10 minutes
2002

This composition began as a work for solo guitar entitled aria. When, a little later, I began working on a solo clarinet piece, it became natural to imagine the two works being performed simultaneously. This felt right, on the condition that two more solo works—one for piano, the other for flute—be added to the mix. Although entirely different in character, Feldman’s Durations had long held a special importance for me, and this was suddenly the exact right place to explore radical rhythmic independence between the parts. 

In most music, multiple instruments are rigidly coordinated in time. This has advantages, but it is also profoundly unlike most of life, in which multiple time-streams coexist and intermingle. I enjoyed inhabiting a musical world full of different opportunities. In relinquishing control over the exact manner in which these different strands would come together, I found that I was inviting into the experience unexpected revelations and a kind of beauty I could never imagine. I found this both freeing and exhilarating. Any or all of the individual parts can be performed as solos; or all four parts can be played at the same time.