

Rosalind Franklin died in 1958 at the age of 37 from ovarian cancer contracted from working intimately with radioactive materials during her work in X-ray crystallography. Both Watson and Crick have lived long and productive lives, Francis Crick lived to 88 and James Watson is still alive at the age of 93.  Likely, their longevity owes to not having had to work with highly radioactive X-ray technology during the mid 20th-century to make their “discovery.”
The inscription on her tombstone reads:

IN MEMORY OF
ROSALIND ELSIE FRANKLIN
DEARLY LOVED ELDER DAUGHTER OF
ELLIS AND MURIEL FRANKLIN
25TH JULY 1920 – 16TH APRIL 1958
SCIENTIST
HER RESEARCH AND DISCOVERIES ON
VIRUSES REMAIN OF LASTING BENEFIT
TO MANKIND
ת נ צ ב ה

The final characters on the tombstone are the Hebrew initials for “her soul shall be bound in the bundle of life.”

For a complete performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OD5QZEVXGCY

A work for thee unaccompanied voices  - male or female - that are low, medium, and high. Work premiered by Quince Ensemble in March, 2022.

Text for the work was adapted by Jordan Alexander Key from the First Criminal Trial of Oscar Wilde (April 26 to May 1, 1895), from the April 29 testimony of Oscar Wilde, cross-examined by prosecution attorney Charles Gill.

To the memory of Oscar Wilde:
May we never forget the atrocities we have committed upon one another
in the name of false prophets, senseless religions, and twisted moralities, lest we return to the wickedness of our past. - Jordan Alexander Key

For a complete performance recording and video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZQWsroyKj0

This is a work for organ based on the open motiv of the medieval chant "Tantum Ergo." The work is in four sections, which may be played as independent pieces or subsets for liturgical use or as the complete set. The first performance was given by organist Matt Gender.

For a complete performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnBqrB5X7xw

A work for cello and piano, written for and premiered by the Formosa Duo in 2021.

Dr. Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell (b. 1943) is a British astrophysicist from Northern Ireland who, as a postgraduate student in 1967, discovered the first radio pulsars. The discovery was recognized by the award of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics but, despite being the first person to discover the pulsars, she was not one of the recipients of the prize.

The paper announcing the discovery of pulsars had five authors. Bell's thesis supervisor Antony Hewish was listed first, Bell Burnell second. Hewish was awarded the Nobel Prize, along with the astronomer Martin Ryle. While many prominent astronomers criticized Burnell’s omission from the Nobel Prize, she played down this controversy, saying, "I believe it would demean Nobel Prizes if they were awarded to research students, except in very exceptional cases, and I do not believe this is one of them." The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in its press release announcing the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics, cited Ryle and Hewish for their pioneering work in radio-astrophysics, with particular mention of Ryle's work on aperture-synthesis technique, and Hewish's decisive role in the discovery of pulsars. Nothing was said of Burnell’s critical work and pivotal discovery, upon which her advisors’, Ryle’s and Hewish’s, research was unquestionably founded.

That Bell did not receive recognition in the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physics has been a point of controversy ever since. She helped build the Interplanetary Scintillation Array over two years and initially noticed the anomaly, sometimes reviewing as much as 96 feet (29 m) of paper data per night. Bell later said that she had to be persistent in reporting the anomaly in the face of skepticism from Hewish, who was initially insistent that it was due to man-made radio interference.

Bell Burnell is currently Visiting Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Mansfield College. She was President of the Institute of Physics between 2008 and 2010. In February 2018 she was appointed Chancellor of the University of Dundee. In 2018, Bell Burnell was awarded the Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, worth three million dollars (£2.3 million), for her discovery of radio pulsars. She donated all of the money "to fund women, under-represented ethnic minority, and refugee students [seeking] to become physics researchers.” These funds are to be administered by the Institute of Physics under the “Bell Burnell Graduate Scholarship Fund.”

For a complete performance video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oK-EWKytoZw

With the theme of “teaching and learning” during 2021’s Fresh Inc Festival, I have designed this work to display some underexplored and newly developed rhythmic possibilities in music: namely, indivisible poly-mensuralism and “pan-rational” time signatures. This work also uses techniques in algorithmic and fractal-based music composition, which I have developed over the past five years to aid in my creative process. Thus, this work is both a learning experience for me as the composer, exploring some of the possibilities of poly-mensuralism and pantationalism, and a learning experience for the performer in parsing these rhythmic stratified and indivisible structures along with this modified system of time signature.

