Composer and pianist Neil Thornock releases his second New Focus album, this time a collection of solo retuned-keyboard works in an extended just intonation tuning. Thornock's fascination with microtonality is grounded in his extensive experience playing and composing for carillon, while his approach to keyboard writing is shaped by years of organ and piano performance.
| # | Audio | Title/Composer(s) | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Time | 70:11 | ||
Etudes |
|||
| 01 | Etude 1 | Etude 1 | 4:17 |
| 02 | Etude 2 | Etude 2 | 3:52 |
| 03 | Etude 3 | Etude 3 | 2:13 |
| 04 | Cascade | Cascade | 5:54 |
| 05 | Lithic Bell | Lithic Bell | 4:30 |
Diptych |
|||
| 06 | Diptych 1 | Diptych 1 | 1:21 |
| 07 | Diptych 2 | Diptych 2 | 0:51 |
| 08 | Bellody | Bellody | 4:19 |
| 09 | Fantazia 1 | Fantazia 1 | 11:55 |
Versets |
|||
| 10 | Versets 1 | Versets 1 | 0:36 |
| 11 | Versets 2 | Versets 2 | 0:20 |
| 12 | Versets 3 | Versets 3 | 0:25 |
| 13 | Versets 4 | Versets 4 | 0:53 |
| 14 | Versets 5 | Versets 5 | 0:49 |
| 15 | Versets 6 | Versets 6 | 0:28 |
| 16 | Versets 7 | Versets 7 | 0:59 |
| 17 | Versets 8 | Versets 8 | 0:53 |
| 18 | Versets 9 | Versets 9 | 1:07 |
| 19 | Fantazia 2 | Fantazia 2 | 6:37 |
Poems |
|||
| 20 | Poem 1 | Poem 1 | 1:34 |
| 21 | Poem 2 | Poem 2 | 1:46 |
| 22 | Poem 3 | Poem 3 | 1:01 |
| 23 | Poem 4 | Poem 4 | 3:26 |
| 24 | Microwaltz | Microwaltz | 2:39 |
| 25 | Rain | Rain | 7:26 |
In his liner notes for Another and Still Stranger World, composer and pianist Neil Thornock makes an analogy between this adventurous project of new works for extended just intonation piano and Captain Ahab's audacious search for an individual whale in the iconic novel Moby Dick. Indeed, the process of venturing into a new tuning system can be akin to setting out on unknown waters. Thornock has spent much of his musical life exploring the subtleties of microtonal systems, particularly as a carillonneur. This collection of mostly short character pieces and etudes for his carefully cultivated tuning demonstrate his ingenuity as applied to pitch, but also to the textures he creates that highlight exhilarating characteristics of the tuning.
Thornock's extended just intonation temperament consists of all thirty-one prime number harmonics from 2 to 127 over a fundamental C. The resultant tuning includes octaves that are not in tune with another, beating effects between intervals that push up against their nearby overtones, and detuning effects. The otherworldly quality of Thornock's tuning system opens up a wealth of expressive avenues for the music, from the simplest gesture to dense, complex sonorities.
Read MoreThe album opens with three Etudes that draw the listener into the temperament with oscillating, repeated figures. In equal temperament, the opening minor 3rd and major 3rd motives of Etude 1 might conjure Phillip Glass, but here Thornock eases us into this strange world gradually, introducing more pitches that reveal the tuning's richness one by one into the fabric of the moto perpetuo texture. Etude 2 opens with a somber minor triad arpeggio supporting a poignant melody, each note calibrated to extract the maximum expressive impact from its unique intervallic space from the others around it. Etude 3 introduces rhythmic irregularity into the mix, varying odd groupings of alternating accompanimental dyads.
Cascade is evocative and descriptive; descending arpeggios drop gently to a fixed pedal point in the bass, articulating partials of the fundamental as they fall. Midway through, Thornock changes direction with ascending figures and tolling chords. Lithic Bell highlights the resonance of pitch collections in permutations of deliberate rhythmic figures before dramatic chords expand the register. The short two movement Diptych focuses on simple gestures, gently rising melodic phrases in the first and an exuberant march-like figure with quick arpeggiated rolls in the second.
Bellody is evocative of both Lou Harrison's just intonation works as well as Indonesian gamelan (which itself was a big source of inspiration for Harrison). Thornock uses harmonizations of the primary bell inspired line in rhythmic unison across different registers to highlight the subtle discrepancies in pitch between octaves in this ritualistic work. Fantazia 1 is the longest work on the album, and the most ambitious structurally. Opening with a a series of harmonies that toggle back and forth between each other, Thornock stretches the pace of unfolding to give the ear a chance to absorb the exotic pitch relationships. The oscillating repetition of the Etudes returns, here with watery figuration on top in the higher register that becomes more insistent over time, before closing with a angular, unpredictable coda that hints at the singular genius of Thelonius Monk.
Versets are short vignettes, only one of which lasts longer than one minute (Verset 9 at 1:07). They range from the impressionistic (#1, #8, #9) to the earthy (#2, #5, #6), and from the the quirky (#3) to the somber (#4 and #7). Fantazia 2 opens with a pedal point in the middle register (perhaps a nod to Chopin's famous raindrop Prelude in D-flat major) around which shimmering sonorities sound. Midway through the piece Thornock obscures the pedal point pitch with closely spaced double stops that surround it and increasingly dense chord voicings before a new pedal point emerges at a higher pitch level.
