Grossman Ensemble premieres Martha Horst's "The Universe Remembers Gravitational Waves"
Program notes:
Martha Horst's piece The Universe Remembers Gravitational Waves premiered with the Grossman Ensemble on March 12, 2021.
Scientists recently discovered that as gravitational waves — faint ripples in space and time — pass by us, they leave behind a sort of memory of their crossing. These memories are even fainter than the original gravitational waves themselves. As these “memory waves” pass, objects are shifted slightly out of place and the positions of bodies drifting through space are altered. Even time itself might end up slightly out of sync, running briefly at different speeds in different parts of the Earth. In a similar fashion, this trio for harp, violin and viola features undulating gestures of sound traveling in time and space. In the first half of the work, these gestural waves generate musical momentum. The harp part features tremolo chords that swell and subside. Against this, the strings play a rhythmically accelerating ostinato in canon. In the middle of the piece, the momentum generated from the string part transfers over to the harp part; rapid glissando figures ensue. As the momentum of the work unwinds, the gestures fall apart and become something akin to musical memories of the previous forward moving music of the first half. The work ends with single pitches in different registers — a sort of musical dust of decaying memory, sound, and time.