(Paul's Parenthetical Patter)

Started by PaulSC, October 06, 2011, 01:34:48 PM

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PaulSC

I hesitate to start my own thread because I can't imagine and posting in it very regularly. Well, I suppose there's nothing wrong with letting it sink to the bottom except for the occasional bump.

I wanted my GMG friends to know that the very talented American pianist Marilyn Nonken will be premiering a circa-20-minute piece of mine next Wednesday evening as part of a solo recital in downtown Manhattan. Admission is free, and more details are available here.

I'll be in NYC to attend the concert and to participate in a Q&A immediately afterwards. With any luck, I'll have a good recording from the concert and will be able to post an audio clip or two when I return. If anyone from the GMG world comes to the show, please say hello!
Musik ist ein unerschöpfliches Meer. — Joseph Riepel

karlhenning


karlhenning

Quote from: PaulSC on October 06, 2011, 01:34:48 PM
I wanted my GMG friends to know that the very talented American pianist Marilyn Nonken will be premiering a circa-20-minute piece of mine next Wednesday evening as part of a solo recital in downtown Manhattan. Admission is free, and more details are available here.

Sacrée vache, but that's one humdinger of a coup, Paul. Power to you!

PaulSC

Thank you, Karl! I'm very pleased that the collaboration with Marilyn worked out. Also excited to be back in NYC, a city I know well from my grad student days in the early-to-mid-90s but which I visit less frequently these days. It even turned out that my birthday falls on Friday a week from today, so my partner and I will be able to celebrate in the city.

You know, I'm awfully tempted to send you a copy of the solo clarinet piece I just finished, just for kicks.
Musik ist ein unerschöpfliches Meer. — Joseph Riepel

springrite

Always good to hear good thing from people named Paul!

Any chance of a performance in California in the middle of October? If so, I will be there in person!
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

PaulSC

Quote from: springrite on October 07, 2011, 07:27:40 AM
Any chance of a performance in California in the middle of October? If so, I will be there in person!
It's nice to have another Paul participating in the parenthetical patter...

Unfortunately, my next California performance isn't until early November — the 4th, to be precise, here in Santa Cruz. I was planning to post some details here a little closer to the event, but if for any reason they'd be useful now, just say so!
Musik ist ein unerschöpfliches Meer. — Joseph Riepel

springrite

Quote from: PaulSC on October 07, 2011, 07:45:31 AM
It's nice to have another Paul participating in the parenthetical patter...

Unfortunately, my next California performance isn't until early November — the 4th, to be precise, here in Santa Cruz. I was planning to post some details here a little closer to the event, but if for any reason they'd be useful now, just say so!

Too bad I will be back in China by Nov 2. Otherwise I would certainly entertain the trip since i love the drive to Santa Cruz! Loved it every time!
Do what I must do, and let what must happen happen.

karlhenning

Quote from: PaulSC on October 07, 2011, 07:24:20 AM
Thank you, Karl! I'm very pleased that the collaboration with Marilyn worked out. Also excited to be back in NYC, a city I know well from my grad student days in the early-to-mid-90s but which I visit less frequently these days. It even turned out that my birthday falls on Friday a week from today, so my partner and I will be able to celebrate in the city.

You know, I'm awfully tempted to send you a copy of the solo clarinet piece I just finished, just for kicks.

Please do, I should be most happy to take a look.

Cato

Dude!  Don't be too shy! 

Make sure you have a recording of the performance!

Is it possible to publish the score of the work?
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

PaulSC

Quote from: Cato on October 07, 2011, 03:11:48 PM

Is it possible to publish the score of the work?
If you mean publish it through an established publishing house, then attracting the interest of a major publisher is highly unlikely and going through a smaller outfit would probably require an investment of both time and money on my part. But if you mean share the score directly — self-publishing, essentially — that's how I typically handle my scores. In this case, anyone interested in a PDF score should PM me here and I would be happy to oblige. :-)
Musik ist ein unerschöpfliches Meer. — Joseph Riepel

Cato

Quote from: PaulSC on October 08, 2011, 12:16:48 PM
If you mean publish it through an established publishing house, then attracting the interest of a major publisher is highly unlikely and going through a smaller outfit would probably require an investment of both time and money on my part. But if you mean share the score directly — self-publishing, essentially — that's how I typically handle my scores. In this case, anyone interested in a PDF score should PM me here and I would be happy to oblige. :-)

PaulSC has obliged!

I have not listened to everything yet, but Episodes and Elegies has me interested and even intrigued. 

Episode 2 is somewhat like "Webernian Jazz"    8)    so to speak: out-of-sync rhythms punctuate funky micro-dialogues among the lines.

Elegy I contains a type of chant, a lonely vox clamans in deserto proclaims its message, but the listeners seem not to exist, or are mocking.  A chorale of sorts is heard twice near the end, before things fade away into the desert.



"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

PaulSC

Cato,

I'm so grateful for these comments and for the attentive listening that's obviously behind them. As I mentioned in an equally brief e-mail, I'm traveling and therefore somewhat online-communications-challenged. I'll try to pop in again this week, and things will get easier for me once I'm settled back home.

I might as well post it here, is an announcement to the world: this trip is challenging for me because I'm confined to a wheelchair these days and heavily reliant on my long-suffering partner to get me through many aspects of my daily routine.  So, not always easy for me to keep up my side of the dialog at the moment.

Cheers!

Quote from: Cato on October 10, 2011, 05:09:07 PM
PaulSC has obliged!

