Colophons ("That other that ich not whenne"), reflecting pool / monument
Evan Johnson
About this work:
The quite extraordinarily awkward title, which refers parenthetically to a Middle English lament that has nothing to do with the piece at hand, reflects this work’s status as companion piece to Dehiscences, Lullay (“Thou nost whider it whil turne”) (2005) for piano and cassette. In the piano piece, staticky noise drowns out almost all of the sounding results of the pianist’s activity; here the tables are turned, and a flickeringly unstable drone on a detuned low violin string sets an impossible standard of quietness and fragility for the ensemble of voices that accompanies it. An intermittently repeated, fluttery “signal” from the violin beats time, demarcating a form based on bent, folded and otherwise contorted proportional structures. The “reflecting pool / monument” is in the middle.
The text is two lines from the Chaucer’s Pardoner’s Tale: “Ye, for an heyre clowt to wrappe me” and “Lo how I vanysshe.” It is deployed mainly to mark preexisting repetitive and affective structures in the music, but I cannot pretend that these phrases were not chosen for their semantic content. Dehiscences, Lullay (the partner piece for piano and cassette) is dedicated to the memory of my father.
Year composed: 2006
Duration: 00:08:00
Ensemble type: Voice, Solo or With Chamber or Jazz Ensemble:Two or More Solo Voices One Non-Keyboard Instrument
Instrumentation: 1 Violin, 2 Soprano, 2 Alto, 2 Tenor
Instrumentation notes: Altos may be male or female