aporia (2019)
(for chamber ensemble)

The title of this piece, "aporia", is a philosophical term derived from the Greek: a - poria, i.e. not porous, or perhaps better translated "impenetrable". In Jacques Derrida's small but densely wrought book "Aporias", Derrida was discussing the idea of what might be behind factual existence, "this passage beyond truth", and accordingly about how to wrestle with the insoluble. Derrida's questionings led me to think in a personal way about the limitations of thought – my thought – in a musical context.

"Aporia" is in four movements, each with its own topography, focal point and tempo marking.
Each movement has its own pacing, unfolds according to its own governing principles and each highlights particular aspects of the work's idiosyncratic instrumentation. The predominance of instruments in the bass register - bass clarinet, tuba, electric guitar and passages in the lowest register of the harp – give the piece a darkly muscular quality. The four movements are distinct yet interwoven, each an individual reflection of the same musical face.

Another source which influences my music generally is the visual arts and in "aporia" in particular works by Johannes Vermeer and Cy Twombly. In the works of both of these artists, many subplots and subcutaneous layers of meaning can be discerned, whether it be in the reflections in the wing of the harpsichord in Vermeer, in which one can see the outline of a clandestine intrigue, or be it the written passages which form a complex and often opaque midrasch on the subject of the painting in works by Cy Twombly. In my piece, there are musical ghosts, minor triads in string harmonics, lines obscured by rhythmic insistences elsewhere which occasionally surface, hidden messages of varying scope which form an interwoven mesh beneath the surface.

What I hope ultimately is that in listening to this piece, the listener will feel invited to try and hear and thus feel the resistance, the impenetrability which is the target of these musical thoughts and possibly to glean clues as to how to move forward.

Sidney Corbett, March 2019