Don’t rush me

Very nearly have the Out in the Moon program uploaded. No, really.

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Before yesterday, I had three texts selected for the Cantata I am scheming (one of them a specific request from one of the performers). As I walked to meet with one of the soprani, though, I remembered a fourth text which will slot in very nicely. For the accompaniment, I’ve settled on recorder (of some sort), alto flute & harpsichord.

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Before I get quite cooking on that, though, I have happily received a call to complete a viola and piano piece for a recital this September.

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And I’m having a blast reading Glenn Watkins’s The Gesualdo Hex.

Resourcefully Yours

A brace of short-but-sweet posts at Renewable Music:

[ link → Never underestimate an audience ]

The match of a piece, a performance, and a setting like this is a perfect illustration of the ability of a music to reach its audience — communication in the way that an iron handle communicates heat . . . .

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[ link → Complexity, get over it, already ]

. . . in the thick of a real musical event, it is not always clear — and this, in the best cases, is a matter of compositional design — whether composer, performing musician, or listener can catch or is supposed to be able to catch, some or all details . . . .

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More push-back to what some take as a ‘given’ — the ‘need’ to pamper the audience.

Today, Tuesday 22 June

Cool Winds (& a Guitar)

Nicole Chamberlain, Maraschino (fl/cl)
Brian Chamberlain, Lost Hollow Road – II. Reflections (fl/gtr)
B. Chamberlain, Chasing the Storm – III. The Storm (gtr solo)
Karl Henning, three for two, Opus 97 (fl/cl)
№ 2: All the Birds in Mondrian’s Cage
№ 3: Swivels & Bops
N. Chamberlain, Toxicodendron (fl/cl/gtr)

Nicole Chamberlain, flute
Brian Chamberlain, guitar
Karl Henning, clarinet

Tuesday, 22 June 2010
12:15pm
West End Branch, Boston Public Library
151 Cambridge St Boston, Massachusetts 02114

Free & open to the public

Day of

Beautiful day . . . just a little more to do in the way of pencil scrawls on my part for a piece or two. Things are playing out a bit otherwise than I had planned, but I planned to be prepared for things going as they will, plan or no.

Howler du jour

We can hope that he is not actually the ignoramus which this unctuous remark would seem to indicate, but in any event it is no great credit to The Guardian when Peter Conrad writes: As a young man, John Adams upset the sedate peace of American symphonic music.

What utter rot. There are symphonies Peter Mennin wrote when Adams was a young man, which out-energize Adams’s sedate soundscapes. Symphonies of which, one guesses, Peter Conrad glides along in blissful un-awareness.

On the Eve

Out from the Museum now. Rain was pouring at the MFA, but the sky was clearing as the Red Line train emerged aboveground at Charles/MGH.

Chris Hawes of Bala Brass has kindly allowed me to send Moonrise, though he cautions that they may not be able to read it for some while.

Eric Mazonson reports that Gaze Transfixt is sounding good.

Kettle

Word just in that my friend Luke Ottevanger is back in compositional saddle, and I may have a piece to read in a short while.

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Greta’s blog seems to have gone . . . somewhere. What, no more Naive Sentimentalist?! . . .

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Watched Brazil for the first after a long time. Stayed up with Mom until almost 3 to watch it. I’m never up that late. Oh, I need some tea.

A Clarinetist Blogs

A clarinetist’s blog is born:

[ link → Marion Harrington Clarinet Lifts Off! ]

All I had to aid me in my quest at this point was an elderly Boosey and Hawkes Emperor Bb clarinet – left behind by a younger brother when he started ascending the rungs of the executive corporate ladder – that, and a vision.

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Already finding this of great interest . . . I had no idea there was any such thing as synthetic clarinet reeds . . . .

