On the calendar

Here is the event whereon the Viola Sonata Opus 102 will be featured.

Notes for a Sonata

Viola Sonata, Opus 102

In the fall of 2006, I was still serving as a chorister at the Cathedral Church of St Paul in Boston, where I had been singing for perhaps six years. One of the new singers brought in by the then new music director was Peter Lekx, who (I soon learnt) was enrolled in a Master’s program at Boston University in viola performance. Early on in our acquaintance, I set to work on (what at the time I was considering a single-movement work) Tango in Boston for viola and piano. When the piece reached about the 60-measure mark, I set the sketch aside — Pete was quite musically busy, and in large part he was engaged in early music projects. Most practically, probably: at the time I did not know any pianist who would be capable of the piece as I was conceiving it.

At the time, though, I had mentioned the piece to several on-line acquaintances, including Dana Huyge. And late in June this year Dana got in touch to ask about the feasibility of completing a viola sonata for a September recital. Although I had thought of Tango in Boston as a stand-alone piece, the invitation to write a multi-movement sonata fired my imagination; I decided immediately that the existing sketch would serve as the basis for the third movement, and set to work on the first & second.

With Fair Warning, I set to write a piece bristling with energy, accumulating such momentum that the charged air would continue to drive the piece even in passages where the surface tempo has relented. In short, I wanted to open the Sonata with an eight-minute spitfire which would not quit. (A clarinetist myself, I wrote the whole Sonata, really, with the thought What would I have fun playing, if the piece were for myself?) I started writing essentially with that thought, and before concerning myself with specifics of the pitch-world. Before long I found that the material I had thus spontaneously generated, hinged readily upon a kind of octatonic scale which (in a curious geographical coincidence to this performance) I first employed in my doctoral dissertation at Buffalo. In terms of sonata design, Fair Warning takes indirect cues from Shostakovich, whose first movements generally referred to the tradition (often the Tchaikovskyan tradition of a Motto, apart from the Principal and Subordinate Themes), without mapping neatly onto the tradition. So with Fair Warning, I had in view the ideas of Exposition, of how a Development might proceed, of Re-transition and Recapitulation; and although I mention Shostakovich (and Tchaikovsky), I did not take them as direct “models,” as such a tack strikes me as violating their own spirit of sonata ‘discovery’. There are passages of ‘refracted unison’ which are a loose homage to the Massachusetts-born composer Alan Hovhaness. And there are pitch ‘corkscrews’.

I knew the middle movement would be called Suspension Bridge some time before I considered how I should approach it musically. The overall movement is governed by an underlying rhythmic pattern — an irregular and long-breathed pattern, which often fights against an out-of-phase “local” pattern in any given passage. It is that sense of rhythmic ‘process’ which I thought of as the suspension. The pitch world of the piece is a lark I drew up one day, a symmetrical scale which runs a perfect 15^th, but in the center of which there is no perfect 8^ve. In a sense, I feel that what sustains the movement, is the tension between its grand ‘skeleton’, and the spontaneity with which I approached its succeeding sections. Through the course of the movement I had in mind partly an idea of succeeding variations, partly the idea of an imbalanced arch. Truth to tell, I had no idea that the movement would begin with unaccompanied viola until I sat down one evening and started writing it. (As for Dave’s Shed, it is a place of contemplation, and yet it is no place; it is Walden Pond in Minnesota, if you like.)

My loose model for the completion of Tango in Boston was Chopin’s second piano sonata, whose Presto finale seems to fly by before you’ve drawn two breaths. That is, while on one hand I wanted an energetic movement at the other end of the “Bridge” from the first movement, I approached it more with a sense of lightness than of Grand Finale. The movement incorporates a couple of artifacts from the master of the tango, Astor Piazzolla; and also hearkens back to the two earlier movements, at one point superimposing disparate passages from the first and second one upon another.

Second Republic

Back-of-the-envelope remarks on last night’s listen (Listen № 2) to De staat:

Not mad about the bleached-tofu concept of choral singing. I suppose it was something in the air at the time (in the period —after initial enthusiasm —when I wasn’t sure whether I liked The Desert Music, probably my ear’s complaint was largely the tone of the choir . . . it gets dull after a while).

That said, I think Louis creates a good balance between the presence of the choir, and the purely instrumental passages.

I understand the last note, and it’s a good note; I’m not sure that I am convinced that it’s an ending of the piece. Not that the piece need be any longer; it’s the right point at which to close the piece. The last note, though, feels to me like a hinge to a subsequent section (although, since the piece closes, there isn’t any subsequent section . . . and it’s a sonic cliff).

A couple of the busier sections feel too clunky to me. In the liner notes, Louis talks about be-bop rather than traditional orchestral writing; but the sections I am talking about lack the grace and flight of be-bop. Could well be what he wants.

