Fewer Imperatives or None

 I just learnt that the eye of the ostrich is larger than its brain: just like the President!
— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Of all the artists recording at CBS Columbia Square in Hollywood, the Firesign Theatre understood best of all what it meant to make futuristic records in the context of Vietnam and the setbacks of 1968 in a studio that had been built to broadcast antifascist radio propaganda during World War II.
— Jeremy Braddock, Firesign: The Electromagnetic History of Everything as Told on Nine Comedy Albums (2024) p. 18.

As I may likely have alternately hinted or documented on this blog, I was highly fortunate in my composition instructors, who while doing their best to help me improve my practice of composition and at once to expand and focus my aural attention to gems in the Literature, did not adopt either a Procrustean method nor an inflexible authoritarian air. They treated me as not merely a person but as a colleague-in-training. Very rarely was there sharp critique, and well, that’s just part of the experience. I survived  (in the first place) and how much better to receive such a rebuke from a fellow musician with whom one has built a relationship (in the second.) Even Charles Wuorinen, whose stern reputation preceded him such that a colleague at Buffalo breathed a sigh of relief at having been assigned to Louis Andriessen’s studio instead — I found much less “forbidding” to work with than one might expect.

The environment contrasted in an illuming way from our first-year Music Theory sequence, in which there was more of a "this is the way things must be done” tone which both fitted the disciplined study of Theory and (honestly) harmonized, to to speak, with the instructor’s tendency to a dictatorial mien.

Overall, no complaint, as I learnt me my Music Theory but good even as I reserved a sense that the creative practice of Composition would perforce not be any slavish adherence to The Rules.

I’ve now been writing music for some 40 years since my graduation from the College of Wooster. Some thoughts, looking back.

Every artist probably finds inspiration in whatever musical sources he pleases. Others may or may not share his enthusiasm.

If any other artist tells you there is something or other you must do, it may well be their trip, and not yours.

My ears spend time both in listening to music completely new to me, and in revisiting pieces I  already love and know well. Those pieces have not changed, but my ears have.

Over time I have generally become more attuned to internal imperatives. The latest external imperative which I obeyed was the need to reorganize the April program at King’s Chapel as a trio.

Preoccupations at home have meant that I have not been composing. In the back of my musical mind I am gearing up to compositional readiness, although I have not absolutely settled on the next project.

Remembering Jacquie Levy Anew

 The recording assured me that assistance was only a moment away.

— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Mysteries conceal a truth, but direct curiosity to unveil it.

— Arnold Schoenberg

In my latter years of High School a friend drew me in to a kind of coffeehouse fellowship at his Episcopal parish. The Sign of the Fish was led by John & Jacquie Levy. On learning, in 2020, of Jacquie’s passing I wrote a small memorial piece, in response to my friend David Bohn’s latest call for scores. Another friend, Carson Cooman recently posted a performance:

My friend David Bohn’s première of Remembering Jacquie Levy is here.

Separately, my friend Aaron Larget-Caplan sent a lovely message t’other day, and he is starting to look at Aaron’s Uneasy Sleep.

Penny Candy Redux

 This morning, I heard someone use “literally” correctly, but completely superfluously. Quoth Bertie Wooster: O Death, where is thy jolly old sting?
— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

What do you do? How do you do it, how do you create? I find it difficult [...] In truth, you will always find it difficult. The creation of an idea, the following of a story germ, the building up of a plot, the creating of people, of flesh-&-blood character — these are not easy things, they’re extremely difficult. But conversely — don’t be put off by the fact that this month you can’t do it, and next month is maybe even harder. This is, if not a lifetime process, it’s awfully close to it. The writer broadens, becomes deeper, becomes more observant, becomes more tempered, becomes much wiser over a period of time passing. It is not something that is injected into him by a needle, not something which comes on a wave of flashing, explosive light one night, and say, huzzah! Eureka! I’ve got it! And then proceeds to write the Great American Novel in eleven days. It doesn’t work that way, it’s a long, tedious, tough, frustrating process. But never, ever be put aside by the fact that it’s hard. If it weren't hard, everybody would be a writer ....
— Rod Serling

As noted here, the first piece I composed after my stroke, at the kind invitation of David Bohn was the brief toy piano piece Penny Candy. And now, after meeting up afresh with both Olivia Kieffer and Carson Cooman, suddenly we have two fresh performances of the piece.

