BLOCK

“Everything yielded and invisible holes opened everywhere. However, the overall structure did not disappear; even if you suddenly found yourself alone somewhere, you could feel things tugging and tearing at you. […] You could call it music; you felt elevated by it. I did not feel as if I were moving on my own legs. I felt as if I were in a resonant wind.” – Canetti

BLOCK experiments with conflict between strict formal organization and the disorganization of natural sound. The act of composing mirrors the ordering of bodies. Beginning with the “block” – identical cells arranged by a few basic rules – the structure inevitably loosens, becoming more like fields of sound and space. Voices overlap and ascend; pitch variations beat against each other. The friction pulls the entire structure upwards and gradually apart. The block dissolves.

Sixteen equidistant voices – derived from oboe, clarinet, and cello–are fixed in space around the listener. BLOCK is the first half of a two-part piece.