“#3987 Magic Mauve” classifies an invented color, as in a catalogue of artist’s paints. A synthetic color of which the name and the number id are unlikely. Although, in this case, color refers at the same time to its 14th century musical designation: as harmonic or melodic content, as it is opposed to rhythmical structure or talea.
The work’s harmonic material is derived from the cross-tuning (or scordatura) of a 17-key kalimba celesta, with a view to testing and stretching the limits of the harmonic content both microscopically (through the analysis and composition of timbre in the electronics) and macroscopically (with regard to relations between temperament, harmony and line).