In addition to the learning process of the composer and performer, the fractal-based processes used to generate much of the rhythmic and pitch material in the first and second parts of the piece are created using a simple machine learning neural network. When I first begin developing some basic algorithmic and iterative processes to generate motivically related but rapidly developing and diverging musical material from rudimentary pitch and rhythmic cells, I found the process very long. These algorithms could generate vast arrays of potential musical variations and derivations, but most of these possibilities generated by the computer I would find uncompelling. I had to sort through a lot of data and modify many satisfactory results into something I found more compelling. Upon the suggestion of my husband, I began to use a simple machine learning neural network to teach the machine the results I liked best and, consequently, teach the computer to find solutions that I would like based on the “training set” of successful matches. Rather than try and prescribe limitless parameters of what pleases me in music, I let me computer attempt to learn through sorting many results into best, good, satisfactory, bad, and poor categories, even using extant pieces of music I had previously written. Consequently, the computer would produce only results that would theoretically compel me and sound like me. Of course, there are always potential false positives, but I hope with further use, this network might continue to prove extremely useful as I continue to compose using various generative processes.

As such, I am teaching my computer to not write music blindingly based only an iterative process, but to sort through those iterations and produce those which I will potentially think are the best. Thus, not only is this work a learning experience for me and the performer, but also the machine which aided in the process.

For a complete performance recording with score-video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OzMy5SjsfNg

A sextet for Flute, Bass Clarinet, Vibraphone/Bongos, Piano, Violin, and Cello written for and premiered by Bold City Contemporary Ensemble in Obctober 2020.

For a complete recording see: https://soundcloud.com/jordanalexanderkey/sets/jordan-alexander-key-woodwind

This is the Passion of Alan Turing, savior in the 20th century.

This is another work in an ongoing musical project, "The Sacred Atheist Catalog," which works to create a series of "Passions" and other works for significant figures in science, mathematics, and philosophy, who challenged the status quo of their day, often questioning the notion of god and/or institutionalized religion while also making a significant positive impact on their and our present world. This project recognizes the dearth of unabashedly atheistic music in the classical music tradition, and attempts to create a new repertoire empowering those who have, do, and wish to challenge the privilege of the religious, work against the marginalization of the actively "anti-religious" (not to be confused with "secular"), and promote a new future that seeks to relocate morality, virtue, and "messiah-hood" within the prerogative of humanity itself rather than some hypothetical, imagined, and likely ill-conceived divinity.

For specific details on each movement, follow the link to the SoundCloud page for the work and read the information section.

Performance recordings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpnxTi0-UPc&list=PLly22ePCV8pdBUV1pdTCX31sz-oo9e8Q-&index=1

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Verses from the Scroll of Sondering: Six Verses after the Hand Scroll of Taihaku Ishiyama.

Written for Bold City Contemporary Ensemble (Spring 2020)
Commissioned by the Harn Museum of Art (Spring 2020) for the exhibition "Tempus Fugit: Time Flies"

First performance: Sarah Jane Young (flute), Boja Kragulj (clarinet), Philip Pan (violin), Galen Dean Peiskee (piano), Charlotte Mabrey (percussion)

The exhibition in which Ishiyama’s “Landscape” was displayed, Tempus Fugit :: 光陰矢の如し:: Time Flies, is a “reflection on time and its many meanings.” In so doing, the broader concept of time was applied to the Japanese art collections at the Harn Museum as an “investigative tool” to understand three key aspects of time in art: first, how time has been “measured in the visual record;” second, how art objects can embody several moments in time; and third, how artists experience time during the production of their work. Furthermore, the ritualization and celebration of the natural world, often oriented around cycles of life and seasons, and the acknowledgment of mortality are also recurring themes in Japanese art and so were consequently highlighted within this exhibition.

Along with the obvious theme of “tempus” within the exhibition, the idea of “fugit” (flying) also colored the content and structuring of the exhibition, inspiring the curator, Allysa B. Payton, to feature works that to some extent incorporated birds. Thus, the theme of birds emerges continually throughout this musical work, not only in the titles, but in the sounds within and structure of the music. Bird calls are imitated by various means and instruments throughout the verses. The imagery of birds is further musically suggested through the frequent implementation of canonic and fugal writing in the verses, two forms which themselves originally take their names (e.g. “fuga,” Italian for “flight”) and forms from phenomena like birds in flight or animals in chase.

Regardless of the “fugitive” avian motif that embellishes the exhibition and this work, in light of the theme of cycles of time and life, I was immediately drawn to the concept of “sonder” to motivate the purpose of my work generally. “Sonder” is a neologism coined in 2012 by John Koenig in his project The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the goal of which is to invent new words for emotions that currently lack words to express them. Sonder, one of these new words, is derived from the German “sonder” (meaning “special”) and the French “sonder” (meaning “to probe”), and is “the profound feeling of realization that everyone, including strangers passed in the street, has a life as complex as one’s own, which they are constantly living despite one’s personal lack of awareness of it.” While “sonder” is not typically presented as a verb, I have presented it as such here, for I often find that it is important for one to engage with the emotion of sonder by actively “sondering.” Sondering is perhaps one of the most powerful instances of empathy one can have, for it is an active acknowledgement of the profound individuality and complexity of another, recognizing that their life is just as meaningful as your own, if not more so. You take a moment to ponder on the vast details of a life, briefly intersecting your own, and humble yourself by acknowledging that such details are beyond your comprehending in one lifetime because they themselves occupy such a space of time; however, they are not beyond your appreciation and contemplation.

When we sonder about someone (or something), we attempt to grasp the vastness of the details that make a person, but we can never know the complete story, moment by moment, in perfect resolution. Thus, at best, we do not access continuous piece through knowing someone, but fragments of their life; by studying a stranger we only see through the smallest window into their person. Even the person you love most in the world beyond yourself, is still a secret vortex of consciousness wrapped within the enigma of a mind not your own.

Our own memory is also fragmentary, and thus we cannot even clearly understand our own life and the course that took us to where we are today. The person one once was is not necessarily how one is now, in character or appearance; the path of life has many stories that mold us inexorably to ourselves, but the path to that present self is not always clear to others or even ourselves due to the constant imperfect metamorphosis and decay of memory. Ultimately, we apprehend not continuous narratives but rather verses of a life, small kernels of stories, details, events both joyous and tragic; they might seem disjointed, perhaps not clearly related but only through their seemingly arbitrary convergence in a person. However, such a person is proof to some narrative’s existence and the integrity of its path through this cosmos beside your own.

Thus, when I see the hand scroll of Ishiyama, I see the symbolism of “eternal” and transient cycles of time – the seasons, birth and death, the precession of the heavens – but I also see a more complex and unique story, only given through the scantest of details: the work of art. Ishiyama’s scroll is an encapsulation of a life up to the point of that work’s creation and conclusion. Furthermore, the work itself has found a life of its own beyond the preview of Ishiyama, finding its way to the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville, Florida to have a work of music written about it nearly a century after the scroll’s inception by a composer also born a century after and a world away from the artist. However, all I can see of such complex narratives is the scroll, in a singular moment, as I stand before it, atemporally enshrined in a prism of glass within the citadel humankind has created against time’s unremitting cycles of decay: the museum. Furthermore, my access to this passage into another’s life is further obscured by the museum’s capacity to only display a third of the scroll at a time, not to mention my meager ability to view only a few inches of the scroll in any moment.

In the face of such barriers to understanding and empathy, should we concede to seemingly intractable demands on our mental and physical capacities? Since I cannot hope to ever apprehend someone’s life and the feeling of fully having lived such a life, should I not attempt understanding since failure is certain? Should I refrain from venturing through a museum because I know that I will not only fail to appreciate all the objects and ideas contained within but also cannot expect to ever deeply understand every constituent aspect of each artifact and concept I encounter? Beyond base and belligerent self-centeredness, the greatest barrier to our expression of empathy is our fear of our own inadequacy in relocating the center of our universe to something other than our self. However, learning to refocus this center better, despite the assurance of ultimate failure in perfect refocusing, is paramount to the progress of the human project. Empathy, however imperfectly executed, is our best aegis against our own self-wrought destruction. Thus, the action of sondering is yet our most well-suited forge to craft such a shield as a bulwark against the uncertain and unforgiving flight of time and chaos of life.

For a performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_w_4XR3tT0

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Chorale Prelude from the "Codex Organiordano" - Vom Himmel Hoch, "From Heaven above to Earth I Come" (Double Fugue on a Tonal Spiral)

The "Codex Organiordano" is a work in progress, containing contrapuntal works for organ, which demonstrate different contrapuntal conceits and concepts given known chorale tunes and the contrapuntal potential they possess. These pieces are pedagogical and vary in difficulty focusing the development of various skills for the undergraduate organist. Thus, this collection works both as a teaching aid for organists, composers, and those just generally interested in counterpoint. Vom Himmel Hoch is a double fugue on a tonal spiral (modulating through all the major keys). Both fugal subjects are derived from the first phrase of the chorale tune; much of the countersubject material is derived from various phrases of the choral tune. Many of the subsequent phrases of the choral appear in full during the fugue, suggesting that the double fugue could, in fact, be a triple or quadruple fugue. The piece is for the Advent and Christmas Season.

Winner of the 2020 AVS Maurice Gardner Competition for Composers. For a synthesized recording of the piece see: https://soundcloud.com/jordanalexanderkey/viola-sonata-no-1-ceol-mor

"Ceol Mor" is the first part to a larger work for solo viola. This work (both this part and the whole), takes its inspiration from traditional forms, sounds, and rhythms of Scottish bagpipe music, particularly from two primary genres: "Ceol mor" (a Gaelic word meaning "big music") and "Ceol baeg" (meaning "little music"). "Ceol Mor" (also know as "Piobaireachd," pronounced "pee-oh-brach") is a traditional form of Scottish bagpipe music from the Middle Ages, formed around very basic themes, often only a few notes, and continuous variations of that theme using a system of elaborate embellishments. While this movement uses no specific piobaireachd for its material, the repetitive structure with slight variations in motivic and rhythmic execution with a slow build in tempo do pay homage to the style. Being a bagpiper himself, Jordan Alexander Key often searches for new ways to use the bagpipe in music as well as new ways to envision or contextualize traditional genres of Scottish music in "classical" concert venues. His new works for bagpipe have received international recognition, publication, and performance; most recently his work, "Microtonal Piobaireachd on Prime Numbers" was the winner of the Piobaireachd Society's "Modern Pibroch Library” 2018 competition.

For a complete performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2K4mGb2wAI

A piece of atheistic sacrosanctity for pipe organ on the "Passion" of Socrates. Taking the traditional idea of the "Passion" of Jesus of Nazareth, this work is part of a larger series of pieces about the "passions" (martyrdoms) of various figures in secular and atheistic thought throughout history, from Socrates to Giordano Bruno and Hypatia of Alexandria among others. The Passion of Socrates is a work-in-progress about the life and death of the great ancient martyr, whose life and death interestingly parallel that of Jesus and whose teachings (via Plato) have done much to influence our culture and world.

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Chorale Prelude from the "Codex Organiordano" - Vom Himmel Hoch, "From Heaven above to Earth I Come" (Polyrhythmic Double Ostinato)

For a performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkKjw6vb1DU

The "Codex Organiordano" is a work in progress, containing contrapuntal works for organ, which demonstrate different contrapuntal conceits and concepts given known chorale tunes and the contrapuntal potential they possess. These pieces are pedagogical and vary in difficulty focusing the development of various skills for the undergraduate organist. Thus, this collection works both as a teaching aid for organists, composers, and those just generally interested in counterpoint.

Vom Himmel Hoch is a double ostinato (right hand vs. pedal) in a polyrhythmic relationship. Both ostinatos are derived from the first phrase of the chorale tune: the right hand is simply the chorale tune in equal 16ths on repeat while the pedal is based on the first descending minor-third of the same phrase of the chorale (the highest note of each group forms a descending minor-third).

This double ostinato between the left hand and feet is polyrhythmic. While the right hand plays repeating groups of 7 16th notes, the pedal plays repeating groups of 7 8th notes. The accents of these cells cycle every measure, but the pedal's accent contradicts the right hand's accent in the middle of the measure, shifting the accent of the second 16th note cell by one 16th note. The chorale tune  (cantus firmus) these ostinatos accompany is played in the left hand in parallel tritones.

This rhythmic/melodic complex is repeated thrice, with the hands modulating down an octave each time while the pedal part modulates down a perfect fifth each time. This descent of all three parts is a theological metaphor for the descent from heaven of the Holy Trinity. The sound of the piece slowly transforms from something bright and declamatory to gruff and muddy by the end, symbolizing the transformation  of God from the ethereal of Heaven to the corporeal of Earth. While tritones are often asociated with evil in classical music, I have here reappropriated them to symbolize the trinity, since a tritone is itself "three tones" (three whole steps, e.g. C-D-E-F#) bound together in one, as is the Holy Trinity "three-in-one."

The piece is for the Advent and Christmas Season.

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): Chorale Prelude from the "Codex Organiordano" - Aberystwyth, "When in Dust" (a retrograde double canon)

For a performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7aIUV_2ZOE

The "Codex Organiordano" is a work in progress, containing contrapuntal works for organ, which demonstrate different contrapuntal conceits and concepts given known chorale tunes and the contrapuntal potential they possess. These pieces are pedagogical and vary in difficulty focusing the development of various skills for the undergraduate organist. Thus, this collection works both as a teaching aid for organists, composers, and those just generally interested in counterpoint.

Aberystwyth, "When in Dust to You" is a double canon. The first canon is between the outer voices (pedal and left hand); this canon is the hymn tune played against itself in retrograde (with a preamble and coda also built into the canon). The second canon is in the right hand and is the hymn tune played in normal canon at the octave; this canon begins after the preamble and the first phrase of the hymn-tune in the left hand. This movement  is designed for a first-year, second semester student of organ and teaches phrasing and equality of parts. As a contrapuntal teaching piece, this work also demonstrates the use of cross-related ficta (lowered and raised leading tone) as well as the use of double-leading tone cadences in a modern context.

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): “Nachi no Taki (那智滝), On the Inkjet Scrolls of Tomohiro Muda (32-bit) compressed,” a Black-MIDI Dance (electro-acoustic)

Premier: November 17th, 2019; Gainesville, Florida, Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSDnzEu9gPg&t

Commissioner: The Harn Museum of Art and the University of Floirda
Choreographers: Maria Garcia & Emma Wedemeyer
Music Composition: Jordan Alexander Key
Backdrop Art: Tomohiro Muda
Video Art: Jordan Alexander Key: (“Nachi no Taki, a Dialogue with Tradition”)

Jordan Alexander Key’s black MIDI composition is a response to Muda Tomohiro’s inkjet print mounted as a hanging scroll Mizu no Bo [M-08], 2012 on view in the gallery. Black MIDI is a compositional process using MIDI sound files to create a piece that contains an extremely large number of notes (in the millions to even trillions) that is so dense that if it was written in traditional music notation it would appear to be a mass of black ink.

