WINGATE’S REFERENTIAL STRUCTURES

Created as a cathartic culmination of a ten-year obsession with Bach’s famous cello suites, Referential Structures is entirely constructed only from actual bits and pieces of J. S. Bach’s Six Suites for unaccompanied cello (1717-1723), here combined into a polyphonic collage for cello sextet. Each of the six cellos is assigned germ-like quotation components from only one of the six original suites (i.e. Cello I plays only material from Suite No. 1 in G; Cello II plays only material from Suite No. 2 in d; etc.), thus always adding or subtracting the same key material to the protean polytonal mixture. And these fragments are freely used, thematically and contrapuntally, as if they had completely forgotten their Baroque origin in the frenzy of a new through-composed piece. Consisting wholly of quotation, Referential Structures seems at times to set the original suites into competition with one another, each vying for the attention of the careful ear while defamiliarizing the original work amidst new musical possibilities.

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