The Yellow Pages

Title: The Yellow Pages

Instrumentation: for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano

*please note: The Yellow Pages is movement 1 of Telephone Book, and for groups interested in performing this piece, the parts are available for sale under the title Telephone Book.

Genre: Chamber

Year written: 1985

First Performance:
8 April 1985
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Yale Contemporary Players

Duration: 7'

Recording: Yellow Pages, (movement 1 of Telephone Book) can be found on the release, six

Listen now: YELLOW PAGES (click here to listen)

Program Notes:
If one believes that appropriation is not a viable aesthetic, then one must conclude that shopping in the pawnshop pf tonality will yeild musical pages that are yellowed and old. Yet, if one believes in the possibility of ahistoricism and further is not bothered by notions of accessibility and the "allographic," then the music could be compared to the Yellow Pages, published by the phone company, as that book finds a place in every home. And paging through the categories of telephone numbers inside, one notices that alphabetically, the entries change slowly. "Automobile Upholstering" is followed by "Automobile Wrecking," "Aviation Consultants," and "Awnings and Canopies." This gradual transition is reflected in the slow transpositional process in the piece. Finally, the key of G major, around which the piece is based, is the color of yellow, or at least a dark, burnt yellow.