[difeʁɑ̃s]
for symphony orchestra
Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Kazumasa Watanabe, conductor
The piece features nine “forces”, nine events whose appearances trigger significant changes in the musical discourse. Among these forces there are simple gestures that extend to the entire orchestral texture, unassuming rhythmic alterations that affect the local pitch structure, or a particular timbral cue that cause similar timbres to emerge. The main function of these forces is to create a seamless formal flow while leaving space for large-scale textural disturbances. This flow can be considered as a constant deferral of meaning through a chain of signifiers, where the listener’s attention is constantly pushed towards the future. Musical semantic depends on a network of references, and every reference to the past creates hierarchies, further emphasizing the differences between the materials. The title of the piece comes from this double-meaning, deferral and difference, embodied in the term différance in Jacques Derrida’s essay bearing the same title.
Two sections of the piece, the “dewy pathway” and the “pine hut” conceptually contrast each other. The first section follows the procedure of deferral and difference described above, whereas this procedure does not reemerge in the second section. The materials in the second section consist of the snapshots of the moments where the forces appear, however, now they are isolated from their native context–they can only affect a span of a moment, rather than minutes. All formal nexus are unavailable: form is now only a fixed shape and it’s impossible to create any reference to defer the musical meaning or to build hierarchies between the materials within it.
The titles refer to the venue where the traditional Japanese tea ceremony is held (‘“pine hut” being the nickname of the venue), as well as the path that leads to the venue (roji). The attendant of a tea ceremony is expected to prepare herself before entering the tea room while walking through the path. On the path, the attendant still defines herself by yielding to numerous social signifiers, yet once she is in the tea room, these signifiers become irrelevant. In the tea room, a samurai would leave his sword at the entrance and would drink tea from the same cup as a peasant. In the tea room, the différance does not exist.