Kyle Gann: Sweeney Adrift
(1982)

for three flutes, two pianos, celesta, clarinet, electric bass, and drums

Sweeney Adrift, written while I was a doctoral student, was a rare (for me) experiment in controlled chaos. The pianos were at one tempo, the flutes at another, clarinet and bass at another, all kept out of sync by the performers watching silent, blinking metronomes. Tonalities were sometimes in unison, sometimes polytonal. I didn't like tying performers to metronomes, and never tried that again, but I did rather savor the chaotic sound often held together by a common tonality. (Sweeney was the everyman of T.S. Eliot's early poems, and I used the name in several titles.) The score would be more trouble to resurrect than it's worth, but the instruction chart below gives the structure and group relationships.

- Kyle Gann

Duration: 21 minutes

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