Glass (1978-9)

Glass was composed in response to a request by Toronto’s Glass Orchestra, in the late 1970s. I had just completed the piece Psaltery (for Lou Harrison), a tape piece constructed from a recording of one string of a hand-held bowed psaltery (built by Capritaurus Instruments in Santa Cruz, California). Glass is essentially the same piece, but realized in a very different (and in many ways, more ideal) medium.

I created a score for Glass, since there had been no score for Psaltery, only a simple sketch. Performance of the piece, however, turned out to be more or less impossible for logistical reasons: too many players; too many water glasses; too many pitches. These problems were further compounded by the evaporative difficulties of maintaining correct intonations over the course of the piece. For those reasons, Glass sat on a shelf, nearly forgotten, for some 40 years, until Hunter Coblentz asked me for the score.

Glass/(Psaltery) comprises 51 pitches, the first 17 harmonics of three different fundamentals, related to each other as ratios of 1:5:3, or a major triad. Harmonics from the higher series (5 and 3) are actually higher harmonics of the first. After building up the initial series on the fundamental from simplest to most complex harmonic (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 3, 6, 12, 9, 5, 10, 15, 7, 14, 11, 13, 17, in what I call “psaltery order”), pitches from the next series (5, or the M3rd) gradually replace their “closest neighbours” until the series on 5 is complete. This process happens twice more, moving to the P5th (on 3), and back to the fundamental. Finally, the series on the fundamental drops out.

Harmonics of the new, replacing fundamental enter in reverse “psaltery order:” 17, 13, 11, 14, 7, 15, 10, 5, 9, 12, 6, 3, 16, 8, 4, 2, 1. In this way, more distantly related harmonics of a new series enter first, crossfading with neighbour pitches from the current series so that, at first only a “mistuning” is heard. Gradually, lower harmonics of the new series begin to imply a new fundamental, through difference tones and our own sense of harmony. Finally, pitches of the first series gradually drop off from highest to lowest.

This CD is the first opportunity for anyone — including me — to hear the piece. Finally hearing it was a joyful revelation. I am greatly indebted to Hunter Coblentz. Without his extraordinary skill and dedication, it could easily have been another forty years.

Larry Polansky | Santa Cruz, California | 23/2/18