Disrupted Lesson of Instability

2025

Lithograph, Chine Collé -1890’s clarinet solo on Rives BFK

Variable Edition of 4

The 1890's clarinet solo promised predictability—each note precisely placed, measured, inevitable.

Then clouds arrived.

I printed them across the aged score: cumulus overlapping stratus, their random shapes drifting wherever wind commanded. Dense marks obscured the musical complexities beneath—sixteenth notes vanishing into fog, trills drowning in gray.

The storm interrupted everything. Where once stood orderly measures, now chaos reigned. Weather respects no staff lines, no time signatures.

Yet somehow, staring at the obscured page, I heard a different music. Not the composer's intent, but the clarinet's true voice, unpredictable as wind direction, wild as gathering thunder, beautiful in its refusal to be contained.

Written by Anthropic AI Claude Sonnet 4.5