Process-based musical representation is also used in the composition of the music-theatre piece In response to Naum Gabo: Linear Construction in Space No. 1. In this case, to engage with the particularities of Naum Gabo’s eponymous sculpture. This sculpture is the result of the process of looping a nylon thread in a Perspex[68] structural frame, creating “an illusion of a continuous parabolic form”[69].
In the piece, this process is recreated by associating the rectangular shape of the sculpture’s plastic frame with the rectangular shape of the art gallery and then associating the line of nylon thread with the singer. Therefore, akin to the sculpture, the performance “threads” the singer across the art gallery, in this case in the form of a parade. The main musical material for this composition also responds to a process. It is a melodic line that slowly unfolds and elongates in a parabolical shape, imitating Gabo’s sculpture. Two different versions of the melodic parabolic line are performed, one by the singer during the parade and the other by the trumpet in a static position. The trumpet’s melodic line starts with a fourth and then a fifth down to then slowly moderating semitone by semitone. The voice, instead, goes first a fifth and a minor third up, moderating the shape with a major second before the semitone steps. This responds to the different perceptions of the parabolic shapes of the sculpture from different angles, as we can see in the four different perspectives shown in Figure 26.
The flute and the violin, placed in different positions in the gallery, also have complementary material that responds to the parabolic melody or to the sculpture itself[70]. As the different instrumental parts resonate in the gallery, the singer, in its movement across the gallery, will be interacting with the echoes of the different melodical lines or musical gestures. This represents the interaction of the nylon thread with its own previous loops in the sculpture, which is what creates the sensation of spatial depth in Gabo’s work.
Example #21
Unfolding parabolic melodic lines in the trumpet and the voice, interacting with the echoes of the violin and the flute during the parade across the art gallery. This musical process represents the construction process of Naum Gabo’s sculpture.