counter)induction

“Sextet (1996) bears the subtitle and original working title On-da-tre, which resembles the plural of the word ondatra (as in Italian or the Haná dialect); however , it also sounds like counting from one to three in some unknown Romance (or Romany?) dialect, on, dah, tree. (The counting would continue: quatre, quins, sex, sieben, ocho, nehvo, deset…ondeset, dadeset, tredeset etc.) The musical treatment of Sextet follows similar “principles as the above concept. The music was written as the grammar of an unknown but familiar language, as a system of rules (and exceptions) using a syntax of empty concepts. The words of this language only find their meanings in chance associations. [...] The modern composer often attempts something similar to the endeavors of these playful creators of artificial languages who devise the rules of some unusable gibberish with earnest thoroughness.” – MP