Resonance Frames

The premiere of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring provoked the audience to riot. A similar response was drawn from the audience present at the premiere of Strauss’ Salome. These are two extreme examples, but throughout the timeline of music’s history, occasionally the introduction of a new work changes the course of the art form, impacts culture at large, and elicits a particularly strong reaction from the audience. First Nights, the title of a book and a course taught by Thomas Kelly at Harvard University, examines those critical moments by creating a laboratory where the audience may pause the experience (both musical and social) of absorbing a new work in order to study it in further detail. Toward that end, a new piece of music is commissioned by the course for the class to “witnesses and critically assesses” its “creation, rehearsal and world premiere.”

Resonance Frames was Gandolfi’s response to his First Nights commission. He writes of the work: “For this occasion I chose to work with six non-narrative, abstract films by Boston-based film-maker Pamela Larson. The creative process resembled the setting of poetry to music; each artistic discipline contributed equally to the finished product.  Pamela Larson and I worked together to strengthen the overall form of the work by modifying the lengths and sequences of several of the films, which often provided me with strong musical ideas. For example, Zig Zag was originally an amusing seventeen-second film. I suggested that we repeat it twice to add length.  In so doing, undesirable discontinuities in the light of the film were created. We then reversed the middle iteration, which solved the light problem but caused an abrupt change in the direction of motion in the film. This serendipitous result enhanced the humor of the original film and immediately suggested to me an appropriate musical response.”

From the program notes by Kathryn J Allwine Bacasmot

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