Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[Guido]

Indeed it is. Very gracious and measured to make such a big, several-pages-long fuss out of what was simply a well-meant side remark. But then of course everything M says is evil. Good thing I didn't say anything about the music. All these threads are just for you and Karl to tell each other what geniuses you all are, and for others to confirm that. If mentioning that the harmonics notation could be clarified a little by just adding a letter or number (and how much work is that?) triggers such a response, who knows what would have happened if I had said something critical about the music? Good thing I didn't.

It's not what you say that is evil, it's how you say it and the way you carry yourself that excites the disgust and extreme frustration that you commonly witness in other people when they try to interact with you in anything like an serious or adult manner. And evil is far too strong a word - your comments are far too insipid for that! You are entertaining for a while, but the way you see every single conversation and interaction here as a competition that you need to win just becomes very wearisome. You've heard all this before, and I know nothing is going to change, but let's please not pretend that you are some victim here. I'm also not aware that the word genius has been used to describe any person or person's music who posts on this forum.

[Guido]

Talking of Adès, I just listened to Fool's Rhymes, Gefriolsae Me and January writ - really great pieces - beautiful, pithy and very individual, just like I like 'em!

[lukeottevanger]

Indeed it is. Very gracious and measured to make such a big, several-pages-long fuss out of what was simply a well-meant side remark.

Look back at that 'several-pages-long-fuss' and you'll see that it's really a few posts in which I quickly move away from addressing your initial point and just enjoy exploring some aspects and implications of notation in Ravel and elsewhere. Quite soon it's not really addressed towards you at all (and to everyone else I keep apologising for continuing my observations - I was simply enjoying the delving into scores) - except for the point at which I say that I'm grateful for your raising the subject as it's led to some interesting lines of thought. But you don't see that, it seems - you assume that the whole thing is 'about' you. You read my comfortableness with my choice as an arrogant spurning of your professional opinion; my pointing out other examples by trustworthy 'proper composers' is discomforting to you because it shows up that you, too, the self-proclaimed enemy of inaccuracy, also forget things.

But then of course everything M says is evil. Good thing I didn't say anything about the music. All these threads are just for you and Karl to tell each other what geniuses you all are, and for others to confirm that.

I must have missed the telling-each-other-we're-geniuses part. I just thought that this thread, and Karl's, and the scores quiz one, were simply friendly places where, in practice, a fairly small number of people tend to hang out and chat without bitchiness (until now  ). To me, the biggest feature of this particular thread - it's in the very title, for goodness' sake - is its lack of confidence and its soul-searching. You'd do well to find a less confident composer, or you would until very recently, when I've started to feel that what I'm writing is of more quality. Before you got narked at me, you commented positively on that self-doubt yourself, remember?:

But a good thing and a good sign. All good composers were/are fiercely self-critical. Talent and craftsmanship are important, but that quality is probably even more important.

But now - based on nothing more than my happiness with a notational choice (and a pretty insignificant one, too) you're pretending that I'm an arrogant self-proclaimed genius. I can only guess at your reasons for doing so, but whatever they are, you know full well that it bears no relation to reality. (And it's extra-funny, really, because the most notable flashing-about-of-credentials round here comes from you.  )

If mentioning that the harmonics notation could be clarified a little by just adding a letter or number (and how much work is that?) triggers such a response, who knows what would have happened if I had said something critical about the music? Good thing I didn't.

And if mentioning that I'm aware of other these methods of harmonic notation and that I'm satisfied with this often-used one (and how much of a big deal is that?) triggers such a response as your completely unjustified personal attacks on me, who knows what would have happened if I had said...well, I'm not going to say 

[lukeottevanger]

Talking of Adès, I just listened to Fool's Rhymes, Gefriolsae Me and January writ - really great pieces - beautiful, pithy and very individual, just like I like 'em!

Is the Gefriolsae Me recording the King's one? I remember the day they recorded that one - the choral scholars were all abuzz about the piece!

[Guido]

Is the Gefriolsae Me recording the King's one? I remember the day they recorded that one - the choral scholars were all abuzz about the piece!

Yes, it is. I can see why they were!

Fool's Rhymes has echoes of Les Noces in it - Ades' favourite piece apparently.

[greg]

It's not what you say that is evil, it's how you say it and the way you carry yourself that excites the disgust and extreme frustration that you commonly witness in other people when they try to interact with you in anything like an serious or adult manner. And evil is far too strong a word - your comments are far too insipid for that! You are entertaining for a while, but the way you see every single conversation and interaction here as a competition that you need to win just becomes very wearisome. You've heard all this before, and I know nothing is going to change, but let's please not pretend that you are some victim here. I'm also not aware that the word genius has been used to describe any person or person's music who posts on this forum.

