there recedes a silence, faceting beyond enclosures

Orchestral Work

Aug 24

Written By Admin

for solo clarinet and large orchestra (2025)

commissioned by the SWR Symphonieorchester

premiere by Carl Rosman and the SWR Symphonieorchester at the Donaueschinger Musiktage on October 17, 2025

conducted by François-Xavier Roth

score published by Edition Gravis
copy-editing and orchestra material by Notengrafik Berlin

Informed by design used for thirteenth-century Anatolian Seljuk architecture, this work unpacks how complex geometries used in these spaces may give ways for rethinking the in-betweens of sonic architectures, and reimagines how their intricate compositions of stone carving activate light and shadow such that movements shifting between two- and three-dimensional planes enable modes of the virtual to surface, and perhaps, space to emerge beyond enclosures.
Architectural remodeling and the research informing this work, therefore, are neither intended for history-making nor conducted for reconstructing a fixed historical narrative, but are rather efforts to take account for the conditions of what remains as well as for the virtual emerging therein, with the virtual approached not as the “non-real,” but as a way to address that which preconditions the political-now as the “real.”
In an effort to reflect on space beyond enclosures, this work activates timbre together with hyper-geometry extending beyond three dimensions in relation to the design used in, for example, the thirteenth-century Eşrefoğlu Camii and Sivas Divriği Ulu Camii ve Şifahanesi, engaging not only with sound but also with silence — not as moments where sound is absent, but as entry points where coeval spatial happenings extend, similar to how shadow expands beyond negation of light as an entry point in engaging with space extending beyond three dimensions.
That which I had been thinking as a concerto transformed itself during the course of the research that engages hyper-geometry in relation to architecture and embodied acoustics, and offered ways other than a concerto in addressing a work that is composed of a solo instrument and orchestra, and suggested ways of how such modes of spatial happenings can fade into being traces of themselves through sound and silence as such, ceasing to exist as points of origin and reaching to spaces beyond enclosures without disregarding the unbounded simultaneities leaving imprints therein.
Thinking alongside the research informing this work:
Image 1 shows a physical model of a four-dimensional stellated 120-cell, which facets a 600-cell, seen here as one of its three-dimensional projections, a three-dimensional shadow of its four-dimensional self, together with its two-dimensional imprint reflected on the floor.
This model and how it engages with such interdimensional extensions was developed in relation to stone carving and design used in thirteenth-century Seljuk architecture, which illustrates similar geometrical symmetries through a visual interplay between two- and three-dimensional planes. Reimagining these architectural relationships and design with hyper-geometry, this work activates hyper-geometric timbral and harmonic spaces based on such an interplay, as a happening between two-dimensional orthogonal projections and how they at times extend into the three-dimensional plane while undergoing four-dimensional transformations.
Image 2 redraws the same four-dimensional stellated 120-cell as a computational rendition, which is modeled for one of the timbral spaces to unpack and re-think how discrete mappings of a given tuning can be re-imagined within continuous and unfixed terms while undergoing four-dimensional transformations.
Image 3 is a still from a 3D animation that portrays a compound of five 24-cells faceting a 600-cell undergoing four-dimensional transformations. Shown here is the four-dimensional compound intersecting with the three-dimensional hyperplane and how it would appear in a three-dimensional space. Visualizing the interactions between pitch and frequency domains, the three-dimensional projections in motion of a higher dimension are used to engage with movement in relation to time, with time activated as memory rather than as a spatial dimension.
Image 4 is another perspective of the same physical model shown in Image 1, here showing its icosahedral projection.
©Turgut Erçetin 2010-2025 (All rights reserved).
To be announced . . .
For research, see research and the related 3D animations:
- That which lies beyond enclosure
Publications:
- Related monograph That which lies beyond enclosure is forthcoming. More information coming soon.
I would like to thank Werner, Andrew, João, and the team at Notengrafik Berlin for their careful and detail-oriented work as well as how they initiated an uplifting process of thinking together, providing not only delicate engraving and editing, but also immense support throughout.