Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I get it.

Well - then I could be mistaken if I thought the 5/8 section too static. Now I could interpret it as the harbinger of the singularity to come, instead of something that impedes the onward momentum. A 'wrong end of telescope' kind of misinterpretation...

And now I have to fetch my little girl from school!

[lukeottevanger]

That's the idea, yes - things are thinning out, simplifying, and doing so happily. But I still take the point about this section, and suspect there's something to it.

Hopeful of finding time to actually work on the piece tonight, rather than sit thinking about it!

[karlhenning]

Not that you should resist action . . . but thinking about it, is part of the work, too.

(Don't want to overdo the thinking, though, maybe . . . .)

[lukeottevanger]

Unfortunately one can't help thinking when time to actually put pen to paper is short. It's a dangerous habit, though!

[karlhenning]

That's the idea, yes - things are thinning out, simplifying, and doing so happily. . . .

With a difference, of course, but interesting resonance.

[greg]

Just wanted to chime in to confirm here that Lachenmann does indeed make use of the depressing of the pedal in Ein Kinderspiel (Child's Play), specifically the 7th piece "Schattentanz / Shadow Dance". The piece consists of an insistent rhythm using only the top two notes over a cluster of strings held open in the lowest octave of the piano for resonance. Towards the end, the rhythm degenerates into a series of isolated attacks accompanied by bashing the pedal simultaneously, then just the pedal by itself repeated ad lib. The last page of the score is attached.

A video on Youtube of a pianist playing the first (Hänschen klein) and last (Schattentanz) pieces of this set can be seen here.

Awesome! Thanks for posting that page on here- i've been familiar with that piece for a few years now (i mean, it's hard to forget), except that pedal part never came in mind when I brainstormed references for that technique.

[greg]

Thanks, Greg. I don't know who it sounds like - at least two composers, though, because the two pieces are completely different! I like to think they both sound like me, though - Ascent in particular is composed entirely using the modal technique you've seen me going on about on this thread, and has many similarities to my recent piano pieces.

Benjamin is a composer whose scores I know much better than I know Ades', so any influence would more likely be from him than from the latter - though not the pedal sound. Though I'm able to find examples elsewhere, that's just a technique that I know works from my own playing. However, the contemporary composers who I'm aware of with even more similarity to this piece - though vastly superior, more sophisticated - are, as implied above, Jonathan Harvey (e.g. try his Body Mandala CD for some wonderful contemporary orchestral writing with similar philosophical concerns and a similar symbolic use of gesture) and Horatiou Radulescu (who's also got interests close to mine, and whose piano music uses spectrally derived modes in a way that reminds me of mine - I can only wish!). I think you'd love both these composers.

Yes, it's a disappointment, that one. But then most of the MIDI instruments are just as bad!

Re the bass drum - each instrument you hear on this MIDI mock up was 'recorded separately' and treated to a little enhancement in a wave editor before being recombined (that's where the problems with coordination in the 5/8 happened). In the case of the bass drum, I simply applied a lot of reverb to the standard bass drum sound, on which a trill otherwise just comes out as a lot of very fast but still distinct repetitions with no blending at all.


*****

Awesome.

[Guido]

OK, having listened to it in its entirety 5 times I feel like I can share my opinions on it. First let me say that what you have here is very beautiful. I do think that there is a disparity between the movements as it stands, but my feeling is that this is not caused by the extremely different approaches you take to the compositions in terms of method of construction, tonality, harmony, orchestration, and most importantly rhythmically etc etc. There are enough similarities here that I think they could work together very nicely - the first movement reminds me of Kurtag in his more consonant moments (the orchestral piece I know are ...Quasi una Fantasia, Doppelkonzert, Stele, Answered Unanswered Question), and the second movement reminds me a bit of Adams Harmonielehre (though these are probably both because I have been listening to these composers a fair amount in the last few weeks!) Anyway, I think the disparity arises from the energy level of the pieces - the first is so fragmentary, unsure and hushed compared to the relentless energy of the second movement which erupts out of nowhere. I'm trying to look for another word other than energy to describe what I mean, but am failing, so it will have to do. Personally I think the problem might be solved a little by maintaining the chorale material through bars 43 to 48 more so that it doesn't falter here, but rather continues through until the strings take up the choral. Maybe lengthen oboe and clarinet lines or add more piano chords, or maybe just add more parts.

This is just my opinion, and not being a composer I wouldn't trust it too much! Sorry I couldn't be of more help, and that my analysis is rather basic.

I really like it though and like it more with each hearing. I seem to keep reading in places in this forum that new works get sometimes played twice in a concert - I wonder if you could wrangle that one in!

