“ For my graduate recital from the MFA Performer-Composer program at CalArts in 2019, pitched originally to my piano mentor Vicki Ray, the plan was to learn Michael Gordon’s “Sonatra,” a piece which pianist Vicky Chow says is a “traumatic physical experience” according to the New Yorker article on her two-version recording on Cantaloupe Records in 2018. Then I’d pair it with some other newly written works.

The B-side version on Chow’s release is the same piece by Gordon but recorded in some type of just intonation, one in which, at the time, I could not find any information about. I analyzed each note from the first few minutes of the recording using software and listed average cent deviations.

Patterns emerge, yet no “just” system is identifiable. Only later, after ordering and receiving the LP would I read on the liner notes that the temperament used was Wendy Carlos’ “Super Just Intonation,” which in hindsight could explain the extremely low F#’s as a tridecimal neutral sixth (13/8) from A, but would then conflict with the A# (an interval shortened by 5 cents in my data, which in theory should have been around 5 cents greater since the minor 2nds are tuned to the 17th harmonic in Super JI). This was a good clue, but still felt like an incomplete answer.

With encouragement from Vicky Chow and my composition mentor, Andrew McIntosh, I set out to devise my own system. Particularly vexed by the F#'s, I developed a semi-pythagorean tuning system: an alternating chain of (mostly) just intervals.

"Sonatra" itself soon proved too difficult for a 23 year old Richard to tackle, but the rest of the program was already realized, which left a roughly 16 minute sized, thematically critical hole in the center of my program. To fill it, I wrote “Sonatrinas,” a piece for two percussionists, a pianist and a cellist, and an obvious nod to its originator who was, at this point, a distantly musically related second cousin.

Originally performed in my devised tuning system, the piece pays special attention to F#’s, which are critically important in tying the sections together. At one point, you hear up to six different F#’s simultaneously; one from the vibraphones, two from the 5th and 11th partials of the cello, and three from the 5th and 11th partials of the piano, built on a lowered F# which is also heard without harmonics. The version on this recording is performed in equal temperament, which mildly diminishes this effect; regretfully, you will now only hear four different F#’s. “

-Richard An