Kyle Gann: Afterglow (2026)

for chamber orchestra (2,2,2,2; 2 Hn, 1 Trpt; sn. drum, vibraphone, harp; strings); 14 minutes

PDF score
MIDI recording

When I revised my 2012 microtonal electronic piece Nonexistent Landscape in 2026, it occurred to me that it would make a good model for a normally tuned (12tet) orchestra piece. A little of that earlier piece is quoted, as well as a passage from its sister piece The Unnameable, but everything is thoroughly rewritten. The work's source sonority is a whole-tone collection plus one other note - the same pitch set so often used by Charles Ives in his Concord Sonata. For Ives, I believe, this group of pitches represented nature, as being the closest 12tet approximation of the overtone series up to the 14th harmonic. So the piece depicts an experience with nature - a walk through the forest at dusk, perhaps - in which everything is momentarily transformed.

- Kyle Gann

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