Nachi no Taki (那智滝), On the Inkjet Scrolls of Tomohiro Muda attempts to sonify the artistic conversation between tradition and modernity present in the work of Tomohiro Muda. This work uses sounds that are fundamentally acoustic and “human" generated as well as sounds that are fundamentally digital and "computer" generated, juxtaposing the "real" and "unreal," the "possible" and "impossible," the "human" and the "super-human" to comment on our present position in the creation of art, a position that grapples regularly between "tradition" and the future.

For a complete performance recording with score-video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B4p0JjK-so

A trio for Clarinet, Violin, and Piano written for and premiered by The Bold City Contemporary Ensemble of Jacksonville, Florida, this work attempts to make a mockery of and musically challenge/problematize the suggested violence and toxic nationalism inherent in the tradition of "marches." As we all revel in the glory and celebration of a march, we are often celebrating and endorsing the likely, if not inevitable, death of those marching. Furthermore, even if the march is not militarily oriented, it still rests in a violent tradition of propagandized warmongering.

This work begins with a "tongue-in-cheek," cheery march that slowly dissolves, reemerging as a slightly more sinister, militaristic march. This march also works itself out, decaying again, to reemerge as something only vaguely reminiscent to a march in tempo and strong, regulated beat structure. This third, chaotic march gradually transforms into abstract chaos, reminiscent of battle, the implicit ultimate result of any "march" activity. This progression represents the easy and often subtle path from innocent celebration and festivity to violence, war, and mass death.

Following this battle, a wasteland emerges, with only fragments of the marches persisting. Here, the implicit consequence of the tradition of march is symbolized in the final death of the music, the end to the pulsing that is both the dissolution of the march and the heartbeat of our metaphorical "hero," who marched to their death for our celebratory delight.

Jordan Alexander Key (b.1990): "Fractal Music No. 1, Iterations," work for large chamber ensemble (Flute, Soprano Sax, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn in F, Trumpet in B-flat, Trombone, Tuba, 3 percussionists - Temple Blocks/Chimes, Marimba, Vibraphone - and Piano)

To hear the music see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrJzniXzo3U

Fractal Music No. 1, “Iterations” is the first in a series of pieces, exploring the use of iterative processes in music. This work does not abstractly suggest the idea of fractal, but actually used a fractal process to generate the music you’ll hear. Jordan has always had a strong interest in mathematics and the sciences, having studied mathematics in undergraduate with the original goal of becoming a physicist. Now in the world of music as a composer, Jordan regularly finds ways to embed his music with mathematical structure and process, whether obvious or obscure. This piece used three simple melodic ideas, to which are applied a single iterative process that generates the successive music. Though mathematical in its generation, Jordan still uses taste and caprice to compose his materials; while the notes, rhythms, and registers you hear are procedurally generated, the orchestration of the material among the instruments present is totally by human choice. Thus, this work is not subservient to a mathematical process, but uses one to progressively discover the potential of a given idea under particular parameters and then color those potential variations, expansions, contractions, etc. by artistic fancy.

Chants for the Church of Naught ("Credo in Deum Nulla")

A partial reading by the Tampa Bay Master Chorale is available to hear at this link: https://soundcloud.com/jordanalexanderkey/chants-for-the-church-of-naught-credo-in-deum-nulla-intro-only-partial-reading

If you are an atheist and know other atheists who like to sing, or if you are a generally open-minded choral director, a complete performance of this work is needed!

This work is intrinsically theatrical, evoking traditional images and musics of the Christian church and its ritualism, however re-contextualizing such devices through a lens that both problematizes religiosity and "sanctifies" non-religion and the pursuit of truth over faith.

Atheists are a minority class of people that include all races, genders, and sexualities; furthermore, atheists have been and are often presently unrepresented and silenced in America’s “Christian democracy.” Atheists are regularly persecuted in historically fundamentally zealous communities, as are common in the United States today. This work was spawned from a Florida atheist community’s recognized need for openly and bluntly atheist music, particularly in the classical and choral genres, which are overwhelmingly populated with works that are either spiritually nondescript or deeply religious. There is, as of yet, no substantial body of vocal or choral work within classical music that is openly atheist, speaking to a sacredness of truth and knowledge rather than imaginary beings and ancient doctrines. As an atheist composer closeted for most of my life as both gay and anti-religious due to the bigotry of my surrounding communities, I feel compelled to create and put forward works that encourage atheists to come out and speak up for what they believe (or don’t believe) in the face of a society that might fear the challenge to their traditional institutions of non-conformist oppression. Atheism embodies any person of any race, gender, sexuality, nationality, age, weight, etc. who’s thoughts and ways of life challenge and problematize entrenched institutions of religion and the social issues such institutions have historically and presently engendered.

For performance recording with score-video see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiQSqwP5R-A

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): "Meditation after the Death of Stephen Hawking," trio for soprano, flute, double bass, and fixed media on digital excerpts from Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Malala Yousafzai, Jane Goodall, and Wangari Maathai.

