James Tenney - Quiet Fan for Erik Satie (1970/1971)

Описание: Composer's note:

QUIET FAN FOR ERIK SATIE was written in Santa Barbara,
California in 1970, with minor revisions in 1971, and
represents a kind of watershed in my career, marking a
return to the instrumental medium after a decade of concentration
on electronic and computer music, and a shift
of emphasis in my other musical activities from performance
to teaching, occasioned by the move (after some
15 years) from the East to the West Coast. l had, of
course, been an ardent "fan" of Satie's music for many
years—having participated in the premiere of his VEXATIONS
, organized by John Cage in New York in 1965,
and having performed several of Satie's works for solo
and four-hand piano (including—with Philip Corner—
the TROIS PIECES EN FORME DE POIRE, from which the
quoted fragments in QUIET FAN ... are taken). The "fan"
of the title, however, refers primarily to the gradual expansions and contractions in the pitch-range of the
recurring four-note melodic motif on which the piece is
based. The harmonies suggested by successive variants
of this motif reminded me of a characteristic feature of
the harmonic aspect of Satie's style—the highly unconventional
and apparently arbitrary sequences of chords
which are themselves quite conventional. The piece may
be performed by either a chamber ensemble (with solo
strings) or a chamber orchestra (with string choirs).