WHAT. ARBITRARY. SILLINESS (2021)

for wind ensemble

Commissioned by the University of Toronto Wind Ensemble; Gillian MacKay, director

Duration: 10 minutes

Download a PDF of the score here.

Program Note:

WHAT. ARBITRARY. SILLINESS. was composed in 2021 for Gillian MacKay and the University of Toronto Wind Ensemble. It opens with a presentation of two contrasting ideas – one dour and murky, the other bright and clear – which are then set loose and freely intermingle throughout the rest of the piece. At various points, they interact, overlap, and attempt to subsume one another, mostly to no avail. As with many of my pieces, I encourage the audience to let themselves be absorbed into the sound and find their own meaning and narrative within it. Creating music is a personal endeavour, and experiencing it should be as well.

The title WHAT. ARBITRARY. SILLINESS. – in addition to being a reference to the video series Zero Punctuation – is a “rated G” verbal reaction to the trend of crowbarring extra-musical meaning into works for little to no artistic reason, and often at the expense of musical quality. Even worse are pieces that were composed with no outside context, but were then ascribed some after the fact to score intellectual / academic credit when none was truly earned. In lieu of such a tactic, I have fallen back on the time-honored tradition of simply writing (or at least, attempting to write) a competent, well-structured work anchored on contemporary updates to classical ideals of form, counterpoint, and melody.

I could have pretended that this piece was based on Monet’s The Castle at Dolceacqua, with the opening dour theme representing the imposition of the castle on the landscape, contrasting with the lightness of the surrounding colours rendered by the brighter theme and woodwind flourishes.

But that, of course, would be “WHAT. ARBITRARY. SILLINESS.”

Performance History:

2022-04-02: University of Toronto Wind Ensemble; Dr. Gillian MacKay, director. MacMillan Theatre, Toronto. (Premiere)

Instrumentation:

Piccolo

2 Flutes

Oboes

English Horn

2 Bassoons

Contrabassoon

3 B-flat Clarinets

Bass Clarinet (B-flat)

Soprano Saxophone

Alto Saxophone

Tenor Saxophone

Baritone Saxophone

3 B-flat Trumpets

4 F Horns

2 Tenor Trombones

1 Bass Trombone

1 Euphonium

1 Tuba

Timpani + 5 (can be done Timp+4)