Today's Play and Work

 I saw a bumper sticker with the enticingly ambivalent legend:

“Books you don’t need in a place you can’t find.”

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

There is nothing manly in being angry.

— Marcus Aurelius

I hied me in to Boston to hear Aaron’s concert at King’s Chapel today, as always a musical delight. One of the New Lullabies on the program was by a composer, Pasquale Tassone who, it turns out, is a near-ish neighbor. The piece was lovely, indeed, so that is but the start of the conversation. although Aaron will not have the time to look at [His] Uneasy Sleep before his Newport concert on 12 Oct, we talked about the technical issue behind my “problem measure,” and I returned home with a clear idea of the musically satisfactory solution. Before and after my Boston outing, I  made good progress on the Opus 200.

Also, 17 years ago today:

worked some more on The Angel Who Bears a Flaming Sword while on the bus. [30 Sep 2008]

With the Flow Shalt Thou Go

 “Blue Odyssey”: what a peculiar name for a room-freshener scent. “The smell of trying to return home”?
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

“I wish I had enough money to buy an elephant.”
—“What do you want with an elephant?”
“I don’t; I just wish I had the money.”
— Nope, I don’t remember the source

Yesterday’s Henning Ensemble rehearsal had to be canceled, as half of the band are laid low with head colds (independently contracted.) Although obviously we cannot ink anything in until the entire group are sound of wind and limb, I spoke with Peter today about strategizing a makeup rehearsal. Peter will be traveling a bit in the interval, so conferring with him soonest was soundest.

Making gradual progress on the Opus 200. I feel that this is a piece I’m going to win by inches. And that’s all right. Each new piece is its own particular journey. Also, I think that once I hit my stride with this piece, progress may just get quicker. I do have an architectural schema for the piece, so there is no risk of losing sight of theh forest, but there can be no doubt that at this stage of composition I’m spending a lot of time amid the trees. I do really like the start I have made. I got to two minutes and a half yesterday. Almost at four and a half now, and I’m calling it a day.

The Opus 102

 I anticipate some of my afterthoughts. It’s energy-efficient.

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

How can there be an “Avant-garde” when the revolution before last said, “Anything goes?”

— Chas Wuorinen

Ten years ago today, at the Eastman School of Music’s Kilbourn Hall in Rochester, NY violist Dana Huyge and pianist Carolyn Ray did me the great honor of creating the première of the Viola Sonata, Op. 102 which Dana had fearlessly requested that I compose. It remains a piece I am enormously proud to have composed. In those days I carried a three-ring binder with MS. paper with me to work, and I still remember spending some of my breaks from working at the MFA Gift Shop, getting work done. More about the Sonata here.

Karl Henning · Sonata for Viola & Piano (2010)

Rehearsal

 I’m aiming higher. Thoreau would so have charged me. How could I look him in the eye, if I surrender to routine now?

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

“The Anointed Shakespeare.”

— “Annotated!”

— Looking for Richard

We had the first of four rehearsals today, for October at King’s Chapel. Very pleased with our initial reading of Robert’s and Kevin’s pieces.

Beginning to Bewail

 The Minister spoke at length of how Life is Change, and on the Illusion of seeking Security. But, then: he's sure he’s got a job next week.

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

(On the set of Silent Movie)

Mel Brooks: Did you break anything?

Marty Feldman: Nothing I need.

My colleague Jim Dalton most graciously wrote back:

I just read through Aaron’s Uneasy Sleep a few times. Once slowly to check for playability, once up to tempo without the fixed media, and once complete with fixed media. It’s enjoyable to play and I think it will be very effective. Let me know if Aaron programs it in the area, I’d love to hear what he does with it.

Jim then wrote at enormously helpful length touching on divers details, so that (while the matter of a bend awaits Aaron’s own opinion/thoughts, I have made some necessary additions to the score.

Also: 16 years ago today:

[I have] strategized the completion of the last of three pieces for Audrey [Cienniwa.] [24 Sep 2009]

Those pieces were the Opus 96, It’s all in your head (not that that’s a bad place for everything to be.)

I have been chipping away a bit at the Opus 200, and am also forming more ideas. I am unhurried, but neither am I idle. That’s it for now, except to note tangentially that today I rediscovered verbal notes for the Opus 192, which (erm, obviously) is another item of Unfinished Business. Well, it’s waited all this while (since February) so it will keep yet. At first I mistook those notes as applying to another band piece (reflecting my present focus, no doubt) which of itself quite tickled me. More Op. 200 work tomorrow!

 

Nowhere to Hide

 Thank goodness that “No Idling Allowed” sign applies to vehicles!
Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

I wrote him a third memo and said, “I still maintain references to the Civil War when one is covering sporting events in the South is a cliché, but I do stand corrected about Sherman’s burning of Columbia, the capital of the great state of South Carolina. Realize, however, I am a product of the Georgia public school system, where we were taught when the little bearded bastard of a firebug got to Savannah, they hung him.”
— Lewis Grizzard, If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I’m Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground

With Aaron’s Uneasy Sleep nearly done, and any necessary finishing awaiting input from actual guitarists, let us tally the 2H25 accomplishments thus:

1. Seven Duets, Opus 201. Two Flutes. 15' (four of them adapted for recorders)
2. Lamentatio pro sorore sua, Opus 202, Two Bass Clarinets. 3' (arrangements for Bass Clarinet and Bassoon; Trumpet and Horn)
3. Aaron’s Uneasy Sleep, Opus 203, Guitar and Fixed Media. 4'
4. Simple Music, Opus 204, C Flute, Alto Flute, B-flat Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon and Double-Bass. 10'

I completed the David Ossman setting, Retreat, Opus 199 in March. So now, in the space between rehearsal for King’s Chapel, I have no recourse but to apply myself in earnest to the band piece for which I reserved 200: Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail. I have found my verbal outline for the piece, I have set up the Sibelius file, have even composed the first six measures. More tomorrow!

At Ease, It May Be

 When leprechauns drop acid, do they think they see people?

Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

All I ask is a chance to prove money can’t make me happy.

— Spike Milligan

Well, to get the day’s disappointment over with at the outset: Dear composers,

Thank you so much for entering the 2023-2024 Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize Contest. We had a record breaking near-300 compositions submitted and were delighted with the outstanding quality of repertoire. Congratulations to [those who won.]

However, 13 years ago today:

Henningmusick in the Back Bay this morning, the choir of First Church Boston singing Love is the Spirit [23 Sep 2012]

As reported here, I felt I had found my way with the guitar part for the Opus 203. My work yesterday appears to have borne that aspiration out, and yesterday I [provisionally] finished Aaron’s Uneasy Sleep.

Why provisionally? Because I’m no guitarist and there is every chance that something or other which I wrote into the part just plain doesn’t work on the instrument’s six strings. Also, hey, you never know: this piece may just be a trip that Aaron just doesn’t want to take. And no blame to him. Meanwhile he is busy prepping for both a 30 September King’s Chapel concert and a concert in Newport, Rhode Island on 12 October.

It has occurred to me, though, that I might reach out to Jim Dalton, who erewhile was two of the now long-defunct Ninth Ear’s ears ....