Bethany Wakim - Perpetual Motion

My review:

A few decades ago, a curious "toy" (if you can call it that) known as "Newton's Cradle" became fashionable (at least in Spain). It consisted of an oblong wooden platform with parallel steel rings along its longer edges. Hanging from these rings, like a swing or pendulum, were five steel balls. In their relaxed state, all the balls were together, but when one ball was pulled from one end and returned to its relaxed position, it exerted a force that caused the ball from the other end to separate. When the ball from the other end returned, the same thing happened, leaving the three central balls seemingly motionless.

Variations of this "toy" emerged, such as a version with a circular wooden or plastic platform. This platform featured a structure of concentric steel circles, each containing a steel ball, resembling a planetarium. A mechanism of magnets, using forces of attraction and repulsion, kept the planetarium in motion.

A few decades ago, another "toy" emerged, known as the "spinner," a rounded triangle, usually made of plastic, with holes at its vertices, mounted on a circular plastic frame. It was held with the thumb and forefinger, allowing it to spin. Disassembling this circular frame revealed a steel ball bearing that, like wheels, made the triangle rotate.

Although all these toys were "sold" to us as relaxing or stress-relieving (perhaps due to the hypnotic effect they produce when observed), there is a deeper meaning that, at the time, was revealed by the following and final "toy."

A few years ago, a certain famous online video platform was flooded with clips showing a contraption consisting of a wooden platform with a structure on top, like a trampoline, with a hole through which a ball (or marble) would fall onto a semicircular plastic ramp (imitating those used in ski championships). The ball would then return to the trampoline, pass through the hole, fall onto the ramp, return to the trampoline, and so on. These videos "promised" us that, finally, what humanity had been seeking for decades with previous "toys" had been achieved: perpetual motion, that is, achieving a balance of forces such that a repeated motion is produced that never ceases. It wasn't long before videos appeared of young physics enthusiasts reacting against this device, demonstrating that it was all a camera trick and that, through mechanical means, the ball received a boost each time it passed through the hole. As these young people explain (and as we all learned in school), perpetual motion doesn't exist naturally, at least not through mechanical, electrical, or electronic means, because nature contains a combination of forces, including friction, that prevent such motion.

In art, especially music, attempts have also been made to imitate perpetual motion: minimalism, as an artistic style, emerged in the West around 1960 and, as the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy indicates, consists of using the bare minimum of basic resources to create a work of art (pure colors, simple geometric shapes, etc.). In the case of music, it applies to works whose thematic phrases are short, repetitive, with cyclical rhythms, a constant pulse, and based on an unchanging harmony (tonal or modal), etc.

Today's piece, "Perpetual Motion" by composer Bethany Wakim, is an example of this.

A four-note motif, unfolded in the style of an Alberti bass, is endlessly repeated in the left hand, creating a sense of perpetual motion, while the right hand plays the main melody.

The first theme is composed of two very short phrases (barely two motifs in each) in a question-and-answer format.

Two things in this theme are particularly striking: first, the answer is an imitation of the question by contrary motion; second, the (albeit subtle) prominence of the perfect fourth interval (the distance between two notes) throughout the entire work.

Of the two motifs that make up the theme, the extreme notes of the first (F-B-flat, or G-D in the case of the thematic inversion) are a perfect fourth apart, and the second motif (C-G-C) is itself a perfect fourth.

A second theme would be similarly arranged in a two-phrase question-and-answer structure.

In this case, a single four-note descending motif, between whose extremes there is a perfect fourth (G - F - E - D), is imitated offbeat by another descending motif, a perfect fourth lower (D - C - B), in the answer, this motif appears the same, but a perfect fourth lower than the one in the question (D - C - B - A, imitated offbeat by A - G - F).

From here, a second section begins, which we could consider thematic development, since only the first phrase of the first theme appears, adding a small motif at the end with the notes C - F - C (a perfect fourth interval), and the right hand leaps over the left to vary that first theme in a slightly lower register.

Finally, a third section, a thematic recapitulation, would be composed of the first phrase of the first theme and the second of the second.

We really like how Wakim places the accompaniment, that "Perpetual Motion," in the middle register of the piano, and how the right hand plays in the upper and lower middle registers, providing some sonic variety and creating acoustic interest.

Overall, the work offers a pleasant sound and feels cheerful and upbeat.

Composer's social links:

Let's listen to Perpetual Motion, by Bethany Wakim, performed by Carlos Marín Trigo: