WINGATE: METAPHYSICAL MONOLOGUES
Nos. 1 - 11

NOTES ON THE SET:

Wingate’s Metaphysical Monologues (or ‘MetaMons’ for short) are a collection of eleven concert études for solo instruments which explore the liminal spaces of pitch serialism. These philosophical statements in musical form are clothed in the sonic raiment of some of the composer’s favorite instruments, and humbly attempt to give a fresh expression to that elusive ‘ineffable’ which so many philosophers claim to be among the chief powers that music possesses. These pieces often have a surprisingly welcoming character despite any misgivings arising from their strict serialist architectures, as they tend to eschew the fashionable habits of contemporary solo pieces—which sometimes hide behind all manner of pitch-blurring extended techniques—and instead give primary focus to relatively old-fashioned matters of pitch itself. But this by no means lessens the considerable virtuosic demands of these works. Even the human voice is here deployed in a rather solo-instrument-like fashion, along with its more tangibly instrumental musical peers. And the noble orchestral gong, an ostensibly non-pitched instrument, receives its own peculiar serialist treatment in the eleventh Monologue, perhaps stretching pitch serialism to its conceptual limits. Both challenging and entertaining, Wingate’s Metaphysical Monologues happily continue the late-20th-century academic tradition of numbered solo piece collections in the manner of Luciano Berio’s celebrated Sequenza works and their imitators.

(Please click the links to the individual Monologues below for more information:)