Explora is a conceptual and minimalist 12 minute composition for string quartet, electronics and tape. In the spirit of Steve Reich’s New York Counterpoint for Clarinet and tape, and also Alvin Lucier’s “I’m sitting in a room”. The composition works with the concept of listening and recognition. It plays with forward and backward chronology through repetition, live recording and playback.
Divided in three continuous sections the piece starts by action of recording a simple melody line that develops and passed on to each string instrument in the form of a working non-traditional counterpoint. This melody repeats itself throughout the string quartet while the quartet it’s affected by live audio processing and backwards-electronic sounds. The quartet plays chronologically until the second part, then it starts to retract and play the counterpoint backwards. As the piece reaches its own beginning, the third and last section starts, the playback of the just recorded performance in reverse. This recording reveals to the listener the counterpoint again sounding forward including all the electronic reversed samples giving the piece a revelatory new character.
I’m hoping this style of composition makes the “Gradual Process” (“a compositional process and a sounding music that are one and the same thing”-Reich) more evident and as a result a more interactive conversation between the listener and the composition.