Getting There

Enormously pleased with yesterday’s rehearsal of the cl/vn/pf trios. Eric Mazonson is, quite simply, the best pianist with whom it has yet been given to me to play; and he makes all of Night of the Weeping Crocodiles sound both musical and . . . almost easy. There is rapid arpeggiation in a 9/8 section (and apart from its rapidity, the arpeggiation is out of phase with the beat — the figure rises and falls, but the bass note only occasionally coincides with the metrical pulse). It’s not really an enormous deal, musically — but it is one of numerous “gee, this isn’t plain easy” elements to my work, which (so far as I can tell) are a factor in so few pianists getting back to me enthusiastically about scores I send them.

And Alexey is a marvelous violinist. Although the timetable suggests that I expected matters to fall out so, it is wonderful to experience how easy the piece has been to put together with these two. And they both like the music. Eric is not rehearsing this in the spirit of “This is for the 21^st, and then we can put it to bed” — we will keep this piece in our repertory, and we will play as a trio again.

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Now: I have written before about how I am relying on the six of us putting this arrangement of Scene vii of White Nights together in (basically) one rehearsal. But I am not a compleat fool. So I wanted to read through the scene, even just the three of us, yesterday . . . I did not want either Eric or Alexey (fine musicians and sharp readers though they are) to read through the piece in real time for the first instance this Monday afternoon. And, knowing that Alexey would be driving back to Providence from mostly-vacation on the Cape . . . I brought hard copy of the violin part with me, rather than rely on him to have remembered (or even, to have known) to bring it.

(And in fact, Eric hadn’t brought his White Nights music, either. But I had a score with me to lend him for yesterday.)

It was a good thing to read it through yesterday, because all three of us (and not I alone) now know what to expect musically of the span of the scene. And it was really exciting to hear this music at last (which for years has existed only in electronica) sound as air vibrations from instruments driven by people.

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Nicole & Brian Chamberlain arrive in Boston from Atlanta this morning, and I shall go welcome them on the Boston Common.

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Yesterday, a disc arrived from Steven Serpa, which I am sure must be (at last) the February performance of the De profundis.

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But now, I am going to zip over to the church and put in an hour’s practice.

Notes to the program

About the Music

Toxicodendron is the Latin term for Poison Ivy. Nicole and Brian had terrible reactions to it this spring, including a quite comical trip to the doctor for Nicole. Illustrated throughout the piece is the unceasing desire to scratch. It starts out with just a tiny annoying itch, but gradually works into a scratching frenzy with no hint of relief. [NC]

Maraschino refers to the happy and harmless cherry we put in Shirley Temple drinks and banana splits today, not the more menacing indigestible preserved liqueur cherries of ancient times. The light-hearted and cheerful cherry is captured in this duet in which the flute and clarinet exchange teasing banter in a loose fugue interpretation. [NC]

three for two — Heedless Watermelon :: This is one of a small number of pieces which I have written as a musical thank-you. Mary Jane Rupert, Paul Cienniwa, Peter Bloom & I played a recital in this very space on 24 June 2009; and in the elated aftermath, I started composing, for my Muse bade me draw up a diverting duet for flute and clarinet. After the extended musical canvases of my opp. 92-95 (about an hour and three-quarters of music total), I have lately trended to brevity. (I composed Marginalia for cello ensemble in the space of two days, while ‘powering down’ in Bethesda, Maryland.) Musically, this piece is an intuitive blend of fructose, sunshine, sanssouci and electricity. There’s even a canon on a modified Frank Zappa melody thrown in. Toujours de l’audace. Optional entertainment, forsooth. [KH]

three for two — All the Birds in Mondrian’s Cage / Swivels & Bops :: Once I had written Heedless Watermelon for Peter Bloom and myself to play together, it proved such great fun that I wanted to round it out as a set of three pieces. Not long after our July concerts last year, my eye fell upon a Mondrian picture, and I thought about how I might compose a piece with musical means reflecting the austere simplicity of de Stijl. (Not an absolutely original idea, by the way, as I had studied with the Dutch composer Louis Andriessen when I was in Buffalo, and it is to Louis that I owe my introduction to the term.) Nicole Chamberlain and I first played All the Birds in Mondrian’s Cage in Atlanta last November. Earlier this year I wrote Swivels & Bops, because I knew that I would; it is dance-music for turtle-doves. Every Christmas, I used to wonder what the two turtle-doves would like to dance to. [KH]

