Hillary Crossing the Delaware (2016)

by Frank Rothkamm

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Hillary Crossing the Delaware (For Trombones, Concerto Strings, Legato Strings, Exotic Harp, Pizzicato Strings, Chamber Winds & Gong) (25:48) opus 653 (2016) 25:48

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Catalog No: FLX70
Title: Hillary Crossing the Delaware
Sound Artist: Frank Rothkamm
Visual Artist: Holger Rothkamm
Label: Flux Records
Length: 25:48 (1548s)
Composed: 2016
Location: Los Angeles
Instruments: Atari Cubase 2.0
Emu Proteus/2
Release Date: 11/16/2016
Format: Digital
File Under: Classical

On the night on Tuesday, November 8th in the year 2016, A.D., I wrote a 16 bar loop for 7 instrumental groups that are housed in an orchestral hardware computer, just acquired from the estate of the late L.A. genius Andrew Gold via TechnoEmpire in Burbank, who furnished me with a Certificate of Authenticity. I’m not sure that this will stand up in a court of law, but Andrew’s Emu Proteus/2 Orchestral sound module was set up with a certain selection of instruments.

It was very late into the night then, way past the point of uncertainty that Trump would be the president-elect of the United States of America. The orchestral loop was recorded rather carelessly with all the emotions of improvisation but none of the rational considerations of composition. However, I did revive and immediately applied an ancient invention of mine, the magic of unsynchronized loops that I first implemented in the “Futileness of North America” (1987). I’m not sure that “futileness” amounts to an acceptable substantive in the English language, but the technique is based on the deconstruction of time: In the temporal-spatial domain of an orchestral score a loop is to be found, whereby the defining characteristic of a loop is a seamless transition from the end to its own beginning, just like a dog chasing its own tail or like an ouroboros, which is Ancient Greek for a tail-devouring snake.

Then, starting at the top of the score, each successive instrument’s loop is to be shortened by one time unit. So, as each loop is one time interval shorter than its preceding one, a grandiose simultaneity of now de-synchronized loops will occur which will not sync up until a very long time has passed, which in some instances can take millennia.

I also took the liberty of slowing down the tempo of the score by a factor of 4 because, as with any traumatic event, the slow motion reveals details that go the core of our hermetic understanding. Now this sounds as if one observes with a magnifying glass the same events over and over again, however each component repeats at a different rate. Given enough time all possible combinations should be revealed. Here the time is 25:48 before 2 string sections sync up again and this a good time to conclude the piece.

As the process of composition went on I changed all the colors, all but one of the instruments from Andrew’s setup, and it became clear that this is not about the Donald but all about Hillary, allegorically perhaps in the same way as it was George Washington’s ordeal to cross the river Delaware in 1776. Now, exactly 240 years later, it was Hillary’s time.

“Hillary Crossing the Delaware” is a planetary form of polyphony, as old as the discovery of the concept of ratio, either between vibrations per second or as the speed of rotations between planets. To fully behold its wonders, one is drawn to the ancient belief that the rotation of the planets, the music of the spheres makes manifest destinies from sea to shining sea.

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released November 17, 2016

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Frank Rothkamm Los Angeles, California

Prolific, L.A. based German composer & artist.

rothkamm.com

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