félix gonzález-torres

2016
viola, snare drum. 16m

félix gonzález-torres is a set of variations on, or re-iterations of, an initial panel composed of two basic, alternating materials: scales (actually the descending 17th–18th century “lament” figure) and glissando. With successive presentations, gradually more material from this original panel is deleted and the remaining sounds are proportionally expanded in time to replace it; the pitch compass is correspondingly compressed, eventually erasing the distinction in sound between scale and continuum. A percussionist shadows the violist, transferring their movements onto the flat plane of a snare drum and extending the work’s preoccupation with re-presentation and loss from “horizontal” into “vertical” time as well as across physical and perceptual distance. Lying somewhere distantly in the background of all this is a feeling of kinship with the work of González-Torres himself: in his formalism, his sadness, and his restraint, I found a cherished spiritual forebear early on.

This is the earliest piece in which some of my major concerns — documentation, objectification, iteration, abstraction, and metaphor — are rigorously articulated; and for several years it remained my most conceptually and aesthetically extreme effort, a sort of announcement-to-and-of-self. For these reasons, it’s also the earliest piece I acknowledge with a catalog listing despite having moved away somewhat from its relatively “complex” local vocabulary in the years since.

Though I wrote it for myself in 2016 with the idea that it would become my main original touring vehicle as a violist, I was obliged to put the piece down when playing-related injury redirected my energy into other pursuits: therefore it is still waiting on an intrepid performer to take it up, premiere it, and record it. I’d love to work with someone on this — if that’s you, get in touch.

(note May 1, 2022; edited February 9, 2023)