Derive 2

Universal Edition presents the "last extended version" of Boulez' Derive 2 in a 2006 revision. “When I reflected on some of Ligeti’s compositions,” wrote Boulez, “I felt the desire to dedicate myself to some almost theoretical research into periodicity in order to systematically examine its overlays, its shifts and its exchange.” Tom Service, in The Guardian, describes the work: "I had the sense…that although the piece was 45 minutes long, it could either have been 20 minutes or 200 and it wouldn't really have mattered. All of the music you hear in it is based on a single chord (derived – see what I've done there? – from a musical transliteration of the initials of Paul Sacher's name). Everything changes on the surface – there are passages where everything is speeding along vertiginously, which then contract into pools of slower music – but nothing changes underneath. It's a musical world that's completely hermetic and yet infinitely expandable. Weird."

Scored for English Horn, Clarinet, Bassoon, Violin, Viola, Cello, Horn, Vibraphone, Marimba, Harp, and Piano.