"Do you think I'm smart? Oh, please, accept my smartness and knowledge! I hope I can display what I've accomplished and learned so I can be accepted and admired! But if it's in doubt, oh man, you iz be hurtin' my feelings  "


I apologize. That was low.

Anyways, speaking of Ades, was that stuff really said i Powder Her Face? I listened to it once awhile ago, and i heard a line that was really filthy.

[Guido]

As is so often the case Greg, I have very little idea what you are talking about. ( ) Who is the small text aimed at? I don't know what stuff you are referring to, but yes there are some 'filthy' lines in it, a scene in which the main character sings her way through a blowjob, nudity, several sexual references etc. etc. I saw it staged at the Royal opera house recently, and wasn't quite convinced by it - a bit light and silly for my tastes, and rather unmemorable - very unlike much of his other music. The CD I have of it doesn't really make for a better impression. Arcadia, Tevot, the aforementioned choral pieces, origin of the harp and many other pieces though really excite me.

[greg]

As is so often the case Greg, I have very little idea what you are talking about. ( ) Who is the small text aimed at? I don't know what stuff you are referring to, but yes there are some 'filthy' lines in it, a scene in which the main character sings her way through a blowjob, nudity, several sexual references etc. etc. I saw it staged at the Royal opera house recently, and wasn't quite convinced by it - a bit light and silly for my tastes, and rather unmemorable - very unlike much of his other music. The CD I have of it doesn't really make for a better impression. Arcadia, Tevot, the aforementioned choral pieces, origin of the harp and many other pieces though really excite me.

That's all I really needed to know, thanks.
I just remembered a line from it, and wasn't sure if I was imagining it........
i agree about Tevot, though.

[Guido]

I should add that Powder her Face is of course brilliantly written. It's just not my cuppa, and didn't really convince me as a whole.

[Maciek]

Just in case bystanders watching this thread might think it is for some reason off limits to mods or that insulting Luke and Karl is somehow part of the Forum Guidelines: it is not and it is not. M Forever's unpleasant (to say the least) comments have been left here on purpose and that decision has been consulted with Luke. However, it hasn't been finally decided by the mods if the offending part of the discussion won't eventually be removed after all, so be prepared. If the level of discourse drops to name calling once again, it probably will (be removed, I mean).

[greg]

Just in case bystanders watching this thread might think it is for some reason off limits to mods or that insulting Luke and Karl is somehow part of the Forum Guidelines: it is not and it is not. M Forever's unpleasant (to say the least) comments have been left here on purpose and that decision has been consulted with Luke. However, it hasn't been finally decided by the mods if the offending part of the discussion won't eventually be removed after all, so be prepared. If the level of discourse drops to name calling once again, it probably will (be removed, I mean).

Oh, don't remove his posts- that'd make him create another thread to complain against the moderators.

[lukeottevanger]

Yes. Well.

Anyway, I've been going through the score to E+A quite carefully; the conductor found a couple of typos too, and I've been adding more detailed dynamics throughout. It looks much better IMO, even though the changes are small.

Secondly, in addition to the little Christmas S A + piano anthem I wrote on Wednesday, I wrote another the day after. Neither is quite finished, but the essentials are all there to work on, in the next week hopefully. One of them (don't know which yet) will possibly be performable by the girls at my school, like Eternal Peace last Christmas - but we won't have long to learn it, and they've got a lot else to learn, so I might not put my own music forward this year!

Finally, prompted by a question from Guido earler, and feeling that I've 'lived with' the idea of White Modulations long enough to know that it isn't likely to pall on me, I've made a few very tentative and tiny inroads into it today.

[Guido]

Luke, do you know "Les Adieux in Janáček's Manier" from Kurtag's Jatékók? It's a lovely miniature. I'd love to get the whole Jatékók series on CD. Got Ives' 114 songs today for £5 from amazon! yay!

[sul G]

So, I was scrabbling about on the internet and came across the fact that Luke Ottevanger's orchestral piece is being performed tomorrow - blimey, it's all over the internet, hard to miss as long as you carefully type "Ottevanger Elegy and Ascent" into Google. So on his behalf - I'm sure he won't mind, mostly because I am him - I've taken squatter's rights on his abandoned outpost and suggest that discussion, if there is to be any, resume here. Unless there's some way to unlock the old one, which I doubt.

[sul G]

I'm quite stressed about tomorrow, let it be known!

[Mark G. Simon]

Donworryaboutit!

It'll go off fine. And even if it doesn't, people will enjoy it just the same.

[sul G]

You're probably right! I don't have concerns about the piece itself (perhaps I should!) but about how the performance will go. It hasn't had the most ideal of preparations, shall we say. And also about having to give a talk beforehand - a real swine to prepare this was, and I'm not sure if I'm going to say too much, or whether people will be expecting something different. Ah well - it's my piece, I can say what I want!

