Kyle Gann: Symphony, "Implausible" (2014) for large orchestra (3-2(EH)-2-2; 2-2-3; perc; vib; harp; pno; strings)
Recordings (MIDI): entire symphony, 40:13
1st movement, 12:20
2nd movement, 6:56
3rd movement, 5:43
4th movement, 9:24
5th movement, 5:01What is implausible about my symphony, that I should give it such a title? First of all, I wrote it by orchestrating my piano four-hand piece Implausible Sketches, expanding it by nine minutes in the process. Each of those movements is based on a postminimalist rhythmic idea of a kind rarely found in the symphonic literature. For instance, the first movement has an 83-beat ostinato in the cellos, harp, and bass, moving among drone notes on the whole-tone scale, interrupted every 149 beats by a loud tutti chorale passage - this is a rather implausible structure for a symphony movement. The second movement has quarter-note chords running through it, first changing harmony every five beats and then every seven, as the melodies around them move at different tempos - this, too, seems rather implausible. The third is a fugue on the octatonic (diminished) scale that, implausibly, pauses on a whole-note every eleven measures. The finale is underpinned by a five-against-four rhythm. Perhaps the most plausible movement is the fourth, and even that recedes into a long passage of only a few instruments before roaring up again.
Moreover, and perhaps more significantly, "plausible" is a word I use to deprecate a certain kind of modern music, music that is merely plausible because its primary virtue is stylistic consistency, and little has been done to delight, or communicate primary ideas to, the listener. I would like to think I raised these ideas past the obvious - the merely plausible. Despite the stark structural disparities among them, the movements are unified by the interconnecting ways I fuse the whole-tone and octatonic scales. While the first movement ostinato uses mainly the whole-tone scale and the third movement the octatonic, the fifth combines them, as do the others to an extent. The first movement's theme comes back in the second, fourth, and fifth movements, and there are other melodic connections.
I am always loath to put up MIDI versions of a piece, but I have not yet obtained a performance, and I want to document my conception of the piece. Some people don't have the sonic imagination to hear through the MIDI version how the piece would actually sound; those people should not listen to this, for they will get an inaccurate idea that the music is cold and impersonal.
- Kyle Gann
Duration: 40 minutes
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