Intervals I

Instrumentation: alto saxophone and piano

Duration: 7′ 30″

Program note:

In writing this work, I was interested in providing for myself a compositional constraint – the challenge of limitation – by using a limited set of harmonic intervals that move in precise cycles as sorts of isorhythms that helped me define the lengths of certain materials. The musical result of such constraint offers a degree of repetition and motion between active and (seemingly) inactive sections that challenge my definition of the word interval. Thus, I use the word interval in describing this work when I wish to speak of measurements of distance both vertically (harmonic), horizontally (temporal), or both at once (which I consider to be timbral).

Intervals I is recorded by saxophonist Richard Schwartz and pianist Kenneth Boulton on the Centaur release entitled Embers (CRC 3385), available on streaming services and as a compact disc.

performance by Richard Schwartz and Kenneth Boulton