Proposition 5.554

I have recently finished a neoclassical piece for piano and flute. It is inspired, in part, by Debussy’s objection to Satie’s lack of form, and Satie’s response.

Proposition 5.554 of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico Philosophicus says, “It would be completely arbitrary to give any specific form.”

The flute part of 5.554 is isorhythmic. The forty-nine pitches of the color are derived from the forty-nine letters of the quotation using a chromatic/alphabetic cypher. The Talea is derived from the speech rhythm of its eighteen syllables over three bars of 5/4 and one bar of 4/4. This renders 196 bars of ‘melody’.

The tonal piano ‘accompaniment’ in fact dominates the sound and is intuitively written as to ‘make sense’ of the mechanistic flute part.

Click to hear 5.554