Actaonella (2022)
(for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano)

Actaonella, for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano with electronics, was commissioned by Ensemble Reconsil (Vienna, Austria) and Network for New Music (Philadelphia, USA) and composed in spring of 2022. The title refers to an extinct species of sea snail originating from the cretaceous period. When I was a child in Austria, my mother and I sometimes went to a store where beautiful stones were on display. I was intrigued by a fossilized actaonella that had apparently been found in the Salzkammergut region: I’d always been fond of snails, and this one had a particularly beautiful spiral pattern. The shopkeeper, an old lady, generally refused to sell anything, making it more of a museum than a shop, but somehow, we were able to buy this fossil for very little money and I kept in in my room for many years. My thoughts returned to this snail when composing the present piece: three basic ideas meet, but rather than occurring in succession, elements of them are enmeshed in what could be represented as a spiral pattern. One of these elements consists of samples of sine waves slightly detuned from one another, resulting in beating frequencies that provide a temporal guideline for the ensemble. Another is a succession of intervals, neither tonal nor atonal, projecting an atmosphere of calm reflection. Finally, a short, wavelike chromatic melody imitates the shape of the sine waves but contrasts sonically with both them and the intervals. The chromatic steps are further subdivided by the use of quarter-tones, nudging the melody towards a glissando. As we move gradually outward from the inside of the spiral, our view of these enmeshed elements becomes successively more holistic and sweeping.