Straight, Colorful Curving: Three Architects
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Program Notes
This piece explores musically the designs of Mies van der Rohe, Frank Gehry, and Rem Koolhaas, three architects I became acquainted with while living in Chicago. Each movement establishes a mood befitting that architect’s work. Though these movements are not connected, thematic material pervades the overall structure, as similar design elements carry across their work.
The architecture of Mies van der Rohe consists of magnificent black steel beams in perpendicular lines. His buildings, such as those on the campus of the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), are a testament to modernism. Accordingly, movement one consists of short and repetitive blocks. Rhythmically, this movement shifts between a faster steady tempo and two slower, freer tempos.
Movement two explores the curvilinear forms of Frank Gehry’s architecture. Melodic and rhythmic patterns in the overall structure mimic these curved lines. Curves are also represented on the motivic level through the bending of pitches (e.g., curving the straight line of a held note) and performance techniques such as circular bowing. The movement’s overall contour consists of a pattern similar to a sine wave, representing a circle over time.
Rem Koolhaas’s architecture, such as the student center at IIT, employs many of the perpendicular design elements of Mies, while venturing into the curved forms of Gehry. Since Koolhaas uses color to the greatest extent of these architects, movement three incorporates rich harmonies, a musical characteristic I find analogous to color. This movement consists of some of the short repetitive blocks of the first movement; however, certain repetitions move in unexpected directions.