Pratītyasamutpāda is a Sanskrit term for a Buddhist concept. Translated as “dependent-origination” or “contingent-arising,” it refers to two (or more) entities that bring each other into existence, by virtue of their relationship, which comes before the things related. Ready examples include the student and the teacher, the species in an ecosystem, the ideologies of major political parties, or the personalities and mannerisms of life partners. In each case, A does not cause B, and B does not cause A. Instead, A and B arise together, in a continuously unfolding process, reflecting one another like a photo and its negative, their essences enveloped within the heart of the other.

In this piece, the string quartet and the gamelan stand in this bi-polar relationship to each other. In the space opened between these two poles, pluralistic collections of sounds gradually come into being, grow to fruition, and then recede over time, sonic crest leading to trough following a logic both naturalistic and dream-like. Individual sounds will likely not be the listener’s focus. In fact (with a few exceptions) rhythms are not determined, and performers, following timers, have some flexibility and freedom in when (and what) they play. The system is the material, and the process is the event. So don’t try to catch each drop, just enjoy the rain.

“Oblivion” was composed around a few central ideas surrounding tempo and timbre. The composition experiments with an auditory tempo illusion created by accelerating or decelerating trills. Sometimes these resulting layers of tempos deviate from the original tempi. Meanwhile, the overtones from the steel metallophones are quite different from the harmonic overtone series produced by the strings. The fundamental melody is often doubled and sometimes tripled by this combination of overtones to enrich the timbral aspect of the work.

WATER is a meditation on flow and change – on the ways that water moves, morphs, and finds surprising new forms depending on its surroundings. Phase transitions are of special interest: How water jumps to a new state, infused with (or releasing) energy in the process. Ice cracks or sublimates, liquid water evaporates, steam condenses. These contrast with more gradual or undulating movement, the ebb and flow of a river’s downstream motion, or the push and pull of tides – taking musical form in the continual tempo changes of the last section.

Hydrogen(2)Oxygen was composed as the first-ever collaboration between the Lightbulb Ensemble and the JACK Quartet. The work draws on the 2012 collaboration between Baumbusch and JACK entitled Bali Alloy, which premiered several works at the Bali Arts Festival in Denpasar written for JACK and a 25-member Balinese Gong Kebyar ensemble. Hydrogen(2)Oxygen comes from an aesthetic of molecular crystallizations, confluences of symmetry and asymmetry represented through non-coincidental rhythmic cells of contrary proportions and immense time cycles, and meanwhile explores the musical potential and the depths of raw expression contained in the contemporary string quartet and the American gamelan. A breakdown of the movements are as follows:

I: Hydrogen (GAS) - this movement explores, in two contrasting sections, four non-coincidental polyrhythms, 7-11-13-17, that are divided between the sixteenplayer ensemble. The first section presents the cycles in their glacial state, slowmoving and unobtrusive. They are catalyzed by two tempo curves that begin to enact a large-scale accelerando through diverging click tracks that the players are listening two via ear-buds. At the height of this accelerando, there is a fission that splits the ensemble into four different tempo curves that progress through different polyrhythmic progressions for the duration of the piece, oscillating through chaos and order. The string quartet plays only open strings and natural harmonics, and the gamelan progresses through a melodic sequence that forms the foundation for the following two movements.

Below is a graphic representing the tempo curves in the piece:

II: Hydrogen (ICE) - this movement explores the color scape of the instrumentarium of the combined ensemble. Portions of the string content are inspired by the second quartet of Ligeti, and the gamelan parts attempt to create Quasi-Kebyar moments, evocative of early 20th century Balinese Kebyar music, though distorted and impeded.

III: Oxygen (AQUA)- this movement represents one full cycle of a four part polyrhythm (5-7-8-9). The string parts and gamelan parts spotlight each of these cycles individually until they combine toward the end of the piece. The piece is inspired by the image of a school of fish on a reef; all change direction in a unified manner but not at the same instant, and their movement seems both asymmetric and symmetric, unpredictable but inevitable.

This piece is dedicated to Michael Tenzer. (notes authored by Brian Baumbusch)