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Variations on Reverse Entropy
for reed quintet (oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, bassoon)


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   Variations on Reverse Entropy was composed for the Akropolis Reed Quintet's "Unraveled" project in 2012. My take on the idea of unraveling was to reverse the compositional process of a musical form that generally has a clear trajectory. Theme and Variation compositions tend to begin simply with the theme and then gradually get more complicated as the theme is varied more, both harmonically and rhythmically. In this work, I flipped this process, so this work is a backwards theme and variations, beginning with chaos and gradually unraveling until only the theme remains. Over the course of eight minutes, highly chromatic harmonies paired with incredible speed and instability gradually unravel into calm, diatonic serenity. Entropy refers to the fact that systems in nature tend to move toward more disorder - workspaces get messy, gardens get overgrown, smoke disperses in the air, stars go supernova, etc. This tendency is one of the most fundamental laws of nature and cannot be reversed, thus the title of this work is an impossibility and the contents are only theoretical.

   Duration: ca. 8'



Watch the Akropolis Reed Quintet's performance at the 2014 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition:


This work is self-published and distributed by the Akropolis Reed Quintet. You may purchase it from their website.



Copyright © by Roger Zare Music, ASCAP. All Rights Reserved.