Saw a great bumper sticker on the drive back from jury duty in May of 2010: Knowledge is power. Power corrupts. Study hard—Be evil. — Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)
...Prokofiev’s joy is that of a boy who has broken out into freedom, who thinks that everything is permitted, and who knows that he can achieve much. — Leonid Sabanayev
The flute adaptation of the Lamentio pro sorore sua seemed to be a more involved affair than I had mentally budgeted, and indeed I wrote earlier today essentially to the effect that I would punt for a week. However, when I took stock this afternoon, I was further along than I had given myself credit for, so that’s a wrap on the Opus 202c. I am planning on a symphonic band version of Dark Side of the Sun. Will report.
The Beach Boys: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older?”
Me: “Just wait a couple of years, boys.”
While the sextet dates are not yet pencilable I’ve been mulling our next King’s Chapel concert as a quartet. On the docket at the outset:
Frank Warren, Quartet # 3, Op. 119 (6'30)
Chris Forbes, Pillars of Creation(9')
Dennis Báthory-Kitsz, new piece t/b/d
Henning, Cape of Good Nope (6')
The concert falls on what would have been my sister’s 62nd birthday, so the temptation to adapt the Lamentatio pro sorore sua (3') for C Flute and Alto Flute was not to be resisted. I’ve also tweaked the scoring of Dark Side of the Sun (8'30, composed before we recruited Greta) essentially swapping Bassoon for the Double-Bass. I began composing One for Ahmad in the spring but pretty much neglected it since. Fresh ideas came a couple of days ago. It would serve as a most suitable close to the program.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
