Gilding the Fourfold

Ethan Isaac

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Duo

2024

9 min.

Electronic Keyboard

Electronics

Live Electronics

Piano

Soprano Saxophone

Program Notes: My friend and philosopher Nile Lok was with me during the last meeting with my grandfather before he passed in 2024. In this final conversation, we spoke on the meaning of art and life itself, a common topic between both relationships. One of Nile's specialties is the work of Martin Heidegger, and the "Fourfold" concept stood out in our conversations. It speaks on what we've lost via technological development, and affirms that we must dwell within our living spaces with more awareness. My grandfather's spaces were always chaotic, full of tools and old things without clear purposes, but organized in way only he understood. I remember his trailer, dusty, his trusty bread machine running and the smell of cigars. With the piece Gilding the Fourfold, the performer is forced to re-dwell within their instrument and the musical material, as the abnormal tuning system requires a restructuring of their well-trodden performance skills. What could sound easy, is deceptively difficult, and what appears challenging, could be deceptively simple. Fusing my favored parts of La Monte Young's and Michael Harrison's scales it carries some diatonic minor flavor with septimal intervals.
Recording Notes: Recorded at Lawrence University Engineering by Ethan Isaac
Record Label: Self-Recorded
Ensemble Name: Evan Ney and Nick Hull