Detritus, Alluvium

As a long-time admirer of spectralist approaches in music and relative neophyte to employing them in my own works, I have been deeply invested in exploring overtone structures and a harmonic language that is built with just-intonation intervals. This framework inherently draws on numerical relationships and patterns, which took an equal part in providing the intrigue, excitement, and musical ‘goals’/direction at the outset of my work on this piece. Quite early out of this process I had committed to a scordatura (alternate tuning) for the lowest strings of each instrument of this string duet. I admired the expansion of rational relationships resulting from linear compression towards ‘simpler’/numerically-smaller ratios … taking the 3:2, or 9:6, pitch relationship (“just perfect fifth”) that typically defines all relative tunings between strings of these instruments, the violin is stretched to 8:5 and the viola to 7:4 between their lowest strings (preserving the typical tuning of strings I through III). As a result, the violin’s G falls to a F# lowered by a syntonic comma and the viola’s C falls to an A raised by a septimal comma.

Arriving in the pitch language that emerges from these deviant tunings was a distortion I had hoped to draw out and elide into as imperceptibly as possible, and this goal in turn gave shape to the form of my piece. The title given to the work is a pair of terms borrowed from geological context, and is meant to abstractly represent the dichotomy established between the edges of the gradient that this piece explores. The omnipresent glissando gesture of the piece begins as fragmentary particulates, scattering about and gradually gaining density through loosely additive texture. Tight intervals fan out into wider harmonies, sinking and sagging through the duo’s microtonally-skewed lower registers until finally resolving into the resonance of their open strings.

Detritus, Alluvium is respectfully dedicated to andPlay – to Maya and Hannah, in honor of their virtuosic musicianship and commitment to championing new music through a relentlessly collaborative and enthusiastic spirit. It has been a pleasure for me to try and write something for you both which captures my current interests in harmony and texture while (hopefully) also providing for an adequate balance of intrigue and challenge in the learning and rehearsal process. This piece was composed in advance of the duo’s residency at the Peabody Institute and premiered on April 8, 2026.

Performance Time: 4’45”