Smörgåsbord :: This suite explores the different styles and textures a flutist can convey through the manipulation of the air stream. Through punching, clicks, bending, popping, fluttering, and even singing while playing, the flute can take on a metamorphosis of sound. The titles of the movements are analogous to a variety of textures found in food as well as the flute sound. Though punches and aggressive attacks, the sound can be crunchy; through bending, it can be gelatinous; through pops, clicks and different embouchure shapes, it can be carbonated; with our friend the piccolo, singing while playing, and fluttering, it can sound fluffy. Certainly the flute has a "Smorgasbord" of ingredients in the pantry that can whip up a delicious culinary work. [NC]

Chasing the Storm was inspired by the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” The Chase is a methodical pursuit for the desired object ending in a raucous realization of what was just attained. [BC]

Lost Hollow Road was commissioned by my wife, Nicole Chamberlain, though when she commissioned the piece, we had just barely met. It tells a short story of a late night drive on a deserted road after a long dinner party. Reflections are the faded lights reflecting off of the windshield when passing another car on the deserted road. [BC]

Mirage is an atmospheric study. I originally composed it as a companion piece in a recital on which Stravinsky’s L’histoire du soldat was also programmed; so there is a veiled reference to this classic in my own score. [KH]

Night of the Weeping Crocodiles :: This piece I originally wrote as a setting of a Wilde poem for tenor, clarinet & piano. (The title, Night of the Weeping Crocodiles, is my own, and has nothing to do with Wilde.) We performed it in that version (my dear old friend Houston Dunleavy singing) while in Buffalo, but under conditions which can only be described as horrible. We graduate composers at the University were made welcome to present some of our work as part of the Buffalo New Music Festival (on the face of it, a very good thing); but we were not accorded a “concert” slot. We were given a “cabaret” slot, so we performed in a crowded café-cum-art-gallery, the acoustics were loathsome (even when the air did not shriek with the clink of glasses from which Pink Catawba was being gradually emptied down the throats of an “audience” to whom we musicians were of no consequence). I think I remember that we performed tolerably well, but who could know? I liked the piece even as it was, back then; but some years since, I decided that the music would enjoy a more robust performance history as a purely instrumental trio. It took some creativity to re-assign the tenor material, but then, the application of creativity is my bag. [KH]

Lunar Glare :: A large portion of the inspiration for this piece I owe to Domenico Scarlatti, although I do not pretend that my piece sounds at all like the Italian master. Most inauthentically, I had heard a very few of Scarlatti’s keyboard sonatas on synthesizer and piano before I ever heard them on the harpsichord . . . I thought them fun pieces even when synthesized or pianified, but I like them even better on the shimmering strings of the harpsichord. The clarinet was invented (developed is probably better) in the mid-18th century, a time when the harpsichord was already being eclipsed by the piano; so the very idea of the two instruments together implies a degree of anachronism which likes me well. As to the process of composition, I don’t know that I could say much apart from the fact that I delighted in the timbral contrasts between the two instruments. Some passages are fanciful explorations (in my own musical language) of the harpsichord’s proper idiom. There is a kind of mensural canon (imitation in which the second ‘voice’ employs the same material, but at an accelerated rhythmic rate). There are stretches of the piece where the two instruments alternate with different material entirely (suggesting that they have no common ground), and another passage where the two instruments are bound together in a whirlwind unison. It was fun to write, and I find it great fun to play. An early draft of the piece included notes that are just too high for Paul’s harpsichord to play; he made me change those. The inspiration for the title came from signage on a Massachusetts highway advising motorists to be cautious of solar glare in the morning. [KH]

Lutosławski’s Lullaby :: The first time I went to St Petersburg was a day-trip from Tallinn, Estonia. I took a bus to the city of Peter the Great; walked around the part of town between Arts Square and the Winter Palace; looked for the first time upon the granite-faced fortress of Peter and Paul across the River Neva; spent a dazzling and tantalizingly brief hour in the Hermitage; and missed my bus going back.

