Sunday, April 14, 2013

Istvan Anhalt's Symphony of Modules


Istvan Anhalt, Symphony of Modules, sample score notation (1967)

Thinking still about Lebbeus Woods and his architectural forms that were never built, and the imagined libraries of Rauzier, the parrot-towers of Vega (see the two previous entries of Lobster & Canary), I offer another example of hypertrophic vision: the never-performed Symphony of Modules by Istvan Anhalt.  John Cage, in 1969, published some of Anhalt's novel formats for scoring the symphony (see above).  

Reportedly, Anhalt expected that an orchestra would need 50 hours of rehearsal before playing the piece's 28 minutes of music.  

Perhaps somewhere an orchestra is tuning up to give the Symphony of Modules its debut...in one of the winged buildings sketched by Woods, while savants listen in remotely, in a pari-colored library deep in the Brazilian rain forest...

For more on Anhalt, click here.



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