Thomas Giles premieres ⟨ʀ⟩emote in Chicago on November 5!

My year of the single-reeds continues with the world premiere of ⟨ʀ⟩emote, my new soprano saxophone solo. Thomas Giles emailed me in early August this year asking if I could have a piece ready for him to play on November 5 at the Constellation event space in Chicago. Normally that would be cutting it a bit fine – I’m not the swiftest writer – but I’d already put quite a lot of thought into ⟨ʀ⟩emote and was able to launch into it almost immediately. Having composed the effort to return to the cities of the sane for bass clarinet and solace of articulation for clarinet d’amore and ensemble over the previous year (for Drew Gilchrist and Richard Haynes respectively), I had reached near-peak attunement to single reed instruments and the writing of ⟨ʀ⟩emote had a relentless fluency. The provisional score (that is, unedited by Thomas) can be viewed here.

The character of the work is predicated entirely by its title, an alternation between remote, aloof and distant, and richly emotive musics. Nearly four decades ago my late friend the artist Larry Berryman asked me if I knew of any classical works besides the Nielsen Second Symphony that made use of the ancient notion of the Four Temperaments. I had to admit that I only knew of one (Hindemith). Melancholic was of course a widespread late Renaissance affekt, but sanguine, phlegmatic, and choleric are not frequently encountered in the musical domain. Or, at least, not specifically.

I realised, soon after embarking on ⟨ʀ⟩emote, that it was a fulfillment of that absence felt by Larry and I so long ago. The work embodies, as part of its emotive component, material intended to represent the Four Temperaments, sometimes isolated, sometimes entwined. The resulting drama, albeit abstract, propels the music, while the ‘remote’ material irregularly freezes its progress. The piece’s form is characterised by alternation between these two states of being.

⟨ʀ⟩emote is in memory of Larry Berryman.

Incidentally, the ⟨ʀ⟩ in ⟨ʀ⟩emote indicates that the initial r should be trilled, and that uvular growl features in the music as a structural marker, along with more traditional fluttertongue.