2025: The Year in Henningmusick

 Seen on Threads: "The Mayor in Jaws is still the Mayor in Jaws 2. It is so important to vote in your local elections.
— Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

You’re not a musician, you’re a nostalgia act. The truth which an Elvis impersonator doesn’t want to hear, in or out of The Twilight Zone.

It is that time of year to do some musical housekeeping. Disclaimer: Not actually a comprehensive list, for a reason too generally uninteresting to spell out.

Music for the Un-Hip Hop, Op. 178 № 1
Two C Flutes, 6:30
First perf. 8 Apr 2025

Surfing an Earthquake, Op. 190
Three C Flutes, 5:30
First perf. 8 Apr 2025

Snootful of Hooch, op. 159a
Two C Flutes and Alto Flute, 6:30
First perf. 8 Apr 2025

Amorphous & Forward-Looking, Op. 196
C Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet, 5:30
First perf. 8 Apr 2025

Fantasy on When Jesus Wept, Op. 162a
Piccolo, Alto Flute, B-flat Clarinet, 4:00
First perf. 8 Apr 2025

Dark Side of the Sun, Op. 193
C Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet, Contrabass 8:00
First perf. 6 Aug 2026

A Dance Floor for the Introverted, Op. 178 № 2
Two C Flutes, 5:30
First perf. 6 Aug 2026

Fantasia on a Theme by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Op. 197
C Flute, Alto Flute, B-flat Clarinet, Contrabass 8:30
First perf. 6 Aug 2026

Jazz for Nostalgic Squirrels, Op. 117b
C Flute, Alto Flute, B-flat Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon & Contrabass 5:30
First perf. 5 Sep 2026

Fantasia on a Theme by Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Op. 197a
C Flute, Alto Flute, B-flat Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon & Contrabass 8:30
First perf. 5 Sep 2026

Lamentatio pro sorore sua, Op. 202a
Bass Clarinet & Bassoon 3:00
First perf. 14 Oct 2026

Peace! The Charm’s Wound Up, Op. 204
C Flute, Alto Flute, Bass Clarinet & Bassoon, 3:45
First perf. 14 Oct 2026

Notes: Snootful of Hooch was originally for flute and vibraphone, and I have not despaired of its being thus presented someday.

It turns out that our Fall King’s Chapel date falls on my late sister’s birthday, so I am thinking about adapting the Lamentatio pro sorore sua (originally scored for two bass clarinets) for two flutes for the occasion.

Henningmusick in Malden Tomorrow

 Sir Neville Bartender and the Academy of St-Lemon-in-the-Peels

— Postcards From Red Squirrel Trail

Really don’t mind if you sit this one out.

— Ian Anderson, Jethro Tull’s Thick As a Brick

The two arrangements I posted about here, for clarinet (Mike Roesler) and bassoon (Greta Rosen) will be played as part of a variegated chamber music concert at First Lutheran Church in Malden, Massachusetts tomorrow at 4PM. The program opens with my friends Anne DiSciullo (horn) Paul Carlson (piano) and violinist Ann Irza (violin) playing the Brahms Horn Trio. and closes with a jazz set led by my acquaintance Larry Panzeri, a combo including my great friend Todd Brunel.

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.