Art on the Wing

And, a taste of Part I of SOUND + SIGHT, The Conquest of Emptiness:

Reeling It Off

It is just possible—or, no, more than possible, that when I set down 90 seconds as the planned duration of the War Dance here, I was allowing a buffer for when I felt that a seam would want letting out, here and there.  I have finished, and it runs up to just under two minutes, so that (as needed) the two dances together run to just under six.

Last night, I composed the ending, and then worked out the arch-like returns to B and A (as it were).  So that when I packed up the desk for the night, I had mm. 1-45 composed, and mm. 65-105 composed;  mm. 46-64 were void, but I knew exactly what I wanted to do there, and saw to the idea's execution this morning.

Work is, then, quite close to completion.

Since I have been blogging about the pieces, I have devised pseudonyms for purposes of submission.

My Lord, What an Evening

Does earth plug a hole in heaven,

Or heaven plug a hole in earth?

— Peter Gabriel, just a shade goofier than usual

Firstly, it was a very good and productive rehearsal – I would not, under any circs, have this blog post's borderline-clickbait subject header mislead you as to that fundamental point.

And it was the next-to-last rehearsal of this choir season, so duties were light, spirits were at ease.

I have approached the present arrangement of My Lord, What a Morning as a workshopping endeavor, essentially.  Yes, I was tentatively proposing it as the anthem for this Sunday, but I was not going to try to fit a St Bernard onto a tablespoon.

Not to claim any surprise here, but all my characteristic rhythmic suppleness – not to say slipperiness – makes the new setting of My Lord, What a Morning unsuitable for hurried preparation. We worked with it for perhaps half an hour last night, in peace—and together we reached the decision that a no-fault Plan B was called for.

(Separately—and with no snarky musical application—some of our pre-sleeve-rolling-up banter concentrated on skunks, several creatures in various States of the Union, some of them – the skunks – quite ancient. I, for one, never knew that when skunks grow very old, their stripe yellows. For my part, I shared my Bergen County Skunk Whisperer story.)

Plan B took the ready form of refreshing the Cherwien arrangement of Let All Things Now Living (on the tune "The Ash Grove") for which our Marissa Bell will play flute again.

Now, this week before, we put How Can I Keep From Singing? together in short order. Why did Expedited Delivery work in that case, but not for my arrangement?

1. Reliably literal repetition in How Can. Its use in this arrangement suits, it does not grow tiresome;  where in my arrangement, the rhythm is subject to continuous variation.
2. In general, the reliably "square" (in a perfectly neutral, merely descriptive sense) rhythmic layout in How Can. My arrangement of What a Morning is peppered with syncopation, with ties across the bar, with suddenly diminuted rhythms, with the occasional surprise rest on the downbeat. My doughty choir simply need more time to digest it—though it is worth pointing out that most choirs I know, even those with seasoned musicians, might wish for more digestion time with this score, than three days.
3. Fairly continual variation in texture through my arrangement.
4. We did, in fact, spend time in more than one rehearsal with How Can I Keep From Singing?  Its preparation was easy, but not instantaneous.
5. There is also the not-at-all-inconsiderable fact that, as we were singing three anthems last Sunday, we enjoyed Jaya's musical assistance.

It is my hope, Gentle Reader, that none of this should come across as in any way denigrating Russell Robinson's sweetly modulated, well-made, perfectly songful, and gratifying arrangement of How Can I Keep From Singing?  It is a gem, and excellently serviceable.  Indeed, we shall make use of it as a trio for one of the summer Sundays.

Nor do I suffer any disappointment in the delay of the My Lord, What a Morning rollout.  The choir, and our organist Barbara, find that it will be fun to sing;  only that we need more time with it.

Time enough to represent the composer well

Good progress on both dances.  Choir rehearsal tonight, so the work today and tomorrow is more of (alternately) the preparatory and the refining sort.

Weeks before The Event, I considered taking a couple of days off from the day job, so as to have more days than just the Saturdays and Sundays when I might devote The Whole Day to composing.

But I considered too (or, instead) how perfectly content I am with both Deep Breath and The Nerves, two recent scores which I wrote without drawing down my PTO balance at the office – I did the work around the day job (as I do most of the year), and it is music whose integrity and quality are such to make the composer proud.

