Yoav Pasovsky

Opus sectile

Opus sectile (Latin for “cut/divided Work”) refers to a popular artistic technique in ancient Rome, where different materials are cut into pieces (crustae) and placed in walls or floors, in order to form an image or a pattern. Unlike mosaic, which consists of many small pieces of uniform size, the pieces in opus sectile are much larger and may already represent a large part of the design. The piece consists of 56 small parts that are related in different ways to each other. Although I’ve already written all the parts, the piece is not entirely “composed” yet (compōnere Latin for “put together, arrange”). While studying and rehearsing the piece, the performer must take that final step and compose the fragments together, thereby dissolving the boundaries between the composer and the performer. Using opus sectile as an analogy, one can imagine the interpreter as an archaeologist digging at a musical excavation site, trying to put many small fragments of some relic back together. Even though these fragments are only a couple of years old (they date back to March 2009), some of them are lost forever. In order to make it easier on the performer, and also so that I can retain more control over the design of the piece, I have imposed some constraints on the ways the piece should be structured. Nevertheless, the interpreter still has about two hundred million (8!⋅7!) possible combinations to choose from. Today you will be hearing one of them.

[Yoav Pasovsky]