Instrumentation: flute, 2 clarinets, horn, trumpet, percussion, piano, violin, viola, cello, double-bass
First Performance: Ensemble Modern, conducted by Johannes Kalitzke. May 8 and 9, Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik
Commissioned by WDR (Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln) for Ensemble Modern,
with the kind support of Friends of Ensemble Modern e.V.
Duration: 13 minutes
Excerpts from part 2 (recording of premiere performance):
"For example, the most elementary property of the language faculty is the property of discrete infinity; you have six-word sentences, seven-word sentences but you don't have six-and-a-half-word sentences. Furthermore, there is no limit; you can have ten-word sentences, twenty-word sentences and so on indefinitely. That is the property of discrete infinity. This property is virtually unknown in the biological world. There are plenty of continuous systems, plenty of finite systems but try to find a system of discrete infinity! The only other one that anybody knows is the arithmetical capacity, which could well be some offshoot of the language faculty. The more you go on the more it seems true."
Noam Chomsky, The Architecture of Language
"Language makes infinite use of finite means."
Wilhelm von Humboldt
An infinite paradox: discrete, non-continuous, recursive elements - looped, embedded, etc. - giving way to: [an infinite array of expressive meanings],[...],[...],
…rhythms and phrases, built up from or broken down into discrete properties, resulting in strange, unknown combinations, while infinite pitch networks, arising from singular/discrete sources - a single fundamental and its branches of overtones - share and propagate new, limitless overtone pitch space…
Anthony Cheung
April 2011