Unity Capsule

Brian FERNEYHOUGH
Born 1943, Coventry, England

Unity Capsule (1975-76)

flute solo
Published by Edition Peters

The imprisonment of an instrument within the limits of the material assigned to it in a given composition and the restriction imposed upon the selection of material by the relatively arbitrary sound-producing qualities of the instrument in question form twin poles whose interaction via the mediational activity of the composer can, but seldom does, lead us to the true inner essence of musical characterisation. All too often received conventions of instrumental treatment serve rather to conceal this intimate relationship between ordering mind and self-revealing pragmatic medium. Arbitrary scales of aesthetic value are continually being erected which, via well-meaning cosmetic treatment of a particular instrument, prevent that instrument expanding to its own natural boundaries: in particular this customary untruth leads to a division of available techniques into ?effective? and ?trivial? categories, the latter being dismissed as at best irrelevant, at worst an embarrassment to be eliminated at all costs from a ?work of art?.

I believe, on the contrary, that the recognition and incorporation of such ?superfluous?, alogical facets of an instrument?s personality is a duty which brings with it three positive consequences. Firstly, the instrument as potential is released from the restrictions of instrument as mere tool. Secondly, the ?inner instrument? -? the platonic ideal struggling to escape the bonds of material definition -? is permitted to begin an expansion towards its own boundaries; boundaries beyond which, for that instrument, it is senseless to seek a ?beyond?. Thirdly, the composer can, by means of a suitably organised formal disposition of these newly-released heterogeneous elements, act as a doorway through which the amorphous, infinitely malleable material may flow reified and refreshed back into the positive perceptual world.

Unity Capsule is a work which encounters its own reality on the boundary between worlds. As in Cassandra?s Dream Song (1970) the role of the performer is to redraw each boundary anew in terms of his own boundaries. Theodor ADORNO (in a different context) once formulated the concept of ?musical prose?. In applying the term in a new definition to the significance of this particular piece I would like to direct the attention of the listener to the projection of a very specific processual methodology onto the ?inside? of the instrument/performer relationship in and through which the flute is made to ?speak? and, in speaking, to mediate between worlds in the creation of an auto-mythology.

Unity Capsule was given its first performance at the Royan Festival of 1976 by Pierre-Yves ARTAUD, to whom it is dedicated.

Programme note © Brian FERNEYHOUGH