Spiraling (Just, Like Archimedes)

Program Notes

In the past two or three years I have primarily composed instrumental music using the names of the performers for whom a given piece is written. In the Summer of 2024, however, I decided that it was time to try a new approach, and I composed a piece using the Sierpinski triangle as a means of generating material. Spiraling (Just, Like Archimedes), a string that explores the famous Archimedean spiral in sound, is my second piece using this new method based on geometric patterns. Yet while the means of composing are new for me, I have not changed my values as a composer. Like the names, composing with geometric patterns is a
means of removing myself from the early stages of writing and finding material that surprises and challenges me in the crafting of the work.

This is essentially what the parenthetical part of the title is meant to suggest: in my view, the material of the piece is fundamentally just or justifiable because it is based on an abstract form. For example, the piece’s main theme, first heard as a violin solo at the very beginning, was algorithmically derived from a rendering of the Archimedean spiral. I mapped the y-axis value of each point in the spiral to pitch and the slope between adjacent points to duration such that the
spatial contour of the spiral is imprinted onto the sonic contour of the theme. Is such a rigorous approach necessary to compose “just” music? Probably not. But it is intellectually satisfying, and, what’s more, it gets the job done.

Performers

Christopher Otto – Violin 1
Austin Wulliman – Violin 2
John Pickford Richards – Viola
Jay Campbell – Cello