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Codex I (2001) |
6-12 improvising musicians
commissioned by the Bangor New Music Festival with funds from the Arts Council of Wales
fp 6 April 2001, Bangor; Chris Burn’s Ensemble (John Butcher, saxophone; John Russell, acoustic guitar; Chris Burn, prepared piano; Rhodri Davies, harp; Mark Wastell, cello; Matt Hutchinson, electronics)
The model for codex I was the situation where a fragmentary or skeletal or barely decipherable musical text, from the distant past, is realised by (contemporary) musicians so as to reconstruct, or imagine, something of the “living tradition” from which these few obscure fragments are perhaps the only musical remains. Codex I (which has so far been followed by seven others) is a structural foundation upon which the performers create their own music: events are timed, but not precisely; the number of instruments for a sound-event are specified, but not which instruments; a (broken) thread of sustained pitches runs through the piece but is typically encrusted with improvised divergences; some parts of the score have completely “gone missing” and inferences are to be made as to what kind of improvisation might appropriately replace them; and so on.
Codex I was written in early 2001 for Chris Burn’s Ensemble, and was commissioned by the Bangor New Music Festival with funds from the Arts Council of Wales.
© Richard Barrett