So I decided I would not take any time off from work.  That I would not set my unknown competitors at such a disadvantage . . . .

The church is now the grateful recipient of a “Used – Like New” upright piano from a gracious and generous donor.  The instrument has only today been brought into the sanctuary, and so it needs to settle before it can be tuned.  But later this month, its voice will impress the whole congregation as being a signal improvement upon the rather sorry instrument we have had until today.

There is another call for orchestral scores, for which the deadline is Monday the 11^th.  I was thinking of adapting Ear Buds for that occasion;  but since I did not address that proposed task sooner, there is now no time.  And that’s fine.  Also – it is not as if my work has met with any success, on earlier calls from that organization.  Sure, I’ll try again at some future date;  but there is no need to complicate my life this week over so slender a chance.

All my chances, it may be, are of the slender variety.  Nevertheless, I do take them.

Looking to Sunday, chiefly

In March of 2014, I prepared a gentle SATB arrangement of My Lord, What a Morning (the Op.118 № 5).  What I had long forgotten until I reviewed this blog post is, the handbell accompaniment was a late thought – probably allied to concerns about our then organist, God bless her.

At present, we cannot well utilize that arrangement, in part because we cannot this year manage "true SATB";  and in part because we have the fewest non-singing handbell ringers yet.

As we have already sung the anthems which I had at first planned for this Sunday (because we shall be missing two of our three-or-four altos) we need something we can assemble in a hurry.  (I have noticed that some publishers have booklets of "anthems in a hurry," for just such a contingency, but I have not yet investigated for, shall we say, suitability.)  My choir did so well, this Sunday past, with the SAB unaccompanied arrangement of How Can I Keep From Singing?, I have decided to whip up an SAB unaccompanied version, i.e. newly set, of My Lord, What a Morning (the Op.146 № 11).  I need to finish this tonight, in order to have it ready to print out for tomorrow evening's rehearsal.

Yes, this is accepting another (and arguably, a competing) immediate task, above and beyond the Contest piece at which my present work is darned near feverish.  But, hey – welcome to my world.  It goes without saying that the idea of the piece must be, that my fearless choir be able to put it together in just tomorrow evening's, and Sunday morning's, rehearsals.

Oh, my (equally fearless) handbell choir will also perform Rejoice this Sunday.  It has taken a while to rehearse it, but my ringers have risen to the challenge well.

I am presently listening to the Haydn E-flat Sonata (Hob. XVI/52) as recorded by Tom Beghin.

Dances (other than tango) in Boston

Please wait while the system is powering.

– from Barbarisms That Become “Standard English” As an Accident of Poor Tech Editing

For the present requisite, I am thinking of a pair of dances:

1. Boston Harbor Heave-Ho (Tea Party Dance) – 4'

2. Revere’s Midnight Reel (War Dance) – 1'30

I have gotten a good start on both.

As I review this blog post of 22 May, I am a little bemused that I listed “The two week get-a-piece-written event” after Heart So White, as I am sure that (even then) I had known that there would be no way on earth that I should attend to both The Nerves and the Shakespeare scena before yesterday.

The Agnus Dei went beautifully Sunday night;  maestro Thos. Stumpf does a particularly excellent job with my scores (it was he who led Triad in exquisite performances of Nuhro a couple of seasons back).

Musicful Sunday

Yesterday morning, their intestinal fortitude reinforced by the addition of Jaya Lakshminarayanan to Team Soprano, my fearless church choir sang not one, not two, but three anthems in the course of our service.  Last of the three was my Alleluia in D with a new flute obbligato written for and played by our Marissa Bell.  Two of the three anthems, I had originally slated for next Sunday, but as I was subsequently advised of a couple of necessary absences (and, the anthems were pretty much ready to roll), we made a morning of it yesterday.

For next Sunday, I began (yesterday afternoon) an SAB arrangement of My Lord, What a Morning.  (A few years ago, I prepared an arrangement, SATB with handbells, which our forces could not well manage at present.)  The new arrangement is to be unaccompanied, as I am encouraged by how well we managed with yesterday's How Can I Keep From Singing?

Last night's Triad concert, Past Is Prologue, went splendidly.  We do need to try to build our audience.