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WINGATE: WIND QUINTET NO. 1
“Thirteen Self-Portraits for Wind Quintet”
Movements:
1. ΝĻμος των ΟνομĪ¬των [Law of Names] (Theme and Name Chords)
2. Pointillistic Head (Variation 1 on B-flat)
3. Pending Connections to the Universe (Variation 2 on B)
4. Uncomfortable Egoïste (Variation 3 on C)
5. Dream Floating (Variation 4 on C#)
6. Dance of the Physiognomies (Variation 5 on D)
7. Gesticulatory Articulations (Variation 6 on E-flat)
8. Soul Forests (Variation 7 on E)
9. Waltz of the Misremembered Pasts (Variation 8 on F)
10. Gaze of the Third Eye (Variation 9 on F#)
11. Wayward Cubist Nose (Variation 10 on G)
12. Fugue of the Personæ (Variation 11 on G#)
13. Auricle Apotheosis (Variation 12 on A)
Date:
2020
Instrumentation:
Flute, Oboe, Clarinet in B-flat, Horn in F, and Bassoon
Duration:
9'
NOTES:
Wingate’s Thirteen Self-Portraits for Wind Quintet (Wind Quintet No. 1) is a set of theme and variations based on an 18-note melody created from the letters of the composer’s name. Using the same method to create the theme for his Second Symphony (Kleetüden), the numerical position of the letters in the English alphabet become pitch class integers via mod-12:
J-A-S-O-N becomes A#-C#-G-D#-D;
W-R-I-G-H-T becomes B-F#-A-G-G#-G#;
W-I-N-G-A-T-E becomes B-A-D-G-C#-G#-F.
The theme and first variation are in this original ‘key’, then each successive variation is transposed up one semitone, making the thirteen movements a complete chromatic set.
Having throughout his formative years considered the tradition of the self-portrait in the visual arts to be slightly and uncomfortably vain, the composer’s own set of musical self-portraits became an attempt to address the troubling aspects of this enduring artistic convention. Of course, anything with ‘Thirteen’ in the title immediately evokes Wallace Stevens’ celebrated modernist poem Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, and this set is not unlike that famous work at least in spirit and brevity of components. But the quiet yet persistent absurdity of Wingate‘s variations unexpectedly mirrors the actual existential absurd as this poetic parody of traditional forms plays out.
NOTES ON THE MOVEMENTS:
1. To commence this first of the self-portraits, the 18-note name theme is stated melodically by the ensemble as a kind of declamatory prelude, followed by the given name, middle name, and surname chords, albeit with contrapuntal refinements to accommodate the more than five tones of the middle and last. The titular Law of Names gives a sense of official sanction to the patently strange situation of a name somehow being conflated with the accidents of a human face.
2. The Pointillistic Head of this second portrait begins as a series of isolated staccato note ’dots’ giving way to off-kilter theme statement conglomerations. These eventually lead to a sonority in the same way that the dots of a pointillist painting lead to the perceptual resolution of an image at some distance from the canvas.
3. In this Pending Connection to the Universe variation, the tones of the theme are layered amongst one another, creating strange clouds of meditative struggle, perhaps exacerbated by the oft-malfunctioning trappings of the modern world. The portrait captures the sitter in a moment of attempted transcendental meditation, naïvely mistaking the path for the goal.
4. The fourth self-portrait, Uncomfortable Egoïste, portrays the subject plodding through life with heavy horn and bassoon feet, struggling to reconcile ego consciousness with the beautiful but elusive unity of existence. The trilled chords ebulliently entice some steps toward better judgement, but the promenade ends in hesitant uncertainty.
5. Perhaps the most flattering of the self-portraits, this oneiric duo for flute and oboe explores the possibility of an inner portrait, a portrait of dreams. The theme floats between the two voices somehow emanating from a single embodied visage, while serving to highlight the tonal potential of the thematic material.
6. Dance of the Physiognomies imagines a grotesque polka of deconstructed body parts skipping tra-la through a surrealist landscape. The tones of the theme form cluster chords which intensify in dissonance when prolonged, but the low C of the flute ends up sounding the final strut.
7. The Gesticulatory Articulations self-portrait captures the sitter in the act of talking with his hands in the manner of a blurred multiple exposure, or a confused Hindu figure with multifarious mudras. The oboe struggles to communicate the theme, rushing in and saying too much too soon, while the other instruments patiently stand aside.
8. Another variation of inner reach, the Soul Forests comprise an allegorical portrait of the composer imagined as an expansive natural entity. This is realized by temporarily reducing the quintet forces to a low trio of clarinet, horn, and bassoon, and by stripping away any rhythmic or ornamental details to form a sombre chorale grown from theme seedlings.
9. This unflattering Waltz of the Misremembered Pasts is constructed from the embarrassing foibles of human memory, using the theme as a dissonant tone series, awkwardly hampered by the general unreliability of inner narrative. The dance haltingly proceeds until finally collapsing in a gesture of inner frustration.
10. The Gaze of the Third Eye imagines the sound made by the third eye chakra as it stares out invisibly from the sitter’s forehead. The theme is developed into its most serious and perhaps most quasi-heroic formulation, as the enterprise of mystical sight unfolds amidst prolonged dissonant tones devotedly outlasting their original chords.
11. The scherzo variation Wayward Cubist Nose follows the adventures of the sitter’s facial anatomy as it experiences the sensation of being viewed from multiple simultaneous perspectives. Amongst buoyant theme-based staccati the oboe traces a slow theme statement while being followed at a shadowy distance by the same material in a subdued clarinet.
12. This purposely unsatisfying partial fugue made of theme statements all in the same key outlines a countenance with blurred features during the obligatory but destabilizing act of presenting contradictory personae in the public sphere. Attempting nevertheless to reiterate core identity, these ‘masks’ of differing instrumental colors avoid a psychic fugue state by culminating in the commonplace comfort of a major triad. The horn finishes with a lonely retrograde statement, unanswered and abandoned.
13. In this final self-portrait, the Auricle Apotheosis, the flute at last leads the ensemble as a musical embodiment of the composer’s ear, rather in the manner of an exalted ballet finale, but with more intimate proportions. As the sovereign organ of musical perception and taste, it searches for meaning in the realm of the theme’s aural landscape. The quintet quietly ends as the deified flute ascends to the top of a chord made from the composer’s initials, J.W.W. (A#-B-B), a kind of sonic artist’s signature mantled in a raiment of strangely consonant dissonance.
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