Warren Burt: Remembering Griffes (1989, rev. 1992)

Abstract

"Late in 1989,1 made some sounds on my synthesiser that played two tones at a time, tuned to the pure intervals of the harmonic series. I then began to experiment with playing these two tones in different scales. I got the best results - lots of interesting microtonal intervals and beating sounds - when I used a scale of 17 tones per octave. At this point, I imagined a flute over these sounds. My fascination with the music of the pioneer American modernist composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) led me to wonder how his type of melodies would go with my microtonal sounds. Using the computer, I made a tape of my sounds. Eventually, I improvised a flute part that used and varied both original materials and the opening theme from Griffes Poem for Flute and Orchestra, which I then notated. In performance, the flautist plays the notated part, while I play the computer. The two parts, flute and computer, have different characteristics, are in different tunings, and progress at different speeds; I think they sit well together." -- Warren Burt