A Machine for Entropy
(2022)
for 2 clarinets, strings, percussion and electronic sounds |
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A Machine for Entropy was written for a conductorless ensemble NOCCO - the North Corner Chamber Orchestra in Seattle. The challenge came with two seemingly unrelated variables: the nature of the unconducted ensemble and addressing the main theme of the concert - Decadence.
A conductorless ensemble can perhaps be seen as a dynamic system without a single center of control, in which leadership is continuously shifting. Such a group of individual musicians must perform a balancing act, in which any increase in complexity of the sound material is bound to introduce some degree of entropy into the system. I decided to embrace entropy - as a measure of intrinsic and inevitable disorder within the system - and to make it the main driving force for the entire composition.
This almost immediately made me think of the utopian idea of the perpetual motion machine, bringing to mind the elegant drawings of Leonardo da Vinci’s "recirculation mills". These were examples of his own failed efforts to create wheels of perpetual movement, the ultimate futility engine. Resigned, he mocked the others who kept pursuing the impossible idea, while secretly trying to resolve the problem by increasing the complexity of his designs. Perpetual motion is a war against entropy. But increasing complexity is itself entropy. In pursuing the perpetual, he was inventing the opposite.
A Machine for Entropy is a kind of a musical perpetuum mobile, revolving in a relentless circular motion. The piece is based on a limited sound material, creating an enclosed vicious circle - a spinning wheel of perpetual futility. By continually introducing small variations and mutations into the sound base, the wheel continues to roll on, fueled by small deviations and errors.
The concert’s main theme was “Decadence”. I believe that relentlessly pursuing the impossible, while falling in and out of inevitable entropy is ultimately decadent. |
PREMIERE
DECADENCE Saturday, April 23, 2022, 2:00 PM Good Shepherd Center in Seattle * Sunday, April 24, 2022, 7:30 PM Town Hall Forum, Seattle
NOCCO - North Corner Chamber Orchestra Victoria Parker - concertmaster Sean Osborn and Florie Rothenberg, clarinet
program Scott Joplin - The Cascades Ewa Trębacz - A Machine for Entropy Paul Hindemith - Lustige Sinfonietta Op. 4
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