The four Poems are, like the Versets, ruminations on a musical idea, but slightly more extended and developed. "Poem 1" is a chorale texture that introduces connective phrases between the harmonies. "Poem 2" features melodic fragments that over-ring due to a depressed sustain pedal, drawing the ear to the remaining resonance between phrases. A simple contrapuntal dialogue unfolds in "Poem 3" and "Poem 4" establishes a spacious, reflective atmosphere by crafting gestures that jump in register before mysterious, planed chords finish the piece.
Microwaltz lives up to its name, with a characteristic waltz accompaniment in the left hand and fluid figuration in the right hand. The tuning takes the familiar stylistic context and puts it behind a distorting filter; Thornock intensifies the texture with dense chords as the dance threatens to go off the rails, before a reprise of the opening theme. Rain opens with a similar descending figure as Cascade, this time in a more compressed register. It is a fitting close to this beguiling and hypnotic album, filled with entrancing new sonorities.
– Dan Lippel
This is a digital only release
Composer, producer, recording: Neil Thornock
Piano technician: Jason Cassel
Recording consultation and mastering: Scott Miller
Design, layout and typography: Marc Wolf, marcjwolf.com
In his compositions, Neil Thornock explores the tensions that exist between the transcendent and the mundane. Many of his formative years as a composer were spent in a carillon belfry, and bell-like sounds continue to pervade his work. Much of his music is written for and grows out of his idiosyncratic technique as organist, pianist, and carillonneur. With a lifelong interest in microtonality, he has composed extensively for just intonation piano and other instruments. Recent projects include four volumes of virtuosic ragtime-inspired piano solos. Thornock teaches composition and theory at Brigham Young University. He received degrees from Brigham Young University (BM in organ performance and MM in composition) and Indiana University (DM in composition).
We’re accustomed to music tuned in equal temperament, the system, used in both classical and popular Western music for the past 270 or so years. In equal temperament the ratio of the frequencies of any adjacent pair of notes (the half-steps in the standard 12-tone scale) is the same.
In just intonation, by contrast, the intervals between the frequencies of adjacent notes are whole numbers (e.g. 3:2 for a perfect fifth). While this might sound like it would result in harmonious sounds, just-intonation music sounds ferociously out of tune to Western-trained ears.
There’s a temptation when presenting unfamiliar tunings to create music that sounds like lessons for the ear. On a piano, that might mean repeated figures with slowly introduced variations, à la Philip Glass, or repeated chords that hammer home how different the harmonics are from what you’re used to.
There’s some of that here, as in the first of the three Études that begin the album. The designation “Étude” was originally devised for pieces intended to help students master technical challenges rather than necessarily please listeners. Here, we the listeners are the students.
The rhythmic first and third Études borrow from Minimalism, plying numerous iterations of each chunk of Thornock’s piano’s strange-sounding harmonic language. In “Étude 2” a triplet accompaniment to solemn simple melodies also help accustom us to the alien-sounding tuning, but again without exciting much musical sympathy.
The music gets more absorbing as the album progresses. The trickling downward figures of the lyrical “Cascade” explore much of the piano’s wide range. A few pieces seem designed to demonstrate specific effects. “Verset 2” shows the unexpected progression of just-intonation scales. “Verset 7” shows off the metallic timbre that the tuning can encourage. The theatrical “Lithic Bell” suggests the grand reverberations of the carillon – another of the composer’s specialties – as well as the tolling of church bells. Bells also come to mind in “Microwaltz” and especially in the gripping “Bellody.”
Pieces with elements of traditional forms are among the most effective: a jazz-standard flavor in “Verset 5,” chorale-like moving harmonies in “Poem 4,” insistent rhythm and tinkling melody in “Microwaltz.” Pastoral melodies and sensitive rubatos elevate the Schubertian “Rain.” The latter, anent its title, in its impassioned central section also nods to Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude.
There is also thoughtful melodicism (“Poem 2,” “Diptych 1”) and even interesting spatial effects, as in “Poem 4” and “Bellody,” where high notes seem to come from a different direction as those in the midrange. “Poem 4,” like “Verset 7,” also includes chorale-like passages that illustrate the strange harmonic possibilities of the tuning.
The longest piece, “Fantazia 1,” offers a smorgasbord of just-intonation delicacies as it grafts Minimalism onto a Romantic moodiness, all with an improvisatory feel. The shortest are the Versets, nine playful little sketches in a variety of styles. “Verset 7″‘s close harmonies go the furthest to impress on the brain the distinct weirdness of the tuning.
If alternate tuning systems are new to you, this album can be an introduction that’s more musical than pedagogic, and quite revealing. If not, it will be easy to admire Thornock’s ingenuity and talent. Once you’re used to the intervals, some of the pieces might put you vaguely in mind of Bartók’s short piano pieces, or Satie’s, with excursions into the jazzy and Romantic.
Either way, if you come to it with an open mind you may find Thornock’s just-intonation piano music a useful spur to thinking about how music operates on our brains and specifically our emotions.
— Jon Sobel, 8.08.2025
New Focus Recordings is an artist-led collective label featuring releases in contemporary creative music of many stripes, as well as new approaches to older repertoire. The label was founded by guitarist Dan Lippel, composer Peter Gilbert in 2004, and composer/engineer Ryan Streber in 2004, formed …Read More …
Listen to full streaming tracks while you browse the site. New tracks enabled for streaming every month. Click on the button to open up the radio player.
