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program note:
“Moment” for organ, choir, strings and electronics was composed under influence of Gregorian Chants and Gagaku, as holy music of Western and Asian emerged in nearly the same era. And besides, the structure of music is based on the architectural proportion of the Magdeburger Dom and the 10 kinds of chords performed by Sho. The sung words were taken from “Viderunt Omnes”. These materials as starting points of composition are however modulated and transformed by the electronic sounds finally. Thus the main interest in this piece is not on fusing quoted materials, but creating an exceedingly different musical space.
The title “Moment” suggests not only a very brief period of time, but a turning effect produced by a force acting at a distance on an object in Physics. To create the electronics part, some mathematical functions for physics models such as velocity, friction, spring motion etc are used to control parameters of sound processing. This helps greatly to make live Imai’s developed sound-generating system which he called “Sound Creature”.
On the other hand, Imai has been noticing that the chord transition of Sho in traditional Gagaku is heard in subtle difference from general instrumental accompaniment. It is somehow like natural winds changing direction and energy around us. These transitions are modeled and represented in this piece mainly by organ and strings. Then the choir sing as if being surrounded by imaginary wind and sounding creatures.
“Moment” was commissioned by Magdeburger Musikverein e.V., and realized at the Sonology Department of Kunitachi College of Music in Tokyo in 2009.