'dust book' by Evan Johnson

A 50 minute solo for viola d'amore played by Marco Fusi. The piece was composed in 2022-2023, and has six movements.

Marco Fusi: "To write about dust book is to reflect on silence, and how sounds find their own place in vast amounts of silence. To listen to dust book is to listen to silence, and to the sounds that occur within. A metaphor can assist the process, I believe.

Imagine silences as surfaces. Imagine many kinds of surfaces. Glass, wood, granite, grass, paper, books. Surfaces collect dust, and each surface collects a different kind of dust.

When vibrations move the air, dust flows away from these surfaces and then, slowly, comes to rest again. And the listener remains enchanted by the marginal, minimal movements of the minute particles of dust, flickering through light.

dust book welcomes a similar attitude; listeners (and performers, and the composer, I suspect) attend to the piece, observing and making sense of its convolutions, of its brief frantic dances, and its slow returns to stillness. The meticulous crafting of its parts hides behind the contemplative attitude that dust book invites. We do not expect movement, we welcome stillness, and, still, we stay open to the beauty of each grain of sound, of each vibration and its rebounds."

There is also a very interesting interview with Evan Johnson about 'dust book' at http://www.anothertimbre.com/dustbook.html

Tracklist

1.	1: interlude	8:50
2.	2: several canons	9:20

3.	3: in modo parantetico	4:21
4.	4: interlude (double)	10:01
5.	5: in modo parentetico	5:28

6.	6: interlude (dust)	11:10

Credits

released April 14, 2025

Marco Fusi, viola d'amore

Cover image: Sebastien Robinson, Traces (ink on paper, 2020)

Recorded and mixed by Luca Piovesan at the Orpheus Institute, Ghent, Belgium in September 2023.
Additional mixing by Charlie Sdraulig. Produced and edited by Marco Fusi.

License