Any first-time visitor to such a beautiful, enchanting, and poetical city as Petersburg might have done so, and might have spoken as little Russian as did I. As little Russian as I spoke means, in fact, not the least word. A succession of kindly strangers pointed me along the stages of making my way to Varshavsky (Warsaw) Station, whence trains depart also for Tallinn. At that train station, so different from Penn Station or Grand Central, a series of delightfully implausible circumstances led to my being introduced to the wonderful woman who is now my wife.

As the name suggests, trains also depart from Warsaw Station for Poland. I left on the train for Tallinn little dreaming (— no, I did dream, but I hardly dared think much of the dream —) that the young woman I had met, for such a brief time, would eventually permit me to marry her. Later, I promised to write her a piano piece.

In Tallinn, I heard the Estonian National Philharmonic play Lutosławski's Symphony № 4, and I learned that Lutosławski had passed away. I did not travel to Warsaw, but I heard a train rumbling from Petersburg to Poland, the mechanical rhythms of the iron horse lulling a composer to sleep. [KH]

Gaze Transfixt :: This is a set of variations on a folksong said to be George Washington’s favorite.

Theme: In E major, although accompanied laconically by a series of pitches which, in another composition and under different methods, might be a tone-row. But it would be a dull tone-row in a serial piece, because of the limited intervalic content — it arranges the twelve pitches of the octave into a series of melodic major seconds (interval class 2): [A,G] [C,D] [A#,G#] [F,D#] [E,F#] [C#,B] [G,A]. Another reason why it is not strictly a tone-row is, it comes back to the first dyad at the end; but part of the structural game of the piece is playing with the tension between a lovely, tonal melody, and materials which pull away from tonality.

Variation [i]: Very simple; melody restated verbatim in E major. TWD (The Wayward Dyads) accompany, in a different transposition, and registrally separated.

Variation [ii]: The first of a number of wilful rhythmic adjustments to the pitch-faithful tune; a sort of toccata-game with the melody in fifteenths (e.g., two octaves) and dry other-stuff going on in the middle, shared between the two hands. Melody is in C major, taking off from the closing three pitches of [i]. The last chord is a simple pentachord, the five notes of the pentatonic scale on F. The uppermost pitch is G, so . . .

Variation [iii]: . . . melody in RH is in G major, rhythmically forced to 5/8. Left hand is a kind of inversion, one note staggered, at transpositions chosen to irritate G major. Brief variation, this.

Variation [iv]: An ostinato on the 5/8 from [iii], and also a kind of canon, though it is not written to sound particularly canonic. Bass voice is a free inversion of the melody; soprano voice, when it comes in, is a strict transposition of the bass, a major third up (interval class 4); the tenor and alto voices are TWD, inversions of one another. This describes, technically, where I get the notes, but the simple fact is: I liked the chords. My feeling is, do whatever fancy things with pitches you like, as long as the result is musical; and throw out anything if the result is unmusical, rather than insist on it out of adherence to any ‘system’.

Variation [v]: The soprano voice at the end of [iv] sets the tune up in E major, the general tenor of the Variation is romantic, the chords are all common practice – but they’re wrong (by common practice principles). This variation doesn’t take the musical world by storm, but I like it.

Variation [vi]: A furious toccatina consisting essentially of arpeggiated chords which, some other day, might be used to creatively harmonize the tune.

Variation [vii]: I wrote this quasi arpa variation just because I like the sound of the piano strings up there; the left hand is a free mirror of the tune in F major. There are added “trillo” remarks from TWD down in the basement.

