Peter Alexander Thoegersen (b. June 29, 1967) is an American composer, author, music theorist and drummer best known as a theorist and practitioner of a variety of music called polytempic polymicrotonality.
Composer Kyle Gann provides a detailed introduction to Thoegersen's practice in his liner notes to the CD Three Pieces in Polytempic Polymicrotonality on New World Records. He begins by saying that he has spent a lifetime explaining radical music, and calls the music on the disc the most radical he's ever written about. He says, radically, Thoegersen has musical layers simultaneously moving in different tempos, plus, even moreso, in different microtonal scales playing at the same time. Nevertheless, Gann contrasts the resulting "fervent and heterogeneous multidimensionality" with an emergent level of charm and simplicity that belies the initial impression.
Gann has it from Thoegersen himself that Thoegersen begins composing by working out rhythms with his hands and feet and that Thoegersen thinks of pitch as of coloring the rhythmic skeleton. Thoegersen, Gann says, is "not ideologically committed to either the dissonant or consonant end of the tonal spectrum." Gann says Thoegersen avoids "the long-overworked duality of tonal vs. atonal" and thinks about pitch in terms of centricity, namely using certain pitches as anchor points and stacking similar intervals around them in both directions.
He likens the overall effect "to a carefully composed environmental recording." Gann does make it clear that the details matter, specifically the relationships between the chosen simultaneous tempi and the simultaneous microtonal tunings in any particular Thoegersen composition; readers interested in the details of Gann's analysis should seek out his notes.[2]
Gann in the liner notes also states that "...by going further than anyone else has gone in terms of this particularly American concept of fusing the polytempic with the polymicrotonal--extending and combining the conceptual worlds of Ives, Nancarrow, Partch, Carter and even Frank Zappa, he (Thoegersen) has created a special place for himself within American music."[2]
Reception
Thoegersen's monograph "Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music"[3] 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.[4]
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[5] 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-man's land of unlimited freedom far from job security and clear social status."[6]
String Quartet XVa: It Is Now; a polymicrotonal quartet in monody (alternate version) (2019)
String Quartet #16: COVID-19, the world pandemic (2020)
Symphonies
Symphony I in Polytempic Polymicrotonality (2023)
Symphony II: five short pieces for polytempic polymicrotonal orchestra (2013)
Symphony III IN FULL POLYTEMPIC POLYMICROTONALITY IN FOUR MOVEMENTS (2024)
Discography
"Three Pieces in Polytempic Polymicrotonality" / New World Records, 80812-2; New World Records, 2019
"Alien Music" / Magic and Unique Music Publishing, 2022
"Facebook: What's On Your Mind? 2016 - 2020", 2021, Flea Label
"Polytempic Polymicrotonal Music in Four Pieces" 2024, Fragments of Blue label, Bandcamp
"Harmiklot: an American Tragedy" 2024, Fragments of Blue label, Bandcamp
"Soliloquy in Monopolymicrotonality" Compilation Album 2019, George Christian, Bandcamp compilation album
"The Legend of Zip Caustic: how I became a failure" Acts I-IV, 2025, Fragments of Blue label, Bandcamp
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, (released August 7th, 2024)
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