Strata

for extended range glockenspiel (c-f”’)* or celesta
2011
14 minutes

Strata is an homage to the artistic imagination of geological time and the inevitable accumulation of entropy and decay, inspired in part by the works of artist Robert Smithson. His materials were of the earth but his subject was the immensity of geologic time. His works are a hallucinatory meditation on imagining the unimaginable. Here I have attempted musical composition as a geologic ‘sedimentation of the mind’. Structures arrayed in crystalline perfection comprise an inclined basement overlaid by layers of derived materials. Musical crystals erode, conglomerate and metamorphose under the pressure of surrounding materials and the relentless entropic forward progression of time.

Commissioned and premiered by Trevor Saint.

… NO LONGER A FAITHFUL IMITATION OF ETERNITY, BUT A CONSTANT STATE OF EROSION
… LANGUAGE AND SOIL BLOWN AWAY
… SEA BUTTERFLIES FALL INTO A NAMELESS OCEAN
… MEMORY AT THE CHTHONIC LEVEL
… THE PILING UP OF DEBRIS
… STALE TIME
… ABSENSE OF OXYGEN

from STRATA: A GEOPHOTOGRAPHIC FICTION, by Robert Smithson (1970)

* May be played on an instrument with a range of c-e”’.

11×8.5 PDF score
$15

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