Variation [viii]: Even by common practice standards, the melody is a bit conflicted here ... first half is in B-flat, second half in E-flat. TWD appears as “blippy” grace notes.

Variation [ix]: Just a fragment of the tune appears against rapid arpeggi which loosely recall [vi].

Variation [x]: This was the variation I wrote with the thought, What if Copland used this tune in, say, Billy the Kid?

Variation [xi]: The melody wavers between e minor and e phrygian in high register; fifths plod down below.

Variation [xii]: A variation of [xi]; the tune is exploded registrally, tempo is faster, and there are some repeated notes.

Variation [xiii]: A deliberately jarring return to (some echo of) traditional harmonic syntax. The tune is in g natural minor (aeolian mode). Apart from the ornamentation, the left hand is a strict canon at the octave.

Variation [xiv]: I wrote this more than a decade ago, and I couldn’t say exactly where this comes from, pitch-wise. Probably an exploration of “derived chords” in the spirit of [iv]. This is pseudo-Messiaen, with an emphasis on ‘pseudo’.

Variation [xv]: In an abrupt recantation, the tune comes back in simple G major (and 7/8); the left hand confirms all your mother’s warnings about the excesses of Alberti bass.

Variation [xvi]: Wrote this with the Englishry of Holst and Vaughan Williams in view; in D major.

Variation [xvii]: Yet another mishandling of that by-now-worried-to-distraction tune, in d aeolian, with TWD moving slowly in the left hand.

Variation [xviii]: The tune here returns to E major, in a manner loosely suggestive of the Baroque, or rather, in an exaggeration of an impression of that manner, though there is affection even in the exaggeration. TWD in the bass are gruff yet reserved.

The Theme, in a not-perfectly-literal return. [KH]

Nastenka’s Story :: This is a scene about half-way into my ballet based on the Dostoyevsky novella, White Nights. Here, Nastenka is telling the narrator (in the ballet I call him the Dreamer) about her life at home, into which there enters a modestly charming lodger who by delicate degrees enlarges her world. And indeed, Nastenka falls for him (a crisis in a subsequent scene). The understated nature of the music in this scene is thus meant, in style, as a kind of narrative inset within the ballet; and in content, to denote a home life, to which Nastenka is dutifully resigned, but which is a bit confined.

I mean for some of the passages through the course of the scene to suggest an awakening sense of romance. And as to the close of the scene — the Lodger surprises Nastenka and her granny with an invitation to the opera, Il barbiere di Seviglia. The Lodger is thus an agent for lifting the spirits of Nastenka and her granny both, and that is what drove the decision to close the scene with a cheerful characteristic Spanish dance.

The ballet as a whole is scored for large orchestra, so that any reduction is necessarily makeshift to a degree. Nonetheless, the thought of arranging this scene for this group of instruments struck me as natural and suitable. [KH]

Coming Monday 21.vi.10

VOLCANIC AIRBORNE EVENT

The k a rl h e nn i ng Ensemble
& Special Guests in Concert

Nicole Chamberlain, Toxicodendron (fl/cl/gtr) – première
N. Chamberlain, Maraschino (fl/cl) – première
Karl Henning, three for two, Opus 97 (fl/cl)
N. Chamberlain, Smörgåsbord (fl solo)
Brian Chamberlain, Chasing the Storm – III. The Storm (gtr solo)
B. Chamberlain, Lost Hollow Road – II. Reflections (fl/gtr)
Henning, Mirage, Opus 79 (cl/vn/pf)
Henning, Night of the Weeping Crocodiles, Opus 16 (cl/vn/pf)

{ intermission }

Henning, Lunar Glare, Opus 98 (cl/hpschd)
Henning, Lutosławski’s Lullaby, Opus 25 (pf solo)
Henning, Gaze Transfixt, Opus 23 (pf solo) – première
Henning, Nastenka’s Story, Opus 75 № 10, Scene vii from the ballet White Nights, (sextet) – première

