Grid #1: Bells (2006)
Anthony Fiumara (1968) is a Dutch composer and musicologist. In his compositional work, the influence of the minimalist pioneers is often abundantly clear (for example, in his arrangement of Reich’s City Life). Grid #1 – Bells (2006) for electric guitar uses a very limited amount of musical material as its foundation. The whole work is actually built from a singe element: the major triad. This major triad appears in four different keys. The rhythm alterates between a duple and triple division of the bar and its further subdivisions. The constraints of the material imply that repetition is indeed one of the key components of the work. This repetitive element is only reinforced by technology: with the use of a loopstation, fragments are automatically repeated so that the guitar player can lay on another voice. In this way, each of the seven sections of the work creates a gradual build up of simultaneous voices. This superimposition produces an animated rhythmic counterpoint of the duple and triple divisions of the bar. The final and climactic point of the work is the coming together of all the rhythmic facets in which the major triad has appeared. In complete opposition to the highly differentiated use of timbre, dynamics, playing technique, rhythm, tempo etc. […], Fiumara merely asks the guitarist to use simple strokes that create an open sound which he compares to the shimmering sound of a clock.
– © 2009 Pieter Herregodts, translation Terri Hron