Larry Polansky four-voice canons Winant Diamond Goode Guillette Didkovsky Davis - CB0011

Over many years, Larry Polansky composed a series of fascinating mensuration canons (a formal concept dating back to the Renaissance) that run the sonic gamut from wildly boisterous to serenely introverted. In these canons, each successively entering voice moves proportionally faster than the previous one (i.e., each successive voice is to some degree a temporal compression of the voice that precedes it, allowing all voices in any given canon to contain roughly the same amount of information yet all end simultaneously), causing each piece’s density and rhythmic complexity to increase from beginning to end. Usually, but not always, the individual voices in Polansky’s canons are permutation lists of a small number of musical elements (e.g., four or five or six elements), which may include any and/or all of a voice’s parameters (pitch, rhythm, instrumentation, etc.). This disc collects thirteen of these canons (one of which is found here in three different realizations) with instrumentations including marimbas, gamelan, electric guitars, children’s voices, computer, choir, and chamber ensemble. Performances by and collaborations with William Winant, Jody Diamond, Daniel Goode, the York Vocal Index, Ray Guillette, Nathan Davis, Nick Didkovsky, and others. [CD and folder in jewel case]