Elias Stemeseder: Studies in Prolation, for S-L plus Ensemble

This new work, developed for Elias Stemeseder‘s 2024-25 Roulette Commission, investigates rhythmic, melodic and formal implications arising from non-idiomatic treatment of an adjusted meantone tuning. Emerging from Stemeseder’s ongoing personal interest in historic keyboard instruments and the repertoire composed for them, the piece attempts to reconcile this fascination with his contemporary artistic practice and methods. Informed by research into the particular possibilities and constraints of Harpsichord temperaments with twelve notes per octave—and the aesthetic priorities that shaped their propagation—the work aims to deprioritize and deconstruct some of the goals these theories originally sought to accommodate.

The work is performed by the longstanding producer-duo Stemeseder-Lil Injure (S-L) and an ensemble of plucked, struck and electronic instruments, continuing S-L’s interest in the juxtaposition of archaic sound-making tools and practices with contemporary technology.