Program note
Each morning and in each favorable place in nature, a certain spider spins a web whose pattern is remarkably regular. Following the ingestion of some hallucinogen mushroom extract — which it has been tricked into taking — the spider starts a web whose spirals, little by little, stop following each other, go astray, increasingly resembling, as more substance is absorbed, the web of one insane. Parts collapse, get tangled up; however Zygiella Notata — since that is her name — does not stop until having reached the usual dimension but, having become unable to follow its usual roadmap — a roadmap dozens or hundreds of centuries old, passed along intact and perfect from mother spider to daughter spider — Zygiella makes mistakes, doubles up, somewhere else she leaves holes and ignores them, she who is ordinarily so careful.
The last coils are like a stammering, a swooning, as if she had had a stroke of some kind. Work in ruin, failed, human. Spider so close to you now. No one on drug has more aptly, more directly expressed the disorder of entanglements. As a brother, look at her wired ruins. But what did she see, Zygiella?
— Henri Michaux
Details
Instrumentation
Flute, clarinet, violin, viola, cello, piano, and percussion
Duration
16'
Date
2001
Sheet music
Available upon request
Commissioned by
Music of Changes Competition
Los Angeles, 2001
Recording
Lost Dog New Music Ensemble
Chamber Music of Philippe Bodin
First performance
Music of Changes
Los Angeles, CA, October 2001