Pointing Twice

The inspiration for the work is Anton Webern’s aphoristic Concerto for Nine Instruments (1936). This seminal work like all of Webern’s music is formed out of brief jewel-like moments that deserve more time spent in their contemplation than a regular performance allows. Steve Schick and I decided to have an event in which the Webern piece will be performed twice, once at the beginning and once at the end of the concert, while I composed a work in two parts - the first to be played after the opening performance of Webern, the second part before the closing performance. Both parts use exact pitches from Webern's Concerto but aim to refer to it, provide a context but not to imitate it.

The piece is intended as a sort of a negative to Webern’s positive. Part A zooms in very closely. The tempo is extremely slow and there is no common pulse between musicians. At this close distance one can still recognize Webern’s motives but we are within them as if under their surface. Part B zooms out to his life, where the music is still there but as an artifact of culture. The musicians materialize as people on stage and the gramophone serves as a window through which we can see rain, propeller planes flying overhead or the imaginary music of the future embodied by a quote from John Chowning’s Stria.

Pointing Twice was developed in close collaboration with choreographer Young Doo Jung and sound sculptor John Granzow to provide, in a postscript and prelude, a new lens and a new intermedia ground for Music at its purest.