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3. The Cosmology Song :: 9'44" :: April 2003
for violin, percussion, spinning Javanese tops & four channels live-mixed tape
I've been hacking at pieces of this type for about ten years. The scores consist in several fragments of notated music, sometimes fixed in order, sometimes not. The notation may be obsessively detailed or may to various degrees omit technical information. I often use an idiosyncratic vocabulary of expression marks—made tenable by the fact that I compose (almost) only for a consistent group of musicians who are tolerant friends:
There are usually other sound and theater elements I want to include, as well as tape music. The pieces are designed to be performed only once. Rehearsals are used to try to form a good piece through a collaborative process between the players and myself, regarding the materials as found objects. In the case of The Cosmology Song, some pretty fundamental decisions were on the table right up to the end. As a result, the piece has a massive looseness—or so I hope.
Certain 'combine' paintings of Rauschenberg were a great influence on me here. The idea that "you have to know when to throw something away—even when it's good," is a cliché of teaching composition. A related proposition I like at least as much is: "you have to know when to keep something—even when it's bad." I think most composers of concert music—quite unlike painters (for example, Rauschenberg or Twombly)—seldom use the fact that varieties of 'imperfection' can serve the ultimate aesthetic and/or spiritual values of a work. While there's nothing wrong with feeding a 'finish fettish' every now and then (as I think my tape music aspires to do), I generally think that any conflation of technique and finish constrains technique too radically. I try to work in a world where a higher order technique encompasses both the finished and the rough-hewn. This time, the music is made from rags I tore off bigger rags, and the whole thing just lies there like a pile of rags. But, to be honest (and uncool), I hear almost only love in it.
This piece was written for violinist Lydia Forbes and percussionist Danny Tunick, the Entropy duo; and commissioned by them with funds from the Netherland-America Foundation. The piece ends with a rewrite of the B section of Beethoven's Op. 130 Cavatina—some of my favorite music ever.
Lydia Forbes – violin, Danny Tunick – percussion,
Ted Coffey – four channels live-mixed tape & spinning Javanese tops [beginning 6'25"]