Thank you, Stephen Hawking, for being an inspiration throughout my life, showing me the value of lifelong learning, impassioned teaching, unabashed imagination, and perseverance in the face of adversity.

Written for the Fonema Consort

Premier: March 29, 2019, The University of Florida, Friends of Music Room
Performance: The Fonema Consort

Also available on SoundCloud at: https://soundcloud.com/jordanalexanderkey

For performance recording see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvzTyPP2pQQ

Bicinia (plural of Bicinium) is an invented word, reminiscent of Latin, from the early 16th century. Historically, bicinia were two-part compositions from the late Renaissance and Baroque designed for teaching both singing and counterpoint. Throughout the 16th century, numerous volumes of bicinia were published throughout Germany, the Low Countries, Poland, and Italy. In modern usage, a bicinium can refer to any composition from the Renaissance for two voices; consequently, stand-alone duets (not part of larger works like Masses) from the 15th century are also now frequently referred to as bicinia. Not until the term “invention” arose in the mid-Baroque with the first compositions of this type by Francesco Antonio Bonporti and came into full usage with the popularization of the 15 Inventions by Johann Sebastian Bach did the term “bicinia” fall out of use for two-voiced compositions. However, by the late 18th century, both “Bicinium” and “invention” were mostly abandoned as genres, and most people returned to the common appellation “duet” or “duo” for compositions for two monophonic instruments.

Given the historical connotations of this word, Bicinia is referring directly to duets from the 15th and 16th century. However, this work, being “three pieces on rhythmic proportions,” does not suggest a pedagogical piece for counterpoint. Rather, this piece pays homage to the little known sub-genre of mensural bicinia, which attempted to teach the nuances of advanced mensural techniques to composers and performers. There are very few extant examples of these pieces and fewer still have made it into the “canon” of Renaissance music despite their mathematical complexity and virtuosic understanding of counterpoint and mensuration.  They are unrivaled in rhythmic technique until the music of Henry Cowell and Conlon Nancarrow in the early and mid 20th century. The largest collection of such pieces come from the Baldwin Commonplace Book from England in the late 16th century, wherein there is a whole section dedicated to complex mensural bicinia, avant-garde for their time. The most virtuosic pieces from this collection include those by John Baldwin and his colleague in the Royal Chapel, Nathaniel Giles. Composers from the continent also wrote a few such pieces in the late 15th and early 16th century: Alexander Agricola, Jacob Obrecht, Johannes Tinctoris, and Johannes Stockem to name a few.

Given this historical connection, Bicinia can be understood as a convolution - in the mathematical and aesthetic sense - of Renaissance idioms and modern aesthetics, demonstrating the rhythmic capabilities, quirks, and limitations of our present system of musical notation. Bicinia filters a music from half a millennium ago through the sieve centuries of musical development, hopefully offering us something worthy of the 21st century.

Link to audio: https://soundcloud.com/jordanalexanderkey/saxophone-quartet-polyptych-doch-nichts-ist-genug

A set of six contrapuntal style variations for saxophone quartet (Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Baritone saxophone) on the chorale tune "Es ist genug" ("It is enough").

The first variation is a reinterpretation of a Renaissance Chanson on a cantus firmus in a rhyzomic style a la Alexander Agricola. The second variation is a post-minimalist chaconne, making a simple harmonic progression over the chorale tune. The third variation is in the style of a Baroque-like fugue and chorale fantasia. The fourth variation is a chorale couched in the guise of New Complexity and is dedicated to composer Paul Koonce. The fifth variation is a short a canonic sonata movement a la the late Classical or early Romantic period, The last movement is a fantasia in the style of Ligeti.

1. Chanson, “Wie doch die Zeit vergeht…” ("How the time does fly...")
2. Chaconne, “Das ist doch keine Kunst” ("There is nothing to it")
3. Fugue, “Nimm doch etwas Kuchen” ("Have some cake")
4. Chorale, “Doch. Es ist mein Fernweh…” ("Still. It is my wanderlust")
5. Canon, “Hatte ich es doch nur gewusst!” ("If only I had known")
6. Fantasia, “Versuch’s doch mal!” ("Have a go at it")

Jordan Alexander Key (b. 1990): "To Say Pi," a Black-MIDI Ballet (electro-acoustic);

Video recording of dance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poMCrv7hSv4
Audio recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-B_NdbgEqWY

Performance: Digital, multi-channel work for dancers.

Performances:
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, DC - May 17 & 18, 2019)
The Dance Place (Washington, DC 20017 - December 8 & 9, 2018)

Visual Art: "To Say Pi" (Circular Cantor Set with Mountain-Scape) by Jordan Alexander Key (Fall, 2018)

To Say Pi was commissioned under the National Science Foundation’s grant-1751989, awarded to Dr. Leslie Lamberson and sponsored by Drexel University. Special thanks to Lucy Bowen, choreographer of the dance component of this mini ballet.

