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ORCHESTRATION AND PITCH PRECISION IN THE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC OF MARC SABAT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 December 2020

Taylor Brook
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Abstract

This article examines the relationship between orchestration and microtonality in the music of Marc Sabat through a score-based analysis of two recent works, Asking Ocean (2016), for string quartet and large ensemble, and The Luminiferous Aether (2018), for large orchestra. Excerpts from these two compositions are discussed to highlight the challenges of composing for orchestral forces in a musical style that demands a high degree of microtonal pitch precision. Through retuning, alteration, and a sensitivity to the construction, techniques and performance practices of orchestral instruments, Sabat has developed a unique manner of orchestrating that is at once timbrally rich and uncompromising in pitch precision. After a brief introduction to the extended just intonation framework that Sabat employs, his concepts of ‘fixed microtonal pitches’ and ‘tuneable intervals’ are discussed and connected to orchestration in his scores. Drawing upon this analysis, connections are made between the microtonal system with orchestration and musical aesthetics broadly.

Type
RESEARCH ARTICLES
Information
Tempo , Volume 75 , Issue 295 , January 2021 , pp. 17 - 30
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

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References

1 Taylor Brook, Synergy of Form, Rhythm, and Orchestration in Three Microtonal Compositions (DMA thesis, Columbia University, 2018).

2 Granade, Andrew S., ‘Rekindling Ancient Values: The Influence of Chinese Music and Aesthetics on Harry Partch’, Journal of the Society for American Music, 4/1 (2010), pp. 1–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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5 Marc Sabat, Introducing My Work in Microtonally Extended Just Intonation, Lecture, Ostrava Days, Ostrava Centre for New Music, 2020, p. 1.

6 Sabat, Introducing My Work, p. 10.

7 Thomas Nicholson and Marc Sabat, Fundamental Principles of Just Intonation and Microtonal Composition, Universität der Künste Berlin, Studio für Intonationsforschung und mikrotonale Komposition, unpublished, 2018, p. 31.

8 Marc Sabat, Introducing My Work, p. 1.

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11 Leonhard Euler, Tentamen novae theoriae musicae (New York: Broude, 1968; orig. pubd 1739).

12 James Tenney, From Scratch: Writings in Music Theory, ed. Larry Polansky, Lauren Pratt, Robert Wannamaker and Michael Winter (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015), p. 295.

13 Throughout this article consonance and dissonance describe a gradual increase in interval complexity, with 1/1, 3/2, 4/3, etc., representing the gradation from relative consonance to relative dissonance. This is sometimes referred to as ‘sensory consonance’.

14 Sabat, ‘Three Tables for Bob’, pp. 47–63.

15 Sabat, Asking Ocean.

16 Marc Sabat, email to Taylor Brook, 13 February 2017.

17 Sabat, Marc, ‘Relative Dissonance’, MusikTexte, 163 (2019), pp. 62–3Google Scholar.

18 Marc Sabat and Robin Hayward, Towards an Expanded Definition of Consonance: Tuneable Intervals on Horn, Tuba and Trombone (Berlin: Plainsound Music, 2006), p. 2.

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20 Sabat, Marc, The Luminiferous Aether, musical score (Berlin: Plainsound Music, 2018)Google Scholar.

21 Taylor Brook, Synergy of Form, Rhythm, and Orchestration, p. 54.

22 Sabat, The Luminiferous Aether.

23 Sabat, email to Taylor Brook, 13 February 2017.

24 Sabat, email to Taylor Brook, 29 November 2019.

25 Sabat, Asking Ocean, p. 1.

26 Sabat, Luminiferous Aether.

27 Sabat, email to Taylor Brook, 13 February 2017.

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