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 called polytempic polymicrotonality.

Reception

Thoegersen's monograph "Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music" stands now as the basic reference for this compositional tactic. Polytempic polymicrotonal ensemble music moves simultaneously 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's 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 cited by Johnny Reinhard..

Thoegersen has composed many works exploring polytempic polymicrotonality. Reviewing Thoegersen's CD: Milko. Irrational Quartet. Herniated Lumbar Discs Much Better Now, New World (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 whose music had a similar feeling of "pure research", a fresh sound emerging from a fresh method.

Writing on Thoegersen's song cycle "Facebook: What's On Your Mind? 2016 - 2020", Gerard Pape says "Thoegersen’s work exists at an intersection of freedoms: musical and social, where one might at once sound the musical limit of free sound and the social limit of «free speech. His work is both courageous and dangerous to academia. No easy categories for this music. We are in the no-mans’s land of unlimited freedom far from job security and clear social status."

Discography

• "Three Pieces in Polytempic Polymicrotonality" / New World Records, 80812-2; New World Records
• "Alien Music" / Magic and Unique Music Publishing
• "THOEGERSEN, PETER - Facebook: What's On Your Mind? 2016 - 2020" /FLEA004

Bibliography

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

External links

• Peter Thoegersen's SoundCloud page
• Peter Thoegersen's BandCamp page
• Peter Thoegersen's scores
• Bounced Around; Gorgeous Monstrocity; Indian Summer; Polymicrotonality Study IV; Alien Music; Slings and Arrows; Iraq; Polymicrotonal Etude VII
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