Discordant Metamorphosis on Themes of a Fractal Nature (2021)
soprano saxophone and piano
[score excerpts]
Program Notes
This piece is a quirky, virtuosic whirlwind of nearly-but-not-quite abstract gestures for the soprano sax and piano, envisioned in jest as a contemporary foil to Paul Hindemith’s Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl Maria von Weber. Discordant Metamorphosis opposes Hindemith’s work in numerous ways – it is a short piece for a duo where ambiguous and fleeting themes are freely thrown about in a continuously transforming maelstrom, whereas Symphonic Metamorphosis is a multi-movement symphonic
work in which Hindemith clearly delineates and develops Weber’s pre-existing themes. The musical materials in my piece are not fractal in a strict sense; rather, I was reminded of the idea upon looking back at the shapes I had composed and noticing that long ascending lines often tended to become compressed into angular arpeggios and leaps. While the difficulty of the music certainly presents a challenge for the performers to put together, Discordant Metamorphosis doesn’t take itself too seriously conceptually (again in contrast to the Hindemith), and I wanted to represent this with as outrageous-sounding a title as possible!
duration c.3’