Dances With Dostoyevsky. Memories. The Chapel

Scene 8 of White Nights is chuffing along nicely.  The original outline (the Once and Future Scheme?), the more-than-one new sketch-lets, are at one and the same time non-binding artistically, yet profoundly correct for the project (per my Rubik’s cube analogy of yesterday).

The hottest bit of news, which is not yet reflected in the score (at press time, 98 measures, 2'40) is the epiphany that I can – nay, must – bring in an allusion to the start of the Overture.  It is often (by no means always) the case that an overture to a stage work ‘previews’ material to be sung (or danced to).  In these my White Nights, all of the hour-plus music which has been danced prior to Scene 8 has been new material, none of it presaged in the Overture.  (Which is one musical reason why I could realistically entertain the idea of discarding the present overture, and writing a new one.)  But it has undeniably been my intention to mine the Overture for dance numbers within the ballet.  Leo’s assurance that an 11-minute overture is not, in itself, evidence of madness helped, perhaps, to clear the air for me, and I can proceed with strengthening the interconnections within the ballet by seeding dance numbers with material from the Overture.

The composer is actively at work, most of the material (by design) has been furnished by Rossini, the method is tested and viable.  It is not unrealistic to look for the Scene to be in the can on Independence Day.  More work, later today.

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You may have noted, Gentle Reader, that one detail missing from the recent electronica (Memories of Packanack Lake) is, an Opus number.  I think I have decided to add a layer of live performance.  The novelty here (in contrast to Mistaken for the Sacred, e.g.) is that I am planning a series of statements played by musicians live, with the timing of the entrances guided-but-indefinite;  so the piece will unfold in an improvisatory interrelation of fixed musical objects.  The resulting Op.145 will be christened An Other Than Physical Distance (Memories of Packanack Lake).

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We have a Henningmusick date at Boston’s historical King’s Chapel on 10 October, and I am taking thought for the program.  I am thinking, for starters, of the wind version of the Tiny Wild Avocadoes, and the Op.145.