Exquisitely Conflicted

The Beatles are turning awfully funny, aren’t they?

— Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 1967-ish

Even though he knows it’s all so wrong — and let him count the ways — Steven Hyden at the Onion AV Club figuratively wrings his hands over how well he likes “Illegal Alien” by Genesis.

That is past the time when I was following the band, so I recuse myself from the question. I know what I like (in their wardrobe).

The Three Pieces Will Out

It is a delight to announce that the Three Pieces for organ solo, Opus 34, which Paul Cienniwa played both at First Church in Boston in November, and at the funeral of former Senator Claiborne Pell in January, will be taken for yet another outing. Dr Cienniwa will give a lecture at the 9th Annual UUMN Ballou Channing District Music Conference, and my Opus 34 will be a handout, an example of how organists should incorporate works by local composers.

(Organists outside of New England are also encouraged to program Henningmusick.)

Making a Start

Long enough ago that I don’t recall just when, I promised a piece to Peter H. Bloom for bass flute and harp. (Strictly speaking, I should say that I made the suggestion to Peter; as a composer, though, it is for my own benefit if I actually write most of the pieces that I take thought to write.) At about that time I did begin a sketch which (actually) I probably don’t think much of, which must be the key reason why I let it sit in neglect. Recent hopes of perhaps hearing actual performances of Radiant Maples and Lost Waters have been something of a catalyst, probably, for getting a proper bead on the long-promised duet, at last.

For about a week, I had been plotting some of the piece mentally; so when I actually cracked open the notebook while riding the bus yesterday morning, the engine was not running cold. I started without a title; or rather, the title I had in mind . . . not that it’s a bad title (it may not be), but it was clear very quickly that the title did not suit the music I was writing. Nor did the shape that the overall piece was taking in my mind, promise at all to conform any better to the title.

This dilemma was solved for me (indirectly) by Mr Nicolella’s recital yesterday. The true title of the bass flute and harp duet came to me directly.

Here follow the first two pages of sketch for the score, and the broad ‘road-map’ for the piece I drew up this morning. The elements of the ‘road-map’ are not arbitrary, they’re all ‘clouds of musical information’ which I am waiting to fix into firm shape; and this outline is a tool I find useful (and, in its way, an ancillary sort of creativity). A tool which is used in the making, and yet not a part of the result, any more than a hammer is part of the chair that it is used to fashion.

The Unfinished Tale of Radiant Maples

The instrumentation of Radiant Maples was determined by the occasion for which I composed, although (in the event) we did not perform the piece then.

Phil Michéal, the eminently bonhomous music director at the Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church in Detroit—it would not be overstating the case to describe him as a musical teddy bear, an illustriously agreeable gent—was organizing a musical program for a Sunday late in November of 2001, a ‘Service of Light’. He invited us out to Detroit for the occasion (all of us, as Maria and Irina would exhibit their luminous artwork in the church, as well), and an early musical decision of his was to include my setting of O Gracious Light for choir, harp & organ. Phil also had a piece or two for which he requested me to play clarinet; and we talked about an interlude I might compose fresh for the occasion. Phil also had a flutist engaged for the service; and his organist at the time was also a crack pianist. Thus, I was keen to write a quartet for flute, clarinet, harp & piano, reserving the right to require a little brilliance from the pianist. My working title for the quartet was from the prologue to John’s Gospel, although at this remove I’m a little unsure just which “light” phrase I adopted, unsure even whether the title at the head of my draughts was in English or Latin.

Probably the verse about light shining in the darkness; for the piece begins with a kind of murky tumult in the bass register of the piano, out of which there emerge bright “pings” of harp harmonics.

At the time I began composition of the quartet, I had been writing several sacred choral pieces, designed in some ways for musical restraint. In a welcome change of pace, I set to composing this instrumental quartet with turn-on-a-dime rhapsodic exuberance. The beginning (as mentioned) is almost a cadenza for the piano. Following a harp arpeggio, there are sinuous arabesques for the flute. Then, after some stops & starts, there is an extended passage of a sustained lyrical duet in the winds, underpinned by complimenting ostinati in the harp & piano.

Even these several years later, I clearly remember an evening when I had taken Maria & Irina to the Home Depot Expo Center, where they needed to do some shopping & price-checking on one of the design projects they were then engaged on at the First Congregational Church in Woburn, Massachusetts. While they were about their business, I sat on a sofa in a lounge area with my notebook, constructing the interlocking patterns for harp & piano.

It was about this stage of the work’s composition, as I was playing bits of the work-in-progress to Maria, that we decided to amend the title. Even with the inclusion of the word ‘light’, the working-title came to feel too gloomy and static, and wasn’t suited to the character of the piece which was emerging. It was then high autumn, and the foliage was in brilliance, and with visions all around me of westering sun shining through the leaves, I chose instead the title Radiant Maples. (That new title, I wound up needing to explain to Phil, who felt I’d done a mild switch on him . . . we sorted things out.)

After I had finished the piece, and as the occasion drew nearer, unfortunately the organist fell terribly ill. There was no time to rustle up a substitute pianist at Thanksgiving time, and my eagerness to write a pianistic challenge resulted in a piece which was beyond Phil’s abilities. So, the piece joined others on my shelf.

The story doesn’t end there (just yet).

The New England chapter of the American Composers Forum sent a call for chamber works, which the ensemble Brave New Works would read at Northeastern University in November, 2007. Radiant Maples was accepted, and tape would be running during the reading. Unfortunately, of the perhaps ten pieces which the group bravely read over the course of the hour or two, mine presented more technical challenges (mostly in terms of ensemble, fitting things together) than most, and it did not prove possible to get a clean take of my piece from start to finish. Audience response to the piece was positive, however.

So, I have not yielded over hope.

But, the piece is still on the shelf. And an accommodating shelf it is.

Scarlatti Never Failed Me Yet

At lunchtime today, I passed a delightful hour at King’s Chapel where guitarist Michael Nicolella played a fine recital which included well-known favorites such as the Sevilla from Albéniz’s Suite española, and Nicolella’s own guitar transcription of an E Major Scarlatti sonata (K.380, for those who keep score). Also on the program were a piece written for him by Frank Wallace, Dreams on a Lullaby, and a Toccata and Fugue of the guitarist’s own writing. I listened to the latter with especial interest, as it seems to me an especial challenge to write a fugue for a fretboard instrument, and I wondered how he would approach it. In this case the Fugue serves as a contrasting middle section, does not run too long, and then there is a return to the toccata; compositionally a satisfying solution.

EDIT: To help support a deserving fellow artist, I bought one of three compact discs available for purchase (naturally, I chose the one with an Elliott Carter piece, Shard, whence the disc takes its title). I've just been listening, and Nicolella plays a very nice pun on the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life” at the end of his four-movement Guitar Concerto. Pulls it off almost better than did George Martin, he does.

“a modernist zealot”

There’s plenty of parties I’m late to, but it seems injustice when it’s a premiere an hour’s drive away (just not making it out to Rockport enough these days). Matthew Guerrieri reviewed the premiere of Charles Wuorinen’s Second Piano Quintet (and by tidy coincidence, he published on the date of Wuorinen’s seventieth birthday), which was commissioned for the Rockport Chamber Music Festival. I’m planning to go hear a performance myself, though it means having to cross several state lines to do so now.

Separately, inching closer to bringing Lost Waters out to the public.

Painting light onto canvas

Maria at work yesterday.