Attempts At Making Peace With The Past - "Alkan"
Back in 2013, I was through-composing all my music at the piano, and although conceptualism and process-based composition methods have intrigued me, I have not had enough bravery to construct a piece entirely by process. And so, when my friend Matthew Lee Knowles commissioned me to write a little string quartet based on a short fragment by Charles-Valentin Alkan, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to finally attempt this method of composition – and I have never looked back! Matthew’s own work, with its uncompromising conceptualism, have certainly played a major part in my decision. The fact that the fragment in question and Alkan’s music in general was not known to me was also important. I felt that my piece needs to somehow comment on the arbitrary nature of this commission and distance myself from the source material. I began by thinking about the ways I could approach the fragment. I felt that there were two ways to do this – as a musical fragment or as a fr...