AION & CHRONOS

A Book of Etudes, Quire 7, No. 1

The archetypal cat-and-mouse between composer and performer that have defined the etude for centuries continues physically and technically, but also rhetorically and formally. Consider meter and rhythm: in Etude for Clarinet, Cello, and Piano, No. 1  metered ostinato passages put forward glacially-paced harmonic motion while free-pulse sections bring sequential, symmetric migrations of material through pitch-space.  These are studies of temporality as performance, or better, studies through the technics of performance of temporality as a phenomenon.