Intitulata Fontegara

TITLE: Intitulata Fontegara
CAT# (YEAR COMPOSED): 93 (2015; revision 2016)
INSTRUMENTATION: flute, violin, piano
PAGES: 17
DURATION (APPROX): 11’39
NOTE: This piece exploits archaic signs in the search for a fragile modernism through events that are often dictated by decoupled system dynamics.

Technically, “Intitulata” features relative temporal freedom within multiple strata that are to be interpreted flexibly within and across meters. This piece is a continuation of recent work that explores ornamentation – here based on a 16th century treatise on ornamentation by Silvestro Ganassi, dal Fontego Opera intitulata Fontegara (Venice, 1535).

In my composition, ornamentation occurs in two ways: 1) with typical Baroque symbols (trillo, mordant, cadence, dopplet-cadence, etc.); and 2) written-out ornaments from the collection of bizarre tuplets from the Ganassi treatise. These ornaments are not to be treated in a historical manner, but rather to extract the underlying idea that interface with an already abundant notation. A wisp of decay provided by such ahistorical archetypes provides frail evidence of a meeting between the distant past and today.