…before knowledge of the physical Grove spines fades (2017)

Jim Dalton (b. 1957) — …before knowledge of the physical Grove spines fades (2017) for organ

The composer writes: “Musical ideas and inspiration come to composers in various ways. I can't speak for others, but for me these things come from a different direction for every new composition. As I wrote this piece, method and process were on my mind because I was also preparing a presentation for a music theory conference on compositional techniques. The source of the title, ‘…before knowledge of the physical Grove spines fades,’ was a social media post by musicologist Michael Scott Cuthbert, who accompanied the post with a photo of the spine of Volume 9, ‘Iacobus to Kerman,’ of the Grove Dictionary of Music. The poetic quality of his phrase attracted me, but the book itself gave me an unexpected resource. I decided to use that volume as an ‘oracle’ to instill fresh ideas. Almost all the elements emanate from its pages: Igbo rhythms, Indian talas, a 9th century Icelandic hymn, ideas connected to both Iacobus and Kerman, isorhythms, and even the number 9—among others. The confines of drawing ideas from between the covers of one ‘alphabetically-controlled’ book and Carson Cooman’s request for a composition suited for any size of organ were constraints of the kind that I find to be more liberating than limiting.”