Updates

Unable to find a suitable brass player for the 24^th; so be it.  I do need to prepare a flute part, now.  Or, well, tomorrow.

Struck up an acquaintance with a pianist in Philly.  And recalled that only two of my pieces for piano solo have ever been performed for an audience.

Triad concert this Sunday evening (the 17^th).

Michael Joseph is playing an organ recital in Nashua on the 24^th, which I can make.

And I pronounce the Dances Defiant done, both the Boston Harbor Heave-Ho (Tea Party Dance) and Revere’s Midnight Reel (War Dance).  They will make a good addition to programming here in Boston, in any event.

On Chatty Porcupines, and No Puertorriqueño of This World

As I cuddled the porcupine,

He said I had none to blame but me [...]

No time for romantic escape

When your fluffy heart is ready for rape.

— Peter Cuddles With Porcupines Gabriel

After Selling England by the Pound, Genesis collectively felt that they had settled, over their first four-ish albums, into something of an airy-fairy rut.  Part of the idea with The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was, a change in tone (or, something) to a fresh, deep-in-the-NY-street “realism.”  For reasons not germane to this post, the project became a double-LP concept album, and Peter Gabriel took sole charge of writing the words (both the song lyrics, and the rambling prose on the inner gatefold which does not really answer for either clarification, nor synopsis).

It was an ambitious undertaking for a group with more musical polish and acumen than your average pop band.  And I’ll disclose at the outset that, musically, I think it a magnificent achievement, and in spite of the difficulties the band had in the course of its creation and touring.  (It was while touring this album that Gabriel announced to the rest of the band that he had had it.)

The narrator (when the voice is in the first person) is a Puerto Rican youth in New York named Rael.  No, but really.  You hardly get more realistic than that, now, do you?

The second indication that Gabriel did not make sufficient effort to enter the mindset and world of his fictional Puerto Rican:  Rael has a brother named . . . John.  If there was ever a puertorriqueño in New York whose name was Rael (let's be fair—I don’t absolutely know that there has not been), if he had a brother, I bet a jeroboam of Bacardí that the brother’s name was Juan, rather than John.

To repeat, musically I admire this album, practically unreservedly.  All through his stint with Genesis, Gabriel tended to be (to use a charitable adjective) adventurous with words;  and in this Genesis fan’s view, perhaps his successes outnumbered his stinkers, but he misfired with some regularity.  There are IMO cringely moments on all four sides of this double-LP.

Rael is supposed to be a tough city kid.  Again, this is a simple matter of Gabriel failing to focus on remaining in-character.  Consider the following, from “The Chamber of 32 Doors”:

I’d rather trust a countryman than a townman,

You can judge by his eyes, take a look if you can,

He’ll smile through his guard,

Survival trains hard.

The city kid Rael may well trust a countryman better than a city-dweller, though one supposes that his idea of a countryman is theoretical – when would he have soaked in country-living experience?  Theoretical, and therefore possibly a bit romantic.  But, presumably, Rael’s own experience is that survival trains hard in the city, just as much.  The fairest we can say is, this is not a fully-conceived character named Rael speaking;  it’s Author’s Message.  It is not (especially as pop music goes) “bad writing”;  it just doesn’t rise to the ambition of the undertaking.

An unfortunate line that (to my ear) grates worse because he winds up repeating it, riff-like, is that matter of being “ready for rape.”

The sourness of the note is reinforced by my recently reading a similarly unfortunate whitewashing, in Stravinsky’s rather distasteful remark that rape could somehow “be justified by the birth of a child.”

Not to belabor the point (my enjoyment of and admiration for the music is undiminished in either case), the apparent belittling of assault and violation strikes me as, at the least, unseemly.  Products of their time?  Perhaps.

I suppose, though, that in Gabriel’s case, the tone is justified by (what I earlier accused him of failing in) creating a character.

A contemporary-ish counter-example of rape being treated with all due severity, is in Hitchcock’s Marnie, of 1964.  In contrast to Suspicion of 1941, whose ending was modified so that Cary Grant’s character would not be an actual villain, Sean Connery plays a character, not as a rule bad, but who in a moment of weakness is worse than a cad.  Let casuists argue that a husband is “due” the sexual enjoyment of his wife, and therefore it “cannot be” rape;  but, delicately though it is shot and cut, Rutland rapes Marnie, and the consequence is, she attempts suicide.

It is part of our epoch, both that we are faced with a heightened awareness of sexual abuses (of varying degrees) which women suffer as they strive to work in the business world (or indeed, the world at all), and that suicide is on an appalling rise.  I did not set out for this theme, when I started writing this blog post;  nor, having found myself sounding it, do I shun it.  There are those well known to me, of whom it would be a betrayal, if I shrug it off.

Awareness.  Compassion.  Decency.

None of this, is too much to ask.

Awareness.  Compassion.  Decency.

More proofing

The sweet benefit of having the work substantially done so early:  one can take three days for proofing and refinements.

Even as the sands in the hourglass....

Unsure that I have ‘reported’ this, but there is a chance that we shall play Deep Breath next May, or even sooner, in January.

There is no urgent need to hire, but I am still inquiring after a brass player for Sunday the 24^th.  My first choice (a horn player) was unavailable;  nor was my second (euphonium player).  I’ve now sent word to the hornist who was part of the quintet for the première of the full Sweetest Ancient Cradle Song.  I think that if she be unavailable, I’ll discontinue the search.  It is for an anthem which does have parts for an optional brass quintet (which, knowing that we would not hire a full quintet in the near future, I did not purchase);  my idea being that I would draw up my own horn (or euphonium) part.  I have held back on the work, though – partly because I was not sure I should need a horn or a euphonium part, partly because I am also drawing up a flute part for Marissa Bell, and that is a part I shall do differently, if the flute be the only single-line instrument we add to the anthem.

