Two Scales

"Two Scales" was written in 1986 for the "AMERICAN FESTIVAL OF MICROTONAL MUSIC" and premiered in New York by Johnny Reinhard and April Chapman. In melodic-harmonic terms, two naturally tuned harmonic or subharmonic scales are used: 1. above Bb, 2. below D. Here the bassoons have to use special microtonal fingering techniques. Just thirds, minor sevenths and the just tritone 11/8 are indicated.

In the rhythmic part, both bassoons play in the proportion 11/10 to each other throughout.

"Two Scales" responds to the richness that I find in non-notated, aurally traditional music outside our cultural sphere: these musics, for example from the Pacific region, live from "colored" simple intervals or rhythms. An "octave" or a 2/1 proportion in the rhythm is rarely really achieved. Rather, intervals and rhythms are "fields" around a simple proportion. This creates a "brightness of the moment", a spontaneity. However, "Two Scales" is not improvised on any level. On the contrary, a dazzling simplicity is achieved through the superposition of two strict scales.