I have not listened to everything yet, but Episodes and Elegies has me interested and even intrigued. 

Episode 2 is somewhat like "Webernian Jazz"    8)    so to speak: out-of-sync rhythms punctuate funky micro-dialogues among the lines.

Elegy I contains a type of chant, a lonely vox clamans in deserto proclaims its message, but the listeners seem not to exist, or are mocking.  A chorale of sorts is heard twice near the end, before things fade away into the desert.
Musik ist ein unerschöpfliches Meer. — Joseph Riepel

karlhenning

I've not forgotten. (Just saying.)

SonicMan46

Paul - congratulations on this presentation - NYC offers SO MANY opportunities to hear music - we were there a couple of years ago and met Bruce, one of
our mods - thinking about a return trip next spring!  Dave :)

PaulSC

#14
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on October 17, 2011, 07:06:22 AM
I've not forgotten. (Just saying.)
:) No worries — I'm so busy catching up from a week away from work that I don't even have time to feel impatient!

Quote from: SonicMan46 on October 17, 2011, 03:35:40 PM
Paul - congratulations on this presentation - NYC offers SO MANY opportunities to hear music - we were there a couple of years ago and met Bruce, one of
our mods - thinking about a return trip next spring!  Dave :)
Thanks Dave. I love NYC as well for all the music and art to be heard and seen. It's where I spent my grad-student years, so there's a sentimental attachment, too.

The performance went really well, and I should have a recording in hand soon. I'll try to post a couple of clips when I do.

We had mixed luck visiting museums. My favorite, the Neue Galerie on Fifth Avenue at 86th, was closed for installation of a new exhibit. The Guggenheim just uptown from their was partially closed for the same reason, as was the New Museum for Contemporary Art near our hotel; on the plus side, we got into one free and the other one cheap.
Musik ist ein unerschöpfliches Meer. — Joseph Riepel

SonicMan46

Quote from: PaulSC on October 17, 2011, 04:36:12 PM
:) No worries — I'm so busy catching up from a week away from work that I don't even have time to feel impatient!
Thanks Dave. I love NYC as well for all the music and art to be heard and seen. It's where I spent my grad-student years, so there's a sentimental attachment, too...

Paul - Susan (i.e. Harpo on the forum) was born in Newark to two Jewish doctors, who graduated from NYU; she grew up there and then in the suburbs, i.e. Short
Hills (made famous by Goodbye Columbus, I guess) - so when we married in 1970, we had many returns to that area and we often went into NYC to enjoy the food
and the culture; she is mainly a Broadway Baby, her favorite form of music; every couple of years we have a tremendous urge to re-visit the Big Apple, so next year
that 'itch' will start again -  ;) ;D  Dave

P.S. on our last visit we went to the Met for a half day (of course, one has to be very selective), but I always love to visit the instrument collection - guess what?  It was
closed - will have to try again!

Cato

Professor Paul has given me his approval to post the following little essay on the Prologue to his piano work Episodes and Elegies.

He has offered to send the score to anyone who requests it, so send him a message, if you have not yet done so.  He is also working on making a performance available.

For those who already received the score from him, brush it off and review it!  Here is my little "analysis" of the first movement:

The opening Prologue contains a desire to fly away into freedom: the opening bars contain the instruction to 'bring out the uppermost line' which rises and seemingly wants to escape upward through a quasi-C# tonality.  But then silence intervenes, along with a minor 9th mysteriously cradling a syncopated figure barely rising (bars 4-6).  This dialogue, with variations and marked by silences, forms the structure of the Prologue, as the next bars indicate (e.g. compare bars 4-6 with the minor 9th on A-Bb in bars 16-18).

Of great melancholy is the lonely music in bars 19-28, where the cantabile line desperately wants to burst free, but is brought back down and ends in a variation of those minor 9th figures heard earlier, and it becomes obvious that escape to the stratosphere is not allowed for some reason.  Pathetic, frantic flutterings show that Icarus has crashed.  Of interest is how the fluttering on 16th notes in bars 33-34 contain minor 9th "arpeggios" (the entire up and down begins on F# and ends on G, with an intervening upward Bb-B and downward from D to Db), which link them to the dominant minor 9th figure heard in bars 4-6.  We hear a variation on that motif in bars 36-40, and the silences marking off the two half-note chords in the bass show us that the game is over.  We end mysteriously and even simmeringly in the bass, with that C# submerged with a low E, under a C minor chord, pulsing with its Eb and insisting therefore on the primacy of that minor 9th sound, causing one to sense a doubled minor mood."

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Karl Henning

Great way to start the year! I must have a copy somewhere . . . .
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

PaulSC

One of the best experiences for a composer is to have one's music performed by players who are skilled, faithful to what's on the page, and inventive enough to create a compelling performance that goes beyond the notes on the page and digs into the underlying ideas. Working with Marilyn was an experience like that.

And now I've learned that commentary on music can do the same thing. I'm delighted by Cato's attention to detail, his understanding of the purely musical narrative, and his ability to find words that communicate his insights so vividly.

I hesitate to post links to the score or audio here, but I'm happy to share them with anyone who requests them via PM...
Musik ist ein unerschöpfliches Meer. — Joseph Riepel

Karl Henning

Quote from: PaulSC on January 01, 2012, 09:21:40 AM
I'm delighted by Cato's attention to detail, his understanding of the purely musical narrative, and his ability to find words that communicate his insights so vividly.

(* pounds the table *)
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot