The Tempered Suite

For microtonal guitar

2019

Duration

16 min

Instrumentation

microtonal gui​t​

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Commissioned by

Petri Kumela

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Premiered by

Petri Kumela
28.11.2019
Music Centre
Helsinki, Finland

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Movements

I. Trance

II. Allemande

III. Courante

IV. Sarabande

V. Disco

VI. House

VII. Gigue

Notes

What could the Baroque Dance Suite look like if updated to this day? I pondered this question as I composed the work for microtonal guitar. The piece updates the baroque dance suite not only in its musical language, but also in the selection of dances and the tuning of the instrument.

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The piece is played on a microtonal guitar that has individually movable frets for each string, which enables moving towards (and past) the temperaments of the baroque. The guitar is tempered according to Rousseau’s tempérament ordinaire, which I have in addition spiced up with undefined microtonal pitches for interference.

A more direct frame of reference for the Baroque dance suite is the lute series in G minor by the French Baroque composer François Dufault.

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The Baroque-era tuning and dances are accompanied by electronic dance music genres trance, disco and house. The dance music of the 70s, 80s and 90s become a part of the updated dance suite, resulting in a kind of hybrid of twisted shadows from the original genres of electronic dance music and baroque dances. The title of the piece, The Tempered Suite, therefore refers to a kind of retuning of both the guitar and the entire dance suite.

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The work is dedicated to guitarist Petri Kumela.