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The use of the harmonic series as a pitch-generating resource is a significant trend in twentieth- and twenty-first-century composition. While the principle of equal temperament prioritizes an additive understanding of intervals, the harmonic series implies a ratio-based approach to pitch relationships. Despite these philosophical differences and the sometimes polemical debates that have attended to them, the works of Julian Anderson (1967–) and Rand Steiger (1957–) draw simultaneously on overtone-based and equal-tempered harmonic thinking. These two composers are part of a group of musicians who have proposed various hybrid approaches to harmonic construction, and their works are also notable for playing out interactions between these influences in ways that reflect the composers’ political concerns. In this paper, I combine examinations of Anderson’s and Steiger’s characteristic harmonic strategies with close analyses of two quartertone-based works: Anderson’s Eden (2005) and Steiger’s Post-truth Lament (2017). I use these discussions to consider the pieces’ diverse political resonances. Ultimately, I argue that their hybrid harmonic approaches serve to highlight the multifaceted implications of ambiguity—not only its musically generative potential, but also its capacity to transform contemporary political life in ways both corrosive and constructive.

Some of the influences on that writing were perhaps suggested by the works that came before the premiere. There was Giacinto Scelsi's Fourth String Quartet, with its monolithic focus on a single, steadily accumulating wave of musical intensity; Helmut Lachenmann's second, with its etiolated, whispering sound world and allusive subtitle, Reigen seliger Geister; and Gyorgy Kurtag's Officium Breve, 14 miniatures that are by turns angry, lamenting and consoling. The Arditti Quartet played all the works with - it is almost unnecessary to say - consummate, extraordinary mastery.

With Roland Wood (Oedipus) battling a virus, momentum on the first night only sparked with Christopher Ainslie's lovely countertenor narrative as the Messenger, followed by the blinded king's lament; Matthew Best's grotesque bisexual Tiresias and Susan Bickley's commanding Jocasta did not seem dramatically plugged-in.

This chorus is the Greek type, working by the rules of ancient drama as a single voice, sometimes participating in the action, sometimes detachedly observing, never quite acting as the milling crowd of a conventional grand opera. But it's also Greek in that \"Thebans\" is an operatic adaptation of the Oedipus myth. Its (English) libretto is adapted from the three \"Theban\" plays by Sophocles that tell how Oedipus discovers that he has unwittingly murdered his father and married his mother, how this terrible self-knowledge hounds him to his grave and how it then affects his child Antigone, resulting in her death as well. Then, you could make that complaint of Wagner's \"Tristan.\" And Wagner comes repeatedly to mind here. Mr. [Julian Anderson] doesn't acknowledge him as influential, and he clearly isn't in terms of the sound world of this opera -- a work that has a peculiarly English intelligence, achieving massive gestures by minutely crafted means, and referencing, if anything, the glamorous but lucid grandeur Michael Tippett could deliver on a good day. Onstage, the soloists did well too, given a fluid, arioso style of vocal writing that limited their opportunities to shine but did encourage them to be real characters. Susan Bickley's desperate Jocasta, Peter Hoare's conniving Creon and Matthew Best's creepily androgynous Tiresias set benchmarks, with Julia Sporsen's Antigone and Roland Wood's Oedipus not quite as fleshed out as they should have been, but still credible.

English National Opera have served [Julian Anderson] well, with the orchestral and choral forces superbly prepared and the central roles well cast. Peter Hoare is exceptional as Creon, Roland Wood has the measure of Oedipus, while Julia Sporsen's Antigone and Matthew Best's gorgeously upholstered Tiresias are both outstanding. Directed by Pierre Audi, with designs by Tom Pye (set) and Christof Hetzer (costumes), the staging is rather bland, but effective in conveying both the immediacy and timelessness of the drama. Indeed, if anything disappoints here, it is that the unrelenting dramatic pace never gives pause to let the beauty of the score breathe more fully. If, just for a few moments, Anderson's score could have been allowed to expand into the shimmering spaces it creates, its transcendent quality might have illuminated even further the dark regions of the mind mapped out by this extraordinary retelling of the myth.

Perhaps our biggest decision has been to change the order of the plays. I've twice seen them done as a chronological trilogy: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone. I've also seen Antigone as a standalone play - and I've always thought that putting it at the end of the evening short-changes it remarkably. Although it's the final part of the trilogy, it never feels like the end; in fact, it almost feels as if it were by a different writer. I kept saying things like: \"I hope we're going to be very daring with the plot.\" Luckily, [Julian Anderson]'s own instincts about the shape of the opera were the same as mine - or perhaps he picked up on my hints - and we decided to have our opera start with the first play, but then move on to Antigone, and end with Oedipus at Colonus.

Julian Anderson has been the London Philharmonic's resident composer since 2010. This disc brings together three of the works that the orchestra has performed as part of that association.