To Say Pi focuses on a seemingly simple aspect of mathematics that makes its way into every part of our lives. We often first hear of pi as "the circumference of a circle divided by the diameter of that same circle" or only casually referenced in formulas like that of the area of a circle: A=pi(r^2). Pi lives in all things circular, cylindrical, and spherical in nature as a result, but maybe less clear is that it is also apparent in periodic things. For instance, the orbits of the planets around the sun and the sun around the galactic core are governed by mechanics that rely on pi.

One of the most surprising aspects of pi that this piece focuses on is its irrationality. There exists no pair of integers a and b such that a/b = pi. We can approximate it as well as we like, but this was not even proven to be true until the 1760s by Johann Lambert. For reference, modern calculus was largely finished by 1687. There were hints of the number’s own intractability as far in the past as the ancient Egyptians. They determined values in terms of continued fractions and noted that they seemed to be able to improve on these values without much thought. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the Indian mathematician, Madhava determined a certain infinite sum would converge to pi. 200 years later, Liebniz would make the same discovery in Europe. Both the continued fraction representation and the Madhava-Liebniz Series, along with some less important representations make their way into the fabric of this piece. These mathematical structures inform and create melodies and rhythm to the limit of the perception of the human ear. Utilizing these two particular mathematical structures also ties together the work of many cultures: African, Indian, and European across many generations and emphasizes the depth of history and collaboration by numerous, often nameless, people that gave us our current understanding of pi.

To Say Pi attempts to bring together not only mathematics and music in a non-trivial way but also bridge numerous musical genres, looking both to music’s past and the future of music in the 21st century. Just as composer Conlon Nancarrow realized the limitations of human performability and consequently sought new modes of expression in the mechanical performers of his day – player pianos – To Say Pi seeks modes of expression in the digital capabilities of the computer. Nearly half a century ago, Nancarrow attempted to build his own mechanized orchestra and ultimately failed, but now at every composer’s disposal are the nearly infinite possibilities of MIDI in conjunction with synthesized and sampled sound. Unfortunately, many of MIDI’s digital possibilities to supersede typical styles of performance have often been under utilized. Thus, To Say Pi exploits the digital orchestra allowed through MIDI not merely to synthetically replicate what human orchestras can do or create sounds wholly unique to the digital world, but rather to create a music of familiar sounds organized in a truly superhuman fashion, pointing to a new “third-stream” music in the space between sub-genres of digital pop music, like Black-MIDI, and 20th century classical music, like Sound Mass, New Complexity, and Post-Minimalism.

One recurrent thought in both popular culture and my mind as I wrote this piece was “How can math communicate in a way that is beyond words and perhaps universally intelligible?”. One of my sincere hopes is that if an alien intelligence were to watch this piece carefully enough they would walk away understanding that humans know something deep and beautiful about the relationship of pi to the cosmos.

Premier, October 13, 2018, University of Florida -Saxophonist, Laurent Estoppey. A recorded performance can be found at (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfRC1T1N3mU).

Astrology, as it is known today, was developed between the fourth and first centuries BCE in the Mediterranean Basin. At this time, the beginning of the year was marked by the Spring Equinox (approximately the 20th of March) when the Sun rose in the constellation Aries. Around 125 BCE, however, following many centuries of previous observations, the Greek astrologer, Hipparchus, noticed that the Sun was not rising in exactly the same position in the sky every few years, and over long periods of time, its position on the morning of the Spring Equinox changed significantly. He discovered that the Sun gradually moved in relation to the Zodiac. This motion would later be called the precession of the equinox.

This precession is caused in part by the tilt of the Earth, spinning on an axis slanted at about 23 degrees in relation to its orbit around the Sun. Many know that this slant accounts for the change of seasons throughout Earth’s revolution. However, because Earth is not a perfect sphere, it also wobbles slightly as it spins on its axis. It is also this wobble that causes the Zodiac to move slightly backwards in the sky each year. That movement is hardly noticeable, however, being only one degree every 71 years. This movement is slight from year to year, but consequently, over many centuries, precession can make a significant difference. It takes approximately 2,150 years for the Spring Equinox to move from one zodiac sign to another and approximately 25,800 years for the wobble to make that point return to its previously held position in the Zodiac. This complete cycle, taking almost 26 thousand years, is called the Great Year.
The Visions of Cataclysm is about the Ancient Grecian Stoic belief in the periodic destruction of the cosmos by a great conflagration every “Great Year.” The cosmos is then recreated, only to be destroyed again at the end of another new cycle. The Ancient Stoics believed that this Great Year (the complete cycle of the equinox through all zodiac signs) would end with the complete destruction of the cosmos in a conflagration or great cataclysmic fire, to then be recreated in a primordial state. The movements of this piece follow the progression of this Cosmic Consummation, called Ekpyrosis by the Greeks, from the final “Precession of the Equinox”, to the “Dance of Cataclysm” portrayed in the ancient Greek poem The Song of the Sybil, then “The Convocation” (“The Return of the Gods”) to destroy the universe, followed by the destruction of the universe in the Ekpyrosis or “The Great Conflagration,” and then ending with the “Primordial Return” to the beginning or the “Apocatastasis.”

