Memories Of A Possible Future
Bruce Adolphe
About this work:
Memories of a Possible Future was commissioned jointly by The Virginia Arts Festival and The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, for pianist Andre Michel Schub and the Miami String Quartet.
The title of the quintet comes from the book Descartes' Error by Antonio R. Damasio. In the following passage from that book, Damasio describes the concept:
"...we have, in recent dispositional memory, a collection of recent events, along with their approximate temporal continuity, and we also
have a collection of plans, a number of imaginary events we intend to make happen, or expect to happen. The plans and imaginary events constitute what I call a 'memory of the possible future.' It is held in dispositional representations just like any other memory."
Damasio explains that dispositional representations do not hold in store a picture, but "a means to reconstitute 'a picture.'"
The idea that plans -- imaginary events -- are "stored" as memories, and that memories are not a picture but a means to recover that picture, inspired the musical structure of Memories of a Possible Future. The music unfolds not in a developmental manner, nor as reconstitutions of the tonal "picture." I hoped this would evoke a
sense of memory, and that the progress of the music would fell strangely familiar to all of us who know what it is to think we have mailed a letter when we have not.
Year composed: 2002
Duration: 01:31:41
Ensemble type: Chamber or Jazz Ensemble, Without Voice:Piano Quartet or Quintet
Instrumentation: 1 Piano, 2 Violin, 1 Viola, 1 Cello