Nicole Chamberlain, flute
Brian Chamberlain, guitar
Alexey Shabalin, violin
Paul Cienniwa, harpsichord
Eric Mazonson, piano
Karl Henning, clarinet

Monday, 21 June 2010
7:30pm
First Congregational Church
322 Main Street, Woburn, MA 01801

Free-will donation: All proceeds to benefit the Building Fund

Notes to Whimsies

When Caleb Herron of DNC Duo invited a new piece, I found that there were some regards in which the piece wrote itself. The Duo combines two long-standing musical passions of mine. I am a clarinetist, and have written a great deal of chamber music for my own instrument, including a growing number of unaccompanied clarinet pieces (Blue Shamrock, Irreplaceable Doodles, Studies in Impermanence, e.g.); and I have also written a few pieces for percussion ensemble. When I learnt that Ariana also plays bass clarinet, a light bulb immediately glowed.

Many years (too many) have passed since I played bass myself, and I miss it. It is a wonderful instrument, sharing practically all of the agility of the soprano clarinet, yet with its own character, or rather, its own several characters in the various stretches of its considerable compass. For the percussion component, I decided that rather than exploit a great many timbres among the considerable array of “noise-makers,” I wanted to select only two instruments. Why so few? I wanted to create a sustained dialogue between the wind instrument and a certain timbre. Why as many as two? I also wanted the change of percussion timbre to serve as a dramatic event in the unfolding musical narrative. This dramatic purpose was also a driver in choosing to have Caleb switch from a pitched instrument, the vibraphone, to the (comparatively) unpitched bongos: the change in the character of the piece essentially reflects the difference between the ‘singing’ resonance of the vibraphone, and the ‘drier’ nature of the bongos. It’s also been a long time since I wrote for bowed vibraphone, and the combination of that exquisitely mysterious sound with the bass clarinet was a potent inspiration.

A word about the title is probably in order. The parenthesis first. The description of a certain canvas on display in the Museum of Fine Arts Boston Modernist collection includes the phrase “heavy manipulation of paint.” It’s perfect apt for the painting under advisement; and yet, at face value I found it a curious phrase. Also a seminal phrase, and my piece engages in a grappling manipulation of the sound colors of the instruments. “Whimsies,” because all the materials which are worked in the piece, I created (chose?) in impromptu flashes.

In ways which make more sense to the composer, probably, than to almost anyone else, the piece is something of an homage to Eric Dolphy. I do not write jazz, to be sure, but I cannot help having some musical affection for the man who made the bass clarinet a jazz instrument.

I also make use of a trick I learned (in part) from Debussy, of having the same stretch of music “mean” different things, by changing its environment. Thus, one of the “angular” bits is a lively passage (at first) for unaccompanied bass clarinet. Some while later, I decided that this would make a fun contrapuntal duet with the vibraphone — only a bit slower, so that we can savor the intervals between the instruments. The same passage returns, and sounds different yet again in dialogue with the bongos.

Karl Henning
Boston
13 June 2010

Oggi in musica

A virtual conversation which touched upon the matter of a composer’s intention reminded a neighbor of a perhaps apocryphal story:

Toscanini conducted Ravel’s Boléro and, unknown to him, Ravel himself was in the audience. After the concert Toscanini is discussing the piece with another person, with Ravel within earshot. Toscanini remarks, “Yes, I conduct the piece somewhat faster, if you follow the metronome mark it is simply insufferable.” Ravel fumes, “That idiot! It is supposed to be insufferable!”

Ravel and I are in apparent agreement that safe-as-milk, as a musical virtue, is overrated.

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First thing this morning, I got e-mail from the pianist for the 21 June concert, Eric Mazonson. I had sent him the best-yet draught of the sextet arrangement of Scene vii of White Nights. “When are we doing this?” he queried.

“On the 21^st, please,” I replied.

