"'Ipsa dixit' is the feminized form of ipse dixit (literally
"he, himself, said it"), a fallacy in which an assertion is made based
not on proof, but on the supposed authority of the speaker alone. The
title seemed apt for a work that explores myriad ways in which the truth
can be imperiled by an outside force - as when music manipulates the
meaning of words, when a soprano's sovereignty over instrumentalists is
challenged, or when gut feeling overrules reason. The first movements to
be composed were the three duos, in which the connection between art
and artifice is teased out via the affective instability of Only the Words Themselves Mean What They Say, the dramatization of friendship in conflict with dogma in The Crito, and the labyrinthine investigation of the uses (and misuses) of language in Cipher.
Once it became clear to me that these three pieces wanted to be woven
into a larger tapestry, the works of Aristotle seemed like a good place
to hunt for the threads. When Aristotle asks the question ('what is
art?'), he has a ready answer ('art is imitation'), as he does for many
equally baffling queries, such as: 'why are we moved by poetry?' or 'is a
fact naturally more convincing than a lie?' or 'what is the nature of
existence?' Each of the six movements In Ipsa Dixit is dogged by
our inability to use language to get all the way to the bottom of
things: The pursuit of truth, in everyday circumstances as well as in
matters of life and death, restlessly haunts the piece at its
surface."
- Kate Soper
