Continuity Paradox
for string trio

Work no. 242
2023

I was told that this music sounds like time travel – time skips, reversals, echoes – but my original idea for the title was just that sometimes pieces of music can have wildly contrasting sections, and yet somehow flow smoothly. In a way, it's a sequel to 沧海桑田. Similarly analytical in the way it applies its procedures.

This was also the second piece I did inspired by Nathaniel Giles' work, the first being Chinguetti Library Chaconne. The chaconne's style was based on late Renaissance/early Baroque counterpoint, just rhythmically complicated. This new piece dispenses with any stylistic influences and just uses those rhythmic complications as its style: aside from two or three short, nondescript melodies, there's nothing else but the mathematics of rhythm.

A very different piece which likewise deals with nothing but rhythm is Types of Equality, for percussion.