Gondwana (composition)
Overview
 
Gondwana is a defining musical composition
Musical composition
Musical composition can refer to an original piece of music, the structure of a musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece of music. People who practice composition are called composers.- Musical compositions :...

 of spectral music
Spectral music
Spectral music is a musical composition practice where compositional decisions are often informed by the analysis of sound spectra. Computer-based sound spectrum analysis using tools like DFT, FFT, and spectrograms...

 for large orchestra composed by Tristan Murail
Tristan Murail
Tristan Murail is a French composer. His father, Gérard Murail, is a poet and his mother, Marie-Thérèse Barrois, a journalist. One of his brothers, Lorris Murail, and his younger sister Elvire Murail, aka Moka, also write, and his younger sister Marie-Aude Murail is a French children's writer...

 using simulated synthesis to create a harmonic interpolation
Interpolation
In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points....

 between an orchestrally synthesized chord
Chord (music)
A chord in music is any harmonic set of two–three or more notes that is heard as if sounding simultaneously. These need not actually be played together: arpeggios and broken chords may for many practical and theoretical purposes be understood as chords...

 derived from a simulated bell
Bell (instrument)
A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...

 sound and a chord derived from a trombone sound (Fineberg 2000, p.69). This process is meant to evoke the shifting of continents and thus the piece is named after the former supercontinent Gondwana
Gondwana
In paleogeography, Gondwana , originally Gondwanaland, was the southernmost of two supercontinents that later became parts of the Pangaea supercontinent. It existed from approximately 510 to 180 million years ago . Gondwana is believed to have sutured between ca. 570 and 510 Mya,...

 ([]).

The piece uses interpolation
Interpolation
In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a method of constructing new data points within the range of a discrete set of known data points....

 to make a smooth transformation on all musical parameters including spectral profile, envelope, and instrumental attacks (ibid, p.108).
Quotations

...not as much as I am in the metamorphic or sedimentary rock categories. I mean I can take your igneous rocks or leave them. I relate primarily to micas, quartz, feldspar. You can keep your pyroxenes, magnetites and coarse-grained plutonics as far as I'm concerned...

Eunice!? That's a person named Eunice?

I love those old Ventegums.

It so happens, Mr. Simon, that Howard has had discussions with Leonard Bernstein about the possibility of conducting an avalanche ... in E flat.

...you are not Burnsy. Burnsy is Burnsy, I mean Eunice is Burnsy, I mean she isn't Burnsy. Nobody is Burnsy.

It's the television set, Eunice. There's a movie on--a war movie. They're getting dressed for the big battle.

Well, there's not much to see actually, we're inside a Chinese dragon.

Why, those are Howard's. What on Earth are you doing with Howard Bannister's rocks?

Don't kick those rocks, you Philistine!

There is an old Croatian saying, Bollixter, which goes...

 
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