clutch [2005]

for violin

duration :: 1’30”

Written for the New York MIniaturist Ensemble

First performance :: Erik Carlson — New York, NY, 10 December 2005

Recording :: Graeme Jennings :: Kairos 0015069KAI [ label | amazon | spotify ]

clutch was written for the New York Miniaturist Ensemble, which requires that works consist of 100 notes or fewer. It is rare for a composer to have such a rigid numerical stipulation, and, as much of my own compositional work is based on manipulations of various proportional structures, the a priori fact of 100-ness meant that a good deal of my work was done for me. This small piece is entirely based on the fact of its exactly 100 notes and two other axioms: a single 6:8 proportional division, whose multifarious ramifications completely provide the piece's temporal and rhythmic structure, and the interval of the 11th, which has for years held for me a particular fascination, and which emerges in this piece as a result of the reuse of the pitch universe of the 2002 percussion work hyphen, also premiered by NYME.