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ORCHESTRATION AND PITCH PRECISION IN THE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC OF MARC SABAT

Abstract This article examines the relationship between orchestration and microtonality in the music of Marc Sabat through a score-based analysis of two recent works, Asking Ocean (2016), for string quartet and large ensemble, and The Luminiferous Aether (2018), for large orchestra. Excerpts from these two compositions are discussed to highlight the challenges of composing for orchestral forces in a musical style that demands a high degree of microtonal pitch precision. Through retuning, alteration, and a sensitivity to the construction, techniques and performance practices of orchestral instruments, Sabat has developed a unique manner of orchestrating that is at once timbrally rich and uncompromising in pitch precision. After a brief introduction to the extended just intonation framework that Sabat employs, his concepts of ‘fixed microtonal pitches’ and ‘tuneable intervals’ are discussed and connected to orchestration in his scores. Drawing upon this analysis, connections are made between the microtonal system with orchestration and musical aesthetics broadly.