@peterquirk
That's one of my favorite pieces of his. It's also an opportunity for the #musictheory teacher in me to explain how a mensuration canon works. For those who don't know, a mensuration canon is the same tune played at different speeds at the same time.

In this case, everyone is just playing a descending A natural minor / aeolian scale in a short-long-short-long rhythm. The higher instruments are playing faster with more repetitions; lower is slower with fewer.

The combined effect...

@voltronic It feels like the musical equivalent of Escher's perpetual staircase.

@peterquirk
I'm a massive Escher fan.

Yes, if the people were going endlessly down.

Endlessly up would be this piece:
Ligeti - The Devil's Staircase
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6LmG9myHxA

#cosomusic #cosoclassical

@voltronic And endlessly in the same place would be Steve Reichs's Music for 18 Musicians. (I love this piece.)
https://youtu.be/71A_sm71_BI
#CoSoMusic #minimalism

@peterquirk
I haven't heard that one in a long time.

@voltronic Do you know David Lang's Death Speaks? The lyrics comprise all the sentences in Schubert's lieder where Death speaks. This track from the album, sung by the extraordinary Shara Worden (now known as Shara Nova) is representative of the complete work.
Pain Changes.
https://youtu.be/8cgGP6xKpA0
#CoSoMusic

The whole album: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_l0jwkrZoB_t4nUympMF6UCtTNbwS1Qna0

@peterquirk
No, but this sounds very interesting. I love Schubert lieder. Thanks!

@peterquirk @voltronic it’s such a beautiful piece! Whenever I hear it, it stops me in my tracks.

@ant @peterquirk
I'm sure both of you are aware, but others may not know:

This was most famously used in the movie Hiroshima, played as Little Boy is loaded onto Enola Gay.