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Contrafactum

Instrumentation
3(picc)3(eh)3(bcl)3(cbsn) 4332 t,p(5),2pf,str
Year
1969
Duration
20:00
Composed
1/29/1969 - 6/21/1969
Dedication
Written for and dedicated to James Dixon

I wrote Contrafactum during the first half of 1969, and the work was subsequently premiered at the University of Iowa by James Dixon.  It has its roots in my electronic composition Time's Encomium, for when I completed that work, I found myself with a quantity of material I had not used, which nevertheless seemed worthy of further development; and moreover there were certain parts of Time's Encomium which I yearned to hear re-expresses on the orchestra.  Out of these impulses arose the present work, but it is only tangentially related to its electronic ancestor: they are both from the same sphere but their details as well as their larger structure are widely divergent.

Contrafactum is in two parts, the second slightly longer than the first.

-Charles Wuorinen