PROGRAM LISTING

Design School (1994/5) Michael Gandolfi (b.1956)

I. Fibonacci's Fanfare
II. Photoelectric Effect
III. Reptiles
IV. Matrix Mechanics

PROGRAM NOTES

     Design School is an exploration of music structured on patterns and concepts found in mathematics, theoretical physics and the lithographs of M.C. Escher, particularly the works that he completed in the 1950’s and 60’s. The beauty of Escher’s work lies in its intellectual rigor and the resulting unique expression of underlying complex mathematics. I sought to achieve a similar result in music; my intent was to allow the compositional choices to be driven by the particular movement’s pre-compositional design rather than yielding to the subjective suggestions of the music.
     The first movement, Fibonacci’s Fanfare, is based on a segment of the Fibonacci series: 1:2:3:5:8:13. Fibonacci, a fifteenth century Italian mathematician, discovered an additive integer series that, as it grows larger, yields an increasingly accurate definition of a special relationship known as ‘the golden proportion.’ This proportion, which is found in the ration of any two consecutive numbers in the series, has been employed by architects, artists, composers, etc. for the past several centuries, as a means of designing their works. I composed a canon in which all of the durational values, phrase beginnings, internal phrase structure and density of activity are based strictly on the Fibonacci series.
     The second movement, Photoelectric Effect, is a development of the three pitches heard in the first movement. The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons from certain metals when light falls on their surfaces. The incident energy causes an excitation of the electrons that boosts them to a higher valence or energy level. Eventually the electrons return to their original state and the stored energy is released as a photon. Photoelectric Effect depicts this electron journey.
     The third movement, Reptiles, is a musical representation of M.C. Escher’s lithograph by the same name. In this lithograph, an opened book on a desk reveals a two-dimensional plane built of interlocking reptiles. As one ‘reads’ the lithograph, one observes the reptiles gradually disengaging from the two-dimensional plane of the book, after which they circle around the desk as three-dimensional beings, ultimately returning to the book’s two-dimensional reptilian grid. The static beginning of my work represents the two-dimensional grid. Gradually an increasingly complex contrapuntal music emerges, which represents the three-dimensional reptiles, before returning to the static music of the two-dimensional plane. The harmonic sequence is cyclical, hence the final harmony returns precisely to the point of the movement’s beginning, as do the reptiles in their respective world.
     The final movement, Matrix Mechanics, is a rondo form in which the main theme is systematically transposed to all possible keys through the use of a pitch matrix. The title, borrowed from quantum physics, describes the musical/mechanical process of this scheme.

Michael Gandolfi

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