“When are we going to rehearse it?” Immediate practicality to that question. One of the things I like about Eric.

“When we may,” replied The Zen Composer.

Later this morning we rehearsed Mirage and Night of the Weeping Crocodiles with violinist Alexey Shabolin. Good rehearsal, and our next rehearsal we should have everything in fine shape. I suppose Eric must have looked at the sextet, for he agreed that we should have no great difficulty putting it together the day of the concert (which is, after all, the only time all six of us will be in the same place this month).

White Nights, in due season

Flutist extraordinaire Peter H. Bloom very sportingly duplicated the DVD I had been given (against expectations — Bill Goodwin regretfully reported that there were technical glitches at first, which have been happily surmouted) of the June 2009 concert in Woburn. Now I can furnish copies to my kindly and bold fellow musicians who took part.

Taking some time off from the day-job now to hunker down and get the sextet version of Scene vii of White Nights done up. Made good progress last Saturday, though.

Peter has also kindly agreed to take part in a recital at St Paul’s in October, where we’ll play the three Opus 97 duos, and we’ll ‘revive’ the alto flute version of The Angel Who Bears a Flaming Sword.

Got an e-mail message from Eric Mazonson earlier this week, promising that he would practice the music for the 21 June concert. Can’t be bad.

Now that I have at last posted the easy smart-phone video of both dress rehearsal and performance of Sunday’s Alleluia in D, I can hope soon that I may be able to attend to the audio backlog from May . . . .

As there are six of us taking part in the 21 June concert, it was too obviously a good idea that we ought to close the program with a piece using all six of us. And this particular scene (Night the Second, Scene vii) from the ballet is a most fortuitous match for the instrumentation of this ad hoc sextet. The pitched percussion parts map very easily onto the guitar; the harpsichord is a most felicitous substitute for the harp; and the way that I composed the scene, even the busiest of textures are tolerably well shouldered by the four hands which are driving keyboards. It’s turning out so idiomatically, in fact, that a careless musicologist in the future may just mistake the sextet for the original, and take the orchestral version as the arrangement.

The entire scene runs to 381 measures, and I have already a respectable chunk of it done . . . and all day today and tomorrow to devote to the task. Two passages to which I attended night before last, I had half wondered what I should do with them; but happily, this is a case where, if a task puzzles me one day, what I apparently need to do is sleep on it a bit, and the task will perform itself.

I’ve sent the twelve pages of arrangement done this far to the pianist and harpsichordist, just to give them an idea of what they can expect. Which leads to:

Another aspect of this scene being the perfect item for this purpose is: It probably is not going to be until Monday the 21^st that all six of us can rehearse together (especially as the flautist and guitarist are coming up to Boston from Atlanta) . . . the single-line instruments should all be able to slot right in at a day-of rehearsal, and the keyboardists are both local (and both very good) so they can have worked together a bit ahead of time to file off the burrs.

Alleluia Again

The choir of First Church in Boston sang the SSA version of the Alleluia in D (Opus 48b) this past Sunday morning.

In rehearsal:

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And in the service:

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Freshly Ledded

Chronology of recordings released on Physical Graffiti

(data drawn from Wikipedia)

[Led Zeppelin II released, 22 October 1969]

“Bron-Yr-Aur” (Page acoustic guitar solo): July 1970

[Led Zeppelin III released, 5 October 1970]

“Boogie With Stu,” “Night Flight”: December 1970-January 1971
“Down By the Seaside”: February 1971

[The album known by many names, including Led Zeppelin IV, released, 8 November 1971]

“Black Country Woman,” “Houses of the Holy,” “The Rover”: May 1972

[Houses of the Holy released, 28 March 1973]

“Custard Pie,” “In My Time of Dying,” “In the Light,” “Kashmir,” “Sick Again,” “Ten Years Gone,” “Trampled Underfoot,” “The Wanton Song”: January-February 1974

[Physical Graffiti released, 24 Feb 1975]