The piece ‘isn’t sonic’ was written for Dmitry Batalov. This is a large form. I use a special composing technique, which changes the duration of the performance depending on how the performer listens. That is, under certain circumstances, it can last 25 minutes; under others – about 40, even though there is no improvisation or aleatoric here. The acoustics of the hall has a significant influence on the duration of the piece.
I gave the name interrogative, or you can read it as a slight doubt – isn’t sonic. Do we always talk about sound when we hear it? Is it just about sound? And when it’s precisely about the sound, maybe it’s not about the sound?
I wrote the piece for piano and pocket electronics. Pocket does not mean reduced. The topics of electronics (“I am different,” “I am from a different space”) are presented here in full. But the volume of this message is minimal and specific. This volume is atypical for the all-inclusiveness and omnipresence of the electronic medium.
The idea of ‘isn’t sonic’ are based on reflections about the plateau. Is it possible in temporary arts? With time always moving (this is my personal feeling), are there any stops and temporary flat “platforms”? In my opinion, never. What appears to be level always has a slope of thousandths of a degree. That is not a platform, but a very long move that seems to me.
In these reflections about the possibility of a plateau and its multi-stage achievement – or not – I created this play.
The final section deals with the topic of musical cryptography. Here the pianist pronounces the phonetic series of vowels and consonants. It is seems as a pure phonetic game of meaningless sentences. But a particular phrase is encrypted here — in its phonetic contour. The trick here is that the performer not knowing the meaning of the phrase he is saying. But the listeners can paradoxically understand the phrase’s meaning and recognize it.
The piece ‘isn’t sonic’ is a part of the “Notes and Quotas” program of the Union of Composers.