Sudoku Divertimento

Sudoku Divertimento (2013) was written for a doctoral exam that requires the student to complete a chamber music in a week. One of the guidelines is to write a piece with 3-5 contrasting movements involving different musical parameters such as tempo, style, texture, etc. For example, if one movement is adagio, then the others should not be.        

The process reminded me of Sudoku – filling a 9×9 grid with digits so that each column, each row, and each of the nine 3×3 sub-grids contains all of the digits from 1 to 9 – which is where the first word of the title came from. The second word refers the piece having multiple movements, as well as its nocturnal and lighthearted character.        

Below is the part of the diagram I sketched to solve the puzzle. I decided to have four movements – three seemed not enough and five seemed too many. Another instruction was to be faithful to the instruments’ idioms, which I arbitrarily translated with clichéd musical gestures. Each movement, respectively, could be described as minimal, romantic, modern, and finale. All the movements, while contrasting, share a handful of materials, such as chord sets and a fundamental pulse, resulting in what I hope is a unified whole.