[sul G]

The score itself, as it finished up - I'm not sure I ever posted this at the original outpost.

[sul G]

...and the (probably too long) note for the piece (I think all of this was covered in the original thread, but maybe not all in one place):

Elegy and Ascent (2008)

Elegy – Memorial Trio and Chorale
Ascent - ...towards Ishaan...

Elegy is made of up two orchestrated extracts from Memorial, a long, unfinished piano piece of mine dating from 2001. That piece is strongly bound-up with the idea of 'fate', and for this reason every note of it was chosen by chance operations (the drawing of cards giving the notes and the order in which they are to be played). The advantage of this process is the way in which it tends to throw up odd correspondences – hints of other music, familiar musical gestures etc. – and to grant the composer glimpses of mysterious avenues which would otherwise have been unseen and unexplored. In the case of Memorial the thousands of chance-determined notes at times coalesced into particularly unified sections I called 'trios'. The first section of Elegy is the first of these trios, whilst the second section is a chorale which closes the completed portion of Memorial. To me, the original Memorial is inseparable from the idea of 'memory', not just because the music itself is concerned with remembrance but because it is an old work of mine which was lost, found, lost again and finally given a place here in Elegy. Among other memory-filled gestures suggested to me by the cards, you will hear a violin shyly tuning up, horn calls – a typical Romantic signifier for memory and distance – and, entirely coincidentally but fittingly given tonight's programme, the 'fate' motive of Beethoven's Fifth.

In contrast with this collection of memories and familiar gestures, Ascent is entirely concerned with a movement towards a single point of 'now-ness', a point equivalent to Eastern concepts of enlightenment, to Western (Jungian) ones of the individuation of the Self, and indeed to any journey towards a state of integration, coherence, completion, including an artist's journey towards a personal style.  Ascent is therefore also piece of 'now' in that it uses modal techniques and other compositional approaches which I have developed in the last few years – techniques and approaches which are in tune with my own musical character but which I don't imagine would be appropriate for anyone else, and which are in themselves the result of this search for (musical) Self. 'The new' is thus presented here growing out of 'the old', but in fact Elegy prefaces Ascent simply because I found that it had to: I was unable to compose the literally Self-centred second piece until it had been balanced and contextualised by a more communal one.

At its simplest this 'modal technique' uses small collections of pitches which are never transposed and which leave tonal implications present but ambiguous and fluid, creating a harmonically floating, circling effect. A more complex version, suitable for writing larger pieces such as Ascent, uses the various intersections and negations of a number of different modes (that is, the notes they share, the notes they don't include, and other combinations of this sort) to create more sets of notes, and therefore to give unlimited structural possibilities akin to those created by the various key centres in a piece of tonal music. In Ascent this structure is based on the fundamental concept of reduction towards a single point. Three basic modes are used, of 7, 6 and 5 notes, selected so that their various intersections are of 4, 3, 2 and 1 notes - in other words, the notes used tend towards a unity, the single note G which all the modes share. As the music progresses from a seven-note mode to a single note, so the rhythmic structure of the piece contracts, from 7/8 to a final bar of 1/8 (odd-number metres - 7/8, 5/8, 3/8 - are characterised by more propulsive, ostinato-driven music than the reflective even-number metres, which feature the piano prominently).

The abstract concerns outlined above are objectified for me in the shape of Mt. Kailash, a Tibetan peak sacred to four religions. My long-standing fascination with this mountain is probably connected to my interest in the idea of the elusive centre (or the Self), and the way in which it is implied by my 'circling' modes. The looming, unattainable Kailash is seen as the omphalos, the axis mundi, the centre of everything - to climb it would be sacrilegious; instead pilgrims circle it in a long high altitude route called the Kora or Parikrama. The four faces of Kailash point towards the cardinal points of the compass and in Hindu iconography have their own names and specific qualities - destroyer, creator, sustainer, compassionate one. But there is a fifth face, Ishaan, which faces upwards, showering blessings on mankind - the summit of the mountain, where the four lower faces merge into one unity. Though no one climbs Kailash this symbolic ascent is thus implied, and it is the ascent my piece draws on. In my mind, the notes of the three modes and their first three intersections – the sets of 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 and 2 notes – which are physically present on paper and under the players' fingers, are analogous to the physical faces of Kailash, facing out for all to see. But the final G, like the summit, Ishaan, faces upwards, and like Ishaan it showers out invisible blessings - at this point a G bell is struck, radiating not tangible, written notes, but a haze of harmonics, as if, on reaching the summit, the note itself has been transfigured into new dimensions.

[karlhenning]

You're probably right! I don't have concerns about the piece itself (perhaps I should!) but about how the performance will go.

No, you need have no reservations about the score, which is fine music.  As Mark says, don't sweat the performance . . . the piece will still make a good impression!  Break a leg (preferably the conductor's, afterwards)!