Lesser Beings (2018)

11 minutes - for string quartet

Written for Hezarfen Academy 2018

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Performed by Hezarfen Ensemble, March 01.2018 - Ankara, Turkey.

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Lesser Beings emerged from a faint sentiment that I can only articulate through an image: simple, imaginary life forms that just so happened to exist in space, interacting with each other, stepping into motion in an attempt to justify their existence.

As human beings, we could observe this attempt with fondness and sympathy; yet this sympathy is inseparable from a quiet strain of pity. The affinity we feel toward fragile others simultaneously affirms our own sense of complexity, which we implicitly set against their being. Though we may not be conscious of it, we experience ourselves as more potent in the presence of their vulnerability, and perhaps even detect in them an ineptitude that we recognize within ourselves but refuse to confront.

For this reason, our fondness endures only so long as this unspoken hierarchy remains intact. Should these beings, whom we define as simple, somehow exceed their assigned limits, they would forfeit their charm and become threatening. I wanted to approach Lesser Beings with this same fondness and distant intimacy, and through these imaginary entities, embrace the ineptitudes I might otherwise be afraid to acknowledge in myself.