the law of floating object
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The Law of Floating Objects
Commissioned by Sue Ellen Hershman Tcherepnin and Dinosaur Annex.
"The Law of Floating Objects" is a title for one of Galileo's experiments that refuted Aristotle's long respected theories on floating objects. Galileo also wrote the Law of the Pendulum (1583) and The Law of Falling Objects (1604).
When I was a little girl I used to listen to my father, a mathematician, talking to his colleagues on the phone about infinity. As I listened, I imagined him inhabiting an internal world of colorful universes, endlessly opening, spinning in space. My father's work was, in fact, based on more prosaic things like infinite number series and Fourier analysis. However, I still prefer my original understanding of infinity.
Just like my childhood image of infinity, I am interested in Galileo's experiments not because of their physical demonstrations but because of the poetic ideas their titles inspire. This piece is my own description of floating objects and the laws that govern them. Flutes float in an atmosphere of cymbals bound by the gravity of drums. Time moves in circular patterns that stretch and contract. The landscape changes but the musical law is constant.
Written for 5 Flutes,
Flute 1 doubles piccolo
Flute 2
Flute 3
Flute 4
Flute 5 doubles on both alto and bass
11 minutes