[greg]

OK, having listened to it in its entirety 5 times I feel like I can share my opinions on it. First let me say that what you have here is very beautiful. I do think that there is a disparity between the movements as it stands, but my feeling is that this is not caused by the extremely different approaches you take to the compositions in terms of method of construction, tonality, harmony, orchestration, and most importantly rhythmically etc etc. There are enough similarities here that I think they could work together very nicely - the first movement reminds me of Kurtag in his more consonant moments (the orchestral piece I know are ...Quasi una Fantasia, Doppelkonzert, Stele, Answered Unanswered Question), and the second movement reminds me a bit of Adams Harmonielehre (though these are probably both because I have been listening to these composers a fair amount in the last few weeks!) Anyway, I think the disparity arises from the energy level of the pieces - the first is so fragmentary, unsure and hushed compared to the relentless energy of the second movement which erupts out of nowhere. I'm trying to look for another word other than energy to describe what I mean, but am failing, so it will have to do. Personally I think the problem might be solved a little by maintaining the chorale material through bars 43 to 48 more so that it doesn't falter here, but rather continues through until the strings take up the choral. Maybe lengthen oboe and clarinet lines or add more piano chords, or maybe just add more parts.

This is just my opinion, and not being a composer I wouldn't trust it too much! Sorry I couldn't be of more help, and that my analysis is rather basic.

I really like it though and like it more with each hearing. I seem to keep reading in places in this forum that new works get sometimes played twice in a concert - I wonder if you could wrangle that one in!

I actually have the feeling that the lack of connection IS the connection- it's almost like an Adagio succeeded by a Scherzo (though not Scherzo in mood) or a Sonata-Allegro. The striking difference is what makes it feel part of a whole for me.

[lukeottevanger]

Thanks, guys. Guido's put his finger on something I sense might be a problem, namely the way Ascent just erupts, not just dynamically but in every other way too - it has purpose, drive, repetition, a unified harmonic field, and so on. A very small thing I did to bring the two closer together - I mean, really tiny! - which probably isn't very evident on the MIDIs, is to have the final bass drum roll of Elegy crescendo suddenly to finish relatively loudly. This isn't what one expects at this point, and I'd hope that it creates a feeling of expectation - 'what's coming next?' - that will pull the two together. I might mark in the score that the gap between the pieces should be short...

As I'd hoped to do, I managed some work yesterday, but I didn't write anything I wasn't expecting to write, so it's not anything to write home about. 

[karlhenning]

Thanks, guys. Guido's put his finger on something I sense might be a problem, namely the way Ascent just erupts, not just dynamically but in every other way too - it has purpose, drive, repetition, a unified harmonic field, and so on. A very small thing I did to bring the two closer together - I mean, really tiny! - which probably isn't very evident on the MIDIs, is to have the final bass drum roll of Elegy crescendo suddenly to finish relatively loudly. This isn't what one expects at this point, and I'd hope that it creates a feeling of expectation - 'what's coming next?' - that will pull the two together.

These seemingly small momentary details make great differences. (No, it isn't on the MIDI [* shudder *])

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

But the end of Elegy, with its D minor chord, also feels (to me) like a sort of dominant preparation for the G minor that opens Ascent.

[karlhenning]

But the end of Elegy, with its D minor chord, also feels (to me) like a sort of dominant preparation for the G minor that opens Ascent.

Yes.

[lukeottevanger]

Yes, indeed, that quasi-dominant hadn't escaped me - and it's one of those binding factors I mentioned previously, and I'm very grateful to it.

If I speak in a slightly impassive tone as if I had nothing to do with any of this, that's because to a large extent that's true. Elegy ending with a D minor chord and Ascent opening in something like G minor were foregone conclusions before any sort of planning happened, for various reasons. Likewise the prominence that G is given throughout Elegy - as the first note, as the note on which those repeated timp/cello/clarinet raps occur... - is fortuitously echoed in Ascent, which is 'all about G', as is revealed more and more, until it is finally the only note left.

[karlhenning]

Welcome the fortuitous, says I.

[lukeottevanger]

Believe me, I do. When composing is surrounded by 'coincidences' of this sort I tend to take it as confirmation that I'm on the right sort of tracks. Sometimes the coincidences are quite shocking!

[Guido]

Thanks, guys. Guido's put his finger on something I sense might be a problem, namely the way Ascent just erupts, not just dynamically but in every other way too - it has purpose, drive, repetition, a unified harmonic field, and so on. A very small thing I did to bring the two closer together - I mean, really tiny! - which probably isn't very evident on the MIDIs, is to have the final bass drum roll of Elegy crescendo suddenly to finish relatively loudly. This isn't what one expects at this point, and I'd hope that it creates a feeling of expectation - 'what's coming next?' - that will pull the two together. I might mark in the score that the gap between the pieces should be short...

As I'd hoped to do, I managed some work yesterday, but I didn't write anything I wasn't expecting to write, so it's not anything to write home about. 

Yes that's exactly what I meant, and no I hadn't noticed that crescendo in the recording (and can't have been reading the score too well at that point either!). Maybe it needs to be a tad less subtle...

This reminds me of the end of Shostakovich's Second cello concerto which ends on that piano low cello D for dozens of bars as the percussion skitters  insect like above it; after it peters out, the cello crescendos to an accent. It's an incredible ending to an incredible piece, but this has always been to me an insinuation of death - a final beat and a thud.

[/digression]

[lukeottevanger]

Dammit, can't do anything original! 

[karlhenning]

Shocking, but (hopefully) not appalling!

[Guido]

That's the problem with these post modern times we're living in!

Really though, it's just my brain wandering... the Shostakovich is not very similar really - the crescendo is not a preparation for anything at all.