Denis Lorrain

Construction 053

"... somewhere south of silence"

Algorithmic composition for MIDI piano

(2016, total duration: *ca.* 13 mins)

Programme Note

   This *construction* essentially rests on two bases.

   Pitches, first, are issued from nowadays current musical concepts: couples of hexachords form dodecaphonic sequences, which are exploited through "generalised axial symmetry" operations in a circular representation of the chromatic space. A "universe" originates this process: it consists of all chromatic hexachords containing all intervals smaller that a tritone (algorithm of Jan Vandenheede).

   Rhythms, on the other hand, are issued from the Thomas Noll sturmian sequence which I have already used, more intensively, in my *Construction 047, Eight Sturmian Studies*. In the present case, a different and more elaborate setting produces a few characterised rhythmical configurations.

   I have composed four movements with this limited material. They seem to me to create a relatively homogeneous and balanced impression, appeased and poetic, rather than of a contrasted architecture, in the manner of some of my preceding *constructions*. The subtitle "... *somewhere south of silence*" comes from a short poem of Dan Albertson (*Flight*, 07/2014).

  I — 2'30"

 II — 4'13"

III — 1'40"

 IV — 4'21"

DLO

Karlsruhe

15/10/2016