The results are in for the contest to which I sent The Nerves, and my piece was one of the 207 not selected. Ah, well.
Ten years ago this week, I was wrapping up the second movement of the Viola Sonata—Suspension Bridge (In Dave's Shed).
Photo by Maria Bablyak
The commissioning prize to which I submitted the Saltmarsh Stomp (and whose deadline was 17 Aug) confirmed receipt of my submission this Friday past. The announcement is slated for NLT Hallowe’en.
Turning ideas around for the Op. 169 № 3 organ piece (I have a tune picked out)
added a fugato passage before the close of While the dew is still on the roses, which I feel is just the thing. Although I am morally prepared for the possibility of fine tuning, I pronounce the Op.169 № 2 pretty much done, and I have sent it along to David.
while the dew is still on the roses is practically done: I need to add some dynamics here and there. Will wrap it up tomorrow.
These past couple of days, I’ve been chipping away at the marble of while the dew is still on the roses. It’s something of a calliope mash-up of “In the Garden” (C. Austin Miles, 1913) and “Genevan 42” (Louis Bourgeois, 1551) to serve as a cheerful, brief Postlude. I’m not rushing it, but having some fun.
Three years ago today, Ensemble Aubade played Oxygen Footprint in a charming Vermont Hamlet. Looking forward to the end of the pandemic so they can read its two companion pieces.
Two years ago yesterday, Paul and Mei Mei played Plotting down Florida way
Also, had a fascinating dream last night. I was working on a piece for two singers, and I was at a part of the score where I was going to have one of the singers speak some text. But, I thought, wouldn’t it be better still to have an actor speak the text at that point? So I sent a request to Leonard Nimoy, regretting that I could not offer him an honorarium befitting his talent and stature, but would he consider participating? He agreed. The dream then shifted gears and I went down the elevator to deposit checks in an ATM. At the ATM, my fingers tried to remember a PIN which in fact I had forgotten at the time of my stroke. In the dream, I recalled that fact and then keyed in my new PIN ... first time I did any such thing in a dream.
When I reported Monday that I was nearly done with the Op.119 № 2, I could taste it, but I also knew that my brain had worked enough for the day. There were three places which were problems (in a Stravinskyan/mathematical sense) and I knew already how to solve them, which meant that I was fresh to lay into the work yesterday, and the work went quite easily. I am indeed pleased with My Life, My Life.
Next? Before taking a choral music call under more serious advisement, I think I want to wrap up the Op.169 № 2 organ piece, While the dew is still on the roses.
Not the abbreviations we need, but the abbreviations we deserve... “Not a significant source of sat. fat, trans. fat, cholest., fiber, vit. D, calcium, iron [or] potas.”
Once Upon a Time, not such a very long time ago, in the era of innocence when we thought that wearing masks in public was an exotic Japanese practice, when the k a rl h e nn i ng Ensemble was preparing for a concert which has since been canceled, I wrote two pieces whereof I failed to make note here in ye blog, Gentle Reader. I had forgotten until this instant that my origanal title for piece no. 1 was Shoes of Sugar. As it happened, though, as I was at last wrapping up my revisitation with The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show (and also, with Stan Kenton’s “Two Moose in a Caboose” in mind—quite likely, The Firesign Theatre’s “Camel on the Lam,” as well) the quartet became Moose on the Loose, a happy-go-lucky five minutes and a half for C flute (doubling piccolo) alto flute, horn and violin. I finished this (Op.165) on or about 7 March.
For quartet no. 2 I started with two fundamental notions: (1) the timbral idea of having Peter switch from flute to saxophone (when in the company of a multi-instrumentalist, avail yourself of the variegated palette) so as to enjoy the combination of saxophone and our Pamela Marshall’s horn, and (2) the gentle abstraction of the Op.97 № 2, All the Birds in Mondrian’s Cage. As a result, and before I knew that Pam had composed a piece named Labyrinth, my six-minute Op. 166 for flute, alto sax, horn and violin became Pam’s Labyrinth. I probably completed this quartet the day after the Op. 165, as I worked on them concurrently.
I have some cleanup and tweaking before I can lay true claim to having finished My Life, My Life. I have now set all the text, though, and today’s work was reasonably productive.
Not yet finished with My Life, My Life . . . but probably soon.
