The Einstein Slide

Brian Ciach

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Chamber Orchestra

2012

9 min.

Program Notes: The Einstein Slide is a short chamber concerto inspired by a medical slide of Albert Einstein's brain on display at the Mütter museum, a medical oddities museum in Philadelphia. Lucy Rorke-Adams, the neuropathologist who donated the slides to the museum, has found that Einstein's brain is remarkably youthful for a man aged 76. "The blood vessels are gorgeous", she says. To reﬂect this, the music is ever inspired and brilliant, undergoing constant shifts and a childlike exploration of material. Scientists have found that Einstein's brain was lacking a complete Sylvian ﬁssure, a type of wall separating the parts of the brain responsible for mathematical ability, spatial reasoning and three-dimensional visualization. Some argue that the synergy of these diverse segments in Einstein's brain allowed him to think diﬀerently. The Einstein Slide evokes brain activity by swiftly shifting through diﬀerent musical ideas. In my musical search for all things Einstein, I decided to begin the movement with a violin solo, an instrument that Einstein played. There is also the "musical equation" toward the middle of the movement, which is a loose musical representation of the mathematical formula, E = mc2, in the form of a puzzle canon. Overall, the key areas of the work are C and C-sharp, reflecting, in a musical way, the famous equation.
Ensemble Name: Alarm Will Sound