ASLSP [for Piano or Organ] (“As Slow as Possible”)

Description

Commissioned by The Friends of the Maryland Summer Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts, and dedicated to the memory of Madolyn Leonard

The title is an abbreviation of “as slow as possible”. It also refers to “Soft morning city! Lsp!”, the first exclamation in the last paragraph of “Finnegan's Wake” (James Joyce)

There are eight pieces, any one of which must be omitted and any one of which must be repeated. The repetition may be placed anywhere (even before its appearance in the suite) but otherwise the order of the pieces as written shall be maintained.

Neither tempo nor dynamics have been notated. Time proportions are given (just as maps give proportional distances). Accidentals apply only to those piches they directly precede.

Each hand plays its own part and is not to assisted by the other. A diamond-shaped note indicates a note to be depressed without sounding. All the notes have stems. The stem gives the point in time of the single notes, interval, or aggregate. Where there is insufficient horizontal space, the stems are splayed to accommodate the noteheads. a closed notehead tied to an open notehead indicates the end of a sustained sound. Sustained sounds are also notated somtimes with straight line-extensions.

In a perforfmance a correspondence between space and time should be realized so that the music “sounds” as it “looks”.