Kyle Gann: The Insomnia of Lilacs
(2018)

for virtual flutes, vibraphone, and piano

Mp3 Recording, 31:38
Score in Johnston notation (in progress)
PDF MIDI Score

The Insomnia of Lilacs is a kind of half-hour tone poem using 58 pitches per octave. After just finishing Hyperchromatica for three pianos tuned differently, it occurred to me that a lot of pitches might be conveniently handleable if I had multiples of the same instrument(s) tuned to the same scale, but at different transpositions. So I came up with an ideal chamber ensemble of flutes, vibraphones, and pianos using a set of parallel scales. This piece is conceived as a recording only, and cannot be performed: who has a vibraphone with 58 pitches? Having just spent two years on the harmonic series (Hyperchromatica), I was rather desperate to have minor tonalities again, and especially to move smoothly between major and minor seventh chords, from a septimal minor seventh (1/1, 7/6, 3/2, 7/4) to regular minor and major sevenths, with a neutral seventh chord to smooth the transitions. The resulting 11-limit scale has a 12-pitch scale built up on five separate tonics: 32/25, 49/48, 1/1, 96/49, and 25/16. On each of those tonics is built a scale of 1/1, 9/8, 7/6, 6/5, 5/4, 27/20, 11/8, 3/2, 5/3, 7/4, 9/5, and 15/8. (More technically, I had become fascinated with the 49th harmonic as an in-between point between the perfect and augmented fifth, and thus the prevalence of 49s in the tuning. Between 49/48 and 1/1 and between 1/1 and 96/49 one can get the same kind of tonality flux that Harry Partch used at the beginning of The Letter, which was my initial theoretical idea for the piece.)

Thus I made a score with five flutes, five vibraphones, and five pianos, each trio with the basic 12-pitch scale transposed to a different level. (Two pitches overlap among the five scales, which is why there are 58 pitches rather than 60.) At 31 and a half minutes, this is the longest single movement I've ever written. The often floating texture harks back to my 1981 piece for three live pianos Long Night. A Copland quote appeared inadvertently; I embraced it and played with it. Two Europeans, Eberhard Weber and Arvo Part, make momentary appearances, and the spirit of Harold Budd hovers. As for the title, I wanted to evoke fragrance and nighttime, with a tinge of surreality that relates to the strange voice-leading among the tonalities. Plants suspend some natural operations when it's dark out, but what if some lilacs couldn't? What if they kept perfuming the atmosphere while obsessing about ideas that kept returning?

Much thanks to Juhani Nuorvala for technical help and to Matt Sargent for sound production.

Below, arranged vertically, are the scales of the five tonalities, in terms of pitch name, ratio to C 1/1, and cents. The center scale, on C, is the simplest in terms of ratios, and the ones on either side are transpositions of that scale.

Fb 32/25 427	D77b 49/48 36	C 1/1 0	BLL- 96/49 1164	G# 25/16 773
Gb 36/25 631	E77b+ 441/384 240	D 9/8 204	C#LL 54/49 168	A#+ 225/128 977
A7bb 112/75 694	F777b+ 343/288 303	E7b 7/6 267	DL- 8/7 231	B7 175/96 1039
Abb 192/125 743	F77b+ 49/40 351	Eb 6/5 316	DLL- 288/245 280	B 15/8 1088
Ab 8/5 814	F77+ 245/192 422	E 5/4 386	D#LL- 60/49 351	B# 125/64 1159
Bbb 216/125 947	G77b+ 441/320 555	F+ 27/20 520	ELL 324/245 484	C#+ 135/128 92
B^b 44/25 979	G^77b 539/384 587	F^ 11/8 551	E^LL- 66/49 516	C#^ 275/256 124
Cb 48/25 1129	A77b+ 49/32 738	G 3/2 702	F#LL 72/49 666	D# 75/64 275
Db 16/15 112	B77b 245/144 920	A 5/3 884	G#LL- 80/49 849	E# 125/96 457
E7bb 28/25 196	C777b+ 343/192 1005	B7b 7/4 969	AL 12/7 933	F7#+ 175/128 541
Ebb 144/125 245	C77b+ 147/80 1053	Bb 9/5 1018	ALL 432/245 982	F#+ 45/32 590
Eb 6/5 316	C77+ 245/128 1124	B 15/8 1088	A#LL 90/49 1053	Fx+ 375/256 661

One might note that Eb 6/5 occurs in both the 32/25 and 1/1 scales, and B 15/8 occurs in both the 1/1 and 25/16 scales. In addition, F77b+ 49/40 and D#LL- 60/49 are less than a cent apart, as are C77b+ 147/80 and A#LL 90/49, so there are functionally only 56 pitches; I constructed the scales intentionally to play with this ambiguity. Generally speaking, each new section explores a different aspect of the tuning. There's a section that plays entirely with five-limit dissonances, another that overlaps seventh chords from contrasting tonalities in the most dissonant (but always quiet) music I've ever written, and so on.

(If you don't have enough experience with just intonation to make sense of this chart, try reading the step-by-step Just Intonation Explained section.) In Johnston's notation, + raises a pitch by 81/80, - lowers it by 80/81, # raises it by 25/24, b lowers it by 24/25, 7 lowers it by 35/36, L raises it by 36/35, ^ raises it by 33/32, and F-A-C, C-E-G, and G-B-D are all perfectly tuned 4:5:6 major triads.

- Kyle Gann