Again: off-the-cuff thoughts which are more a matter of how I think differently; not presuming to send Louis back to the drawing-board.

Overall — I like it; Compositional endorsement rating — 80%.

Blast from the Past

Last night, for the first time in decades, I listened to Louis Andriessen's De staat. I am planning to listen to this once a day for three days, and yesterday was the inaugural.

The piece has nice sentimental value for me; it was probably the first piece to which I listened (score in hand) in the Music Library of the University at Buffalo. I had just enrolled in the doctoral program in composition, basically not knowing with whom I might actually be studying; the head of the Graduate Composition program informed me that there would be two visiting composers teaching, Charles Wuorinen and Louis, that I should be taking individual lessons with Charles, and that there would be a weekly composers seminar led by Louis.

Since at the time, Louis' name was completely new to me, I wanted to listen to some of his music for orientation. I found De staat immediately likeable . . . though perhaps I was predisposed to like it . . . one piece which was then a recent obsession for me was Steve Reich's The Desert Music. The prospect of working with Louis thus struck me as eminently agreeable.

So, how do I hear it now, after so large a buffer of time? I still like it, find it largely well done. Some of the hocket technique of the two groups (sort of the same game that the composer plays in Hoketus, only with more musicians) comes across as a little clunky. The low brass "answer" to the opening oboe invention, a little clunky and blatty, too. The final note had me thinking, that's the end? The repetition strikes me as well paced and proportioned, I like the balance between the largely (or quasi-) unison passages and the block chords.

Part of my exercise in listening these three days in a row will be to observe unfiltered reactions on my own part. So, from last night: Overall - I like it; Compositional endorsement rating - 85%

words, words, words

Not any matter of difficulty of the task, only of finding time. But I should almost prefer writing another half hour of music, to generating a page of program notes about this.

(Oh, wait — and this is a blog, too.)

Something of a Nod to Igor Fyodorovich

It seems befitting in a summer which sees hurricanes named both Igor and Karl . . .

Last year I sent the recording of the Noise in the Library concert to Michael Karman, editor of Asymmetry Music Magazine. Recently he wrote to me:

Karl,

I had lost this immediately after listening to it only once, when my chief impression was “late Stravinsky.”

Then I found it right before leaving for a two month trip to Europe.

Now I’m back, and I’m listening to it and liking it all very much. I haven’t heard anything that’s really reminded me of late Stravinsky any more. It’s not reminding me of anything, really. I suppose it was the combination of serial-ish licks and warmth that reminded me of late Stravinsky the first time through. Now, I’m most taken with the emptiness. The space around the notes and the lines. The silence that you never really disturb — the notes never sound like they’re interrupting the silence. And as that’s become a rather favorite thing of mine (Sachiko M, Mattin, Hannifin and several others), it was nice to hear it in Henning, too, even though your aesthetic (and the actual sounds) are very different from those people.

Anyway, that’s what I think and what it is, too.

Michael

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By seeming chance, today I ran across these kind remarks from composer Luke Ottevanger, as I rummaged through some messages:

As for your disc — for which thanks again - I have only been able to listen to the first half or so. There is lots to say — all positive — and I will try to get it all in order soon. The most striking impression — given that I’d never heard any Henning before, but ‘know’ you to an extent from your posts — was that your interest in Stravinsky seems to shine through, although in a personal way. No question of a simple aping of Strav’s mannerisms, naturally! Those two trombones, so powerfully linear and solemn-toned, gracefully finding a balance between independance and interactivity... within seconds I couldn’t help but remember the Canticum Sacrum, which must be one of my favourite late Strav works. And yet your music is very different in all details, of course. It’s a matter of similar tone, similar approach — and so in that sense, certainly, I’d say you have succeeded in striking a similar balance yourself.

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Luke wrote in July of 2006, in response to the Evening Service in D.

End of the Day

Soon I must see to program notes for the Viola Sonata, Opus 102.

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Our parakeets (Trisha & Grusha) respond very interestingly, one might even say flirtatiously, to the high tweety notes Jeff Beck plays at the end of “Angel (Footsteps)” on the Live at Ronny Scott’s album.

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This was the summer of rediscovering where Shostakovich: A Life has been shelved all this time.

You sometimes see “Opus 77” appended to the First Violin Concerto, sometimes “Opus 99.” Happily, Laurel Fay clarifies:

The Violin Concerto was initially assigned opus no. 99, corresponding chronologically to its date of first performance. It was subsequently reassigned opus no. 77, reflecting the actual date of composition. Opus 99 was assigned to the film music for The First Echelon.

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Thanks to the as-yet-mysterious person in Italy who has ordered the string orchestra version of the Canticle of St Nicholas ! I confess to some curiosity as to when a performance may possibly ensue . . . .