Cartesian Rainbow

Composer’s note:While looking for a text to punctuate the percussive continuum of what was later to be called Cartesian Rainbow, I came across Descartes’ explanation of how rainbows are formed. I was surprised to see how imaginative the names of colors are. By comparison, the labels for tone colour are bland and cumbersome. Once again, the eye triumphs over the ear - no wonder the saying is “a picture is worth a thousand words”. The text spoken by the percussionist lists the colors of the rainbow and colours found with equidistant frequency before or between them: [Rosewood, guardsman red], red, orange, [blaze orange], yellow, [electric lime, chartreuse, bright green],green, [cyan, dodger blue, azure radiance, blue ribbon], blue, [electric violet, pigment indigo, ripe plumb, pompadour], indigo, violet.Mike Svoboda