Inflection Points
Bassoon - Sheet Music

Flute, bassoon and piano

SKU: P2.10007

Composed by Thomas Dempster. Chamber music, 20th century. Published by Potenza Music (P2.10007).

Composer Thomas Dempster says, "In differential calculus, an inflection point is a point on a curve at which the curvature changes sign - between positive and negative curvature. I construe the entirety of the piece as a somewhat long arc; the inflection point of the entire piece happens somewhere during the second movement. The first movement ('Quirky Rays and Charming Segments') takes the idea of a stationary point as a tonal center as more literally sees a line, or a curve, or pitches and motives passed around between the ensemble.This movement juggles a number of ideas and verily proffers some short-lived, rhythmically unstable and tonally ambiguous lines and arcs that return later on. The second movement ('Distant Planes and Objects') contains a fair amount of parallel motion, open and sparse figures, and static textures. Motion in pitch space extends outward in both directions from Ab and eventually returns, retracing the points. The final movement ('Jiggly Dots and Origins') is a mildly psychotic gigue that melds together the ideas of the previous two movements.".