Link to performance recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNkMCBwO9XQ  ----  "Threnody on the Death of Children" was written shortly after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school shooting in Florida this past February. Consequently, this work is inspired by recent and ongoing tragedies such as school shootings in the United States of America and the use of child soldiers in conflicts around the world as a by-product of global violence. While I cannot pretend to be able to truly empathize with the children and families directly impacted by gun violence, I feel a responsibility to speak out against these injustices with whatever means I possess.

Octet is intended to be a meditation on life from the perspective of the children living through these situations at the moment of this horrific culmination. In part, this piece also attempts to express the anger and contempt the composer and many others feel towards those in our society who continue to be apathetic towards gun regulation as well as those - like many of our politicians and the NRA - who happily profiteer from gun deregulation and manufacturing, murderously promoting violence in our homes, schools, nation, and world. As a consequence of this attempt at musical protest in a time of tragic loss, this music intertwines the emotion of mournfulness with those of fear, anger, horror, and dread, creating a work that bears the ugliness of our nation's current gun-financed state.

This piece was intended to be disconcerting and even harsh- to use unusual rhythmic structures to evoke anxiety and hysteria.  It pulls musical quotations from modern and historical pieces as well and plays those themes against each other to represent the discourse of history with the present and how our resultant collective actions and inactions have led to these events around the world.  It crescendos and decrescendos until a final culmination to juxtapose moments of narrow escape with the inevitable and terrible finale of a young life cut too short.

Premier: June 27 in Vienna, Austria (The Vienna Summer Music Festival), PHACE Ensemble

Performance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt-7n6z9lQ8

The doctrine you desire,
absolute, perfect,
dogma that alone provides wisdom,
does not exist.

Nor should you long
for a perfect doctrine....

Rather, you should long
for the perfection
of yourself.

Truth reveals itself
in enigma;
let us approach it
with wonder and awe
as diviners of its mystery.

(text adapted in part from Hermann Hesse's "Glass Bead Game" and Gene Roddenberry)

Recording with score-video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrUy4kXA7RU

Sonata for Flute No. 1, "The Vision of Cataclysm" (in five movements)

Movements:
1. Precession of the Equinox
2. The Vision of Cataclysm: “The Song of the Sybil”
3. De Regressu ad Deorum
4. Ekpyrosis: “The Great Conflagration”
5. Apocatastasis: “The Primordial Return”

Instrumentation:
Flute tripling on Alto flute and Piccolo
Piano with magnetic tape

Astrology, as it is known today, was developed between the fourth and first centuries BCE in the Mediterranean Basin. At this time, the beginning of the year was marked by the Spring Equinox (approximately the 20th of March) when the Sun rose in the constellation Aries. Around 125 BCE, however, following many centuries of previous observations, the Greek astrologer, Hipparchus, noticed that the Sun was not rising in exactly the same position in the sky every few years, and over long periods of time, its position on the morning of the Spring Equinox changed significantly. He discovered that the Sun gradually moved in relation to the Zodiac. This motion would later be called the precession of the equinox.

This precession is caused in part by the tilt of the Earth, spinning on an axis slanted at about 23 degrees in relation to its orbit around the Sun. Many know that this slant accounts for the change of seasons throughout Earth’s revolution. However, because Earth is not a perfect sphere, it also wobbles slightly as it spins on its axis. It is also this wobble that causes the Zodiac to move slightly backwards in the sky each year. That movement is hardly noticeable, however, being only one degree every 71 years. This movement is slight from year to year, but consequently, over many centuries, precession can make a significant difference. It takes approximately 2,150 years for the Spring Equinox to move from one zodiac sign to another and approximately 25,800 years for the wobble to make that point return to its previously held position in the Zodiac. This complete cycle, taking almost 26 thousand years, is called the Great Year.

The Vision of Cataclysm is about the Ancient Grecian Stoic belief in the periodic destruction of the cosmos by a great conflagration every “Great Year.” The cosmos is then recreated, only to be destroyed again at the end of another new cycle. The Ancient Stoics believed that this Great Year (the complete cycle of the equinox through all zodiac signs) would end with the complete destruction of the cosmos in a conflagration or great cataclysmic fire, to then be recreated in a primordial state. The movements of this piece follow the progression of this Cosmic Consummation, called Ekpyrosis by the Greeks, from the final “Precession of the Equinox”, to the “Vision of Cataclysm” portrayed in the ancient Greek poem The Song of the Sybil, then “De Regressu ad Deorum” (The Return of the Gods) to destroy the universe, followed by the destruction of the universe in the Ekpyrosis or “The Great Conflagration,” and then ending with the “Primordial Return” to the beginning or the “Apocatastasis.”