On Bassoon and Clarinet

 A discovery lovely but rubbery.

— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

The tablet was not chalky like aspirin and not exactly capsule-slick either. It felt strange in the hand, curiously sensitive to the touch but at the same time giving the impression that it was synthetic, insoluble, elaborately engineered. ... I watched her sit at the cluttered desk for two or three minutes, slowly rotating the tablet between her thumb and index finger. She licked it and shrugged.

“Certainly doesn’t taste like much.”

“How long will it take to analyze the contents?”

“There’s a dolphin’s brain in my in-box but come see me in forty-eight hours.”

— Don DeLillo, White Noise

A Chamber concert date has arisen at First Lutheran Church in Malden. May the 17th at 4PM. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work for most of the band, so the Henning Ensemble per se will not participate. However, Greta has arranged to play some duets with a clarinetist, so I’ve adapted Janky Juke Joint and one of the Offertories for the twain.

The photo is not First Lutheran in Malden, but First Congregational Church in Woburn.

Yesterday at King's

 Dances With Wolves, meet Grooves in Pavement
— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

A man can fail many times, but he isn't a failure until he begins to blame somebody else.
— John Burroughs

Thoroughly pleased with yesterday’s concert at King’s Chapel. Excellent guest music, superb, sensitive musicianship, a nice flow to the program. Whether the fault lay with my brain or my eyes (or both together) I got lost during Dennis’ piece (I did hate doing that to a guest and friend) and worked to find myself while trying not to broadcast my being lost. On one hand, I continued to keep time while aware that I was at risk of missing measures of four. On t’other the band knew the piece so well that if/when my pattern was off, nothing went off the rails.

To Form a More Perfect Neuron (State of the Brain)

 I have no pet peeves. I let them all remain wild.

— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Ingrid Bergman: Why won’t you let me be happy?

Cary Grant: No one’s stopping you.

An exchange in Hitchcock’s Notorious, Cary Grant being rather an ass.

In the Before Times, which is to say (I realize I ought to clarify) prior to my stroke. I worked at composition A Lot. I don’t say I worked absolutely every day—which would be a self-flattering exaggeration—but there were in fact substantial stretches of time when I did some composing each and every day. Moreover, it was a comparatively rare time when I was not at work on more than one score. In remarking thus I disregard whole months when I left White Nights in practically complete neglect. Since my stroke in November of 2018 things have been otherwise and far from consistent. So here am I thinking out loud in the latest self-diagnosis/evaluation/discovery which is What Is This Thing Called the Henning Musical Brain?

Since my stroke, my experience has varied from ‘reasonably on-form’ solid productivity to ‘do I even want to compose anymore?’ Even in spells of the latter darkness I did not worry that it was any permanent condition, but I simply accepted the question mark as a welcome guest, so there was no note of aught like despair in the condition. more than once—including recently—I simply did not know what I might want to write. And while that niche genre of Ignorance was something almost completely unknown to me before my stroke, I have learnt that it is simply periodically The Way It Is, and I embrace it as part of myself. Composition has not become in any way ‘more dificult’ for me, indeed I find that if I am ‘in the composing vein,’ more often than not the pieces come to write themselves. There, now: enough about my brain.

I do not yet care enough about the Op. 192 chamber orchestra piece to resume work on it. And although (as remarked earlier) there is already enough Henningmusick for the Grand Sextet, Two thoughts occurred to me between swaths of sleep t’other day, around 05:00. To borrow the passacaglia theme from Plotting for the next piece for the Sextet, The Texas Chainsaw Passacaglia (which won’t be needed until 2027) and basing the concertante piece for clarinet and band on The Mask I Wore Before.

From the Archive

 I’d like to take Ringo at his word when he says he’d like to be under the sea, but there’s, well, respiration to consider. He might want to think it through better, is all I’m saying.

— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

I suggest you use your own brains, and give up the idea of renting mine.

— Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe

16 years ago, the Sine Nomine choir gave the beautiful second performance of the Passion, Opus 92. I’m sure I’ve remarked more than once on how rare it is for a composer to enjoy the second performance of a substantial work. So yes, I’m just basking at present.