Program Note:

Composed for the Encore Brass Quintet, a short-lived ensemble based in New York City, Everything Must Go! was composed at Yaddo, and completed on 21 June 1992. Hagen writes, “The title referred to the fact that I hoped to create a piece devoid of sentiment, entirely process-oriented." Of his process, Hagen writes, "I ‘assembled' the quintet rather than ‘composed' it by writing four ideas (a D-A-B flat motive, a rhythmic cell / groove, a skein of sixteenth notes, and a quartal-harmony chorale) on flash cards. I sat at a table, shuffled the cards, and dealt them in different patterns before me. I then notated the results. This injected aleatoric compositional procedures into an already ‘non-expressive mechanical process." In addition to the organization via four notecards, the entire piece is based on a favorite synthetic scale of Hagen's: A-Bb-C#-D-Eb-F#-G. Not unintentionally, the quintet, modernist and unrelenting, is a serious test of the players' stamina.  The piece is noteworthy for having serving first as the musical basis for a version for large mixed ensemble entitled An Overture to Vera (premiered by the ensemble Present Music, in Milwaukee), and then as the unifying thematic "source code" for the opera Vera of Las Vegas.