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Coïgitum (1983-85) |
The composition of Coïgitum, begun early in 1983, was completed in late 1985 and was my major occupation of that period. The main reason for the work's extended gestation was that its conception necessitated evolving a network of compositional techniques whose further developments are still ongoing. Therefore Coïgitum represents for me a point of entry into new areas of musical possibility, and this may be apparent to the listener in its frenetic reaching out towards the limits of the perceptible and the performable (spurred on in the latter by the example of Michael Finnissy, to whom the work is dedicated and who took part in its first five performances). The most important characteristic of the (for me, at the time) new compositional resources was the dependence of every aspect of the music on highly directional processes articulated by statistical procedures.
Naturally, such a technical apparatus (using a computer to assist in the often complex calculations) can only achieve significance in the context of some kind of compositional "vision". In the case of Coïgitum, there was an extramusical aspect to this, in the form of the painting of the same title by Roberto Matta, with its irrational perspectives, interpenetration of objects and sense of space in a constant state of expansion. Coïgitum now forms the first part of a series of six works collectively entitled After Matta.
Coïgitum was commissioned by New Macnaghten Concerts with funds from the Arts Council of Great Britain.
© Richard Barrett, January 1990