Turbulence
William Susman
About this work:
First performance was by flutist Andrew Bolotowsky at the Greenwich House in NYC in 1988.
Inspired by Debussy's Syrinx and Varèse's Density 21.5, Susman's youthful Turbulence offers a different sound world for the solo flutist. The score explores many extended flute techniques such as multi-phonics, jet whistles, key clicks, flutter-tongue, and glissandi as well as quarter-tones.
Much of Susman's work from the early 80s explores Fluid Mechanics and the photos from Milton Van Dyke's "An Album of Fluid Mechanics". Space, time, intensity and viscosity are properties of fluid mechanics. Susman drew correlations between these properties and those of acoustics applying them to music composition. An early use of repetitive rhythms and melodic lines can be heard that look forward to his work with Shepherd tones and subsequently the development of his sound in the 90s with montuños.
One such approach was creating a harmony in quarter-tones and clusters with quarter-tone intervals. This sound combined with a harsh and arresting rhythmic drive propel mnay of these early scores e.g., Streamlines (1984), and his grand orchestral divisi work Pentateuch (1983/84).
Many of the titles of these works from his 20s owe their names to fluid mechanics such as Trailing Vortices (1986) Streams (1984), Streamlines (1984), and Turbulence (1983) for solo flute.
It is apparent that the European formalistic and sonic tendencies of Penderecki, Xenakis and Ligeti all had a strong influence on Susman's early 20s. He ultimately moved away from this Eurocentric approach to a broader world view of sound and rhythm in the 90s and beyond.
Year composed: 1984
Duration: 00:04:30
Ensemble type: Solo instrument, non-keyboard:Flute
Instrumentation: 1 Flute
Instrumentation notes: extended techniques such as jet whistle, key clicks and multi-phonics as well as quarter-tones.