The Broken Ear [1984]

The Broken Ear, part I

I wrote this first part of the cycle The Broken Ear in 1983/84 for the Schönberg Ensemble, which had been founded ten years earlier by students (including Henk Guittart) of the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, following a performance of the Chamber Symphony No. 1, Opus 9 by Arnold Schönberg, conducted by Reinbert de Leeuw.

For The Broken Ear, I used my software program DOS-Lab, which I was developing at the time. With this piece, I wanted to explore the end of tonality, and my idea was to do this by studying the aforementioned composition by Schönberg, as this work was a significant part of the death process of tonality. After writing the piece, I realized that I needed to go further back and unravel the process of tonality from within. I have primarily done this in De Deuren Gesloten and Grand Hotel.

I used some fragments from the Chamber Symphony and, with the help of my DOS-Lab, dissected them into rhythmic and harmonic elements, which I then reassembled through a strict procedure. This process leads to quasi-quotes, citations that are not literally copied but are generated procedurally. I imagine that this might be comparable to what happens in our memory—our memories are likewise not literal ‘recordings’ of our past.

The work is dedicated to Marlies.

• Schönberg Ensemble conducted by Micha Hamel; recording by Bert van der Wolf.