Mizzou New Music Ensemble conducted by Martín Fraile Milstein - Musica battuta for Flute, Clarinet, French Horn, Violin, Violoncello, Pianoforte and Two Percussionists, no. 438k (2016, Rev. 2024)

NOMINATION: Performance of the Year - Notated Composition

Nominator Statement

Musica battuta or Beaten Music was especially composed for Italian toy pianist Antonietta Loffredo. The work exists in various arrangements, including a two-glockenspiel version premiered at Madrids Centro Cultural Galileo in 2020 by Spanish phenomenon Neopercusión (Juanjo Guillém and Rafa Gálvez); presented at the 2023 ISCM World Music Days in Cape Town, South Africa at the special request of Lukas Ligeti; and toured nationally in 2024 by Ensemble Offspring (Claire Edwards glockenspiel; Alex Raineri toy piano). The arrangement for Flute, Clarinet, Horn, Violin, Cello, Piano and Two Percussionists was especially created for Martín Fraile Milstein (Provincia de Río Negro, Patagonia Argentina) and the Mizzou New Music Ensemble (University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA). The rationale for the nomination is simple: what a performance of this incredibly challenging work! Musica battuta serves as an exploration of the musical implications of combinatoriality as an organizational determinant via the utilization of mathematician Joel Haaks combinatorial analysis of American composer Steve Reichs rhythmic pattern from Clapping Music (1972), while additionally adopting the novel harmonic concept of All-Interval Tetrachords and Other Homometries from American minimalist composer and music theorist Tom Johnson, eloquently presented in his publication Other Harmony: Beyond Tonal and Atonal (2014). In The Geometry of Music Rhythm: What Makes a Good Rhythm Good? (2013) Godfried T. Toussaint presents the background to a combinatorial analysis by mathematician Joel Haak of American composer Steve Reichs rhythmic pattern from Clapping Music (1972) [x x x . x x . x . x x .], which states that because there are 8 claps per cycle of 12 pulses in Clapping Music means that the combinatorial possibilities may be mathematically represented by the equation (12!)/(8!)(4!)=495. This figure, the result of an adherence to two separate conditions: (1) that the pattern begins with a note and not a rest, and (2), that the pattern does not contain a rest larger than one pulse between two consecutive onsets (or sounded pulses). Toussaint explains that with these two constraints, the original 12 units, composed of 8 claps and 4 rests, are reduced to 8 units made up of 4 clap-rest patterns [x .] and 4 solitary claps [.], adding that in this setting, there are now only eight two-valued elements taken four at a time, and thus the formula for the total number of possible patterns becomes 8!/((4!)(4!))=70. Hack then introduces a third condition into his analysis: that the pattern should not be a cyclic permutation of another pattern (i.e. a clockwise or anti-clockwise rotation), which effectively reduces the total number of admissible patterns from 70 to 10. A fourth condition is then introduced: that the combined 12-pulse clapping patterns made by both performers should not repeat themselves before the ending of the piece, while a fifth condition then eliminates the possibility of consecutive repeats of any particular rhythmic cell, which finally results in the reduction from 495 possible patterns to 2: Reichs Clapping Music pattern and [x x x x . x . x x . x .]; the latter, or alternative pattern being the pattern adopted in Musica battuta.