Petrified Spaces / Spaces Petrified (2019)
for alto saxophone and vibraphone
LISTEN (Petrified Spaces)
Altered Sound Duo
Chris Murphy, alto saxophone
Nick Fox, vibraphone
Chris Murphy, alto saxophone
Nick Fox, vibraphone
WATCH (Petrified Spaces / The Illusion of Stasis (excerpt) / Spaces Petrified)
Charlie Chadwell, alto saxophone
Rick Kurasz, vibraphone
Rick Kurasz, vibraphone
PREVIEW / PURCHASE
PROGRAM NOTE
Petrified Spaces, for alto saxophone and vibraphone, was commissioned by the Altered Sound Duo (Nick Fox and Chris Murphy) with additional support provided by Petrified Forest National Park, the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music, and Copland House, Inc. As the work unfolds over a span of 18 minutes, a collection of three pitches gradually increases by one, two, and then three additional pitches until it becomes a group of six. The original pitches eventually disappear, one by one, until only the "new" trichord remains. Surface rhythm and background form are produced by the articulation of a three-strand polyrhythm of 9:10:11, though the two instruments frequently "cross lines," obscuring the perceptual regularity of the ratio as it cycles. Notes in the saxophone/clarinet smoothly rise out of, and fall back to, silence, while most vibraphone notes are similarly articulated by using a bow. Struck notes in the vibraphone part occur at points where two of the three rhythmic strands intersect. Coincidences of all three rhythmic strands occur at the beginning of the work, and again 990 beats later at the work's conclusion; they are marked by silence. Petrified Spaces is a mirror of its companion piece, Spaces Petrified.