Peter Thoegersen

Peter Alexander Thoegersen (born June 29, 1967) is an American composer, music theorist and drummer best known as a theorist and practitioner of a variety of music call polytempic polymicrotonality.

Reception

Theogersen's monograph "Polytempic Polymicrotonal_Music" stands now as the basic reference for this compositional tactic. Briefly, two commitments may seem baked into conventional musical notation, namely adopting a totalizing or coordinatizing rhythmic framework (even if time signatures and tempi change) and adopting a totalizing or coordinatizing intonational framework (even if nonstandardly microtonal). Thoergesen advocates liberation from thinking rooted in (even extended) conventional notation. Polytempic polymicrotonal ensemble music moves simultaneously move in multiple independent tempi and sounds simultaneously in multiple independent intonational systems (whether equal temperaments or just intonational systems). The monograph both guides contemporary composers into this novel approach and practice (which can accommodate multiple styles), and establishes diverse historical precedents reaching back to Ancient Greece (in particular Aristoxenus of Tarentum), the Middle Ages (in particular Boethius), the Renaissance Gioseffo Zarlino and Nicola Vicentino and many 20th century composers, especially Charles Ives and Jean Etienne Marie. Thoegersen singles out Ives' Universe Symphony as the first fully polytempic polymicrotonal work. Thoegersen's analysis of the ratio relationships between the three orchestras that constitute the Universe Symphony, is site by Johnny Reinhard..

Thoegersen has composed many works exploring polytempic polymicrotonality. Reviewing Thoergersen's CD Milko. Irrational Quartet. Herniated Lumbar Discs Much Better Now, New World 80812-2 (with notes by Kyle Gann, Robert Carl notes that this music is "unlike almost anything you’ve ever heard. Readers take note, and hardy souls may respond" and suggests bring "a laser-like and microscopic intensity to one’s listening." Carl cites Elliott Carter, [[Pierre Boulez] and Milton Babbitt as composers from a previous generation who music had a similar feeling of "pure research", a fresh sound emerging from a fresh method.

Discography

• "Three pieces in polytempic polymicrotonality" / New World Records, 80812-2; New World Records

Bibliography

• Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music / Jenny Stanford Publishing, Peter Thoergersen, (2022)
• Maqam Melodies : Pitches, Patterns, and Developments of Music in the Middle East and other Microtonal Writings / Jenny Stanford Publishing, Peter Thoergersen, (2024, forthcoming)

External links

• Peter Thoegersen's SoundCloud page
• Peter Thoegersen's BandCamp page
• Peter Thoegersen's scores