Actually, I sent word to the Cradle Song hornist, courtesy of an address furnished by the first trumpeter from that same occasion, Tim Deik.  As a result, I’ve now sent Tim the brass quartet version (trombones) of Down Along the Canal to Minerva Road.

No word from the euphonium player for whom I prepared a 2 tp/2 euph version of Minerva Road.

Thanks to Facebook, I have reconnected with a French cellist whom I first met here in New England (of course), so, who knows? there may be a French performance of some Henningmusick à bientôt.

To a local string quartet who champion new music, I have sent a follow-up email message.

Very nearly sent a similar follow-up about The Nerves, only I realize that the first message was sent out 10 days ago.  Maybe on some plane of etiquette, 10 days is a polite interval;  but I shall give it a solid two weeks.

A flute player made the initial proposal for a new piece, but I have had no reply to (now) two e-mail messages.  I did begin a fresh sketch, back at the time we spoke in person;  but I shall wait, before continuing.  (Incidentally, this is one reason why opus numbers wind up getting reassigned.)

The Dances Defiant are, I believe, ready for shipment.

There is a local group to whom I sent Misapprehension, oh, some time ago.  No word.

Through all this, what is the important thing?  First, that I continue to do the work.  Second, that I find the work to my own artistic satisfaction.  Third, that there are conductors and performers who are made aware that I am creating new work, each month;  even if no performance results this year, my work has flashed briefly upon their musical consciousness.  Fourth, if I have to make 50 pitches of my work, in order that a single performance may result, there may not, in fact, be any ‘more efficient’ means of getting my work performed – and the effort is not ‘wasted.’

I’m composing music.  It is what I am made to do, and what I have chosen to prepare myself to do, to the highest degree of excellence whereof I am capable.  That my work is so seldom performed, and that I am not paid for my work – these are no fault of mine.  And it is my business, that this fault should continue not to attach to me.

Stealth Mitzvah

Tonight, I started work on a new cl/org piece, a Voluntary on “Beautiful Savior” (“Fairest Lord Jesus”).  I’m puttering away at it . . . I work at it for perhaps an hour—and suddenly I realize what is different, and in a most gratifying way.

Our organist at HTUMC asked me to write the piece.

Not merely does she welcome such a thing;  she asked me to write a piece.

A Day of the Red Letter, truly.

Ear Buds (detail)

The initial musical idea for Ear Buds (The dream of a young man in the woods, listening) came to me while I was walking (near the titular woods, in fact) and contemplating a new (and, ideally, better suited) piece for a certain clarinet choir, a certain unusually large clarinet choir, in 15 parts.

Although the musical idea came to me as I hoped to construct a piece better suited to a specific group, I soon reached the conclusion that this piece, too, would prove inadequate to the group’s demands.  In terms of my nascent piece, this was a benefit, as I soon realized that the piece I was forming in my inner ear, would be better served by a less homogeneous ensemble.  Another consideration from the initial spark was, technical ease;  so I decided to compose the piece for symphonic band, with the idea that it may be approachable for a young ensemble.

The scoring for the symphonic band, then, was less than full.  For one example, as I had not long before attended a community band concert, and saw that there were no bassoons in the band – to be more accurate, once of the group’s conductors also served as the sole bassoonist – I wrote Ear Buds with no bassoons.

This, then, was the birth of the Op.135.

Last year, as I was sharing my Symphony with the conductor of a local orchestra, part of the conversation turned (of necessity) upon the challenges faced by the music director of a community orchestra who wants to program a substantial work of new music.  As a possible stepping-stone in that arduous journey, we talked about a smaller-scale orchestral piece.  As chronicled in this blog, I saw to that orchestral adaptation, well, almost exactly a year ago.  On the whole, I think the scoring good;  an artifact from the original band score, though, is the lack of bassoons, which is arguably a peculiarity of the Op.135a.

For the present call, the requirements of scoring meant that I had to scale back the brass a great deal.  From three trumpets (and there are a few places where they have a kind of staggered fanfare), and two horns, and three trombones – to but one of each.  Quite a bit of creative line reassignment was called for, which I had to take on more or less a page-by-page basis;  the addition of the two bassoons was rather a help.  It was necessary also to go from four percussionists, to two;  in this I was helped by the permissible addition of harp.

Thus did the Op.135b come to be.

As with a number of other pieces of mine, although I have sought to accommodate various groups/occasions with alterations, or alternate scorings, none has yet been performed for an audience.

Who knows?  This could be the year.

Back, forth, and (well) back again

It was mid-May (which is to say, less than a month ago) that I was thinking of modifying the scoring of the orchestral Ear Buds—more accurately, producing an alternative orchestral scoring—for a fresh American Composers Orchestra call.

But, I had other things I was a-writing, and the time fast approached when my desk must be clear for the write-it-quickly event;  and (as noted here) I gave over the idea of the third version of Ear Buds.  After all, I have submitted scores at least twice to ACO calls, and no business resulting.

However, since (a) the work on the pair of Dances has proceeded so well, and (b) the deadline for the ACO call is tomorrow . . . I was well pleased, this afternoon, to see to bringing an orchestral version of Ear Buds into instrumentational compliance with the present ACO call, and I have now submitted it.

You don’t get the rejection letters, if you don’t send your work in . . . .