Beyond the Order of Things (2021)
(after Josquin)

Composer note
Beyond the Order of Things was commissioned by cellist Matt Haimovitz as part of the 2021 Primavera Project. The work is a response to a 2020 painting by Charline von Heyl, itself a response to Botticelli’s Primavera painting from the late 1400’s. Von Heyl’s work incorporates images and figures from the Botticelli, but they are smudged, faded, obscured. In composing Beyond the Order of Things I replicated, in music, von Heyl’s technique of erasing and recontextualizing source material from the Renaissance. I transcribed a vocal motet, Praeter rerum serium (translation: Beyond the Order of Things) by Botticelli’s contemporary Josquin des Prez. Like von Heyl, I reworked this material, repeating fragments and chopping up phrases, to create an entirely new work that is a beautifully corrupted translation of the original.

— Missy Mazzoli