Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[greg]

That's the second time I've seen echotone in a clarinet sonata - is it an actual timbral effect on the clarinet, rather than just a musical instruction?

I'm wondering that, too. There was a thread a couple years ago about echotones in Mahler's 3rd, but I can't remember what anyone wrote about it. 
And now I'm left wondering, too...

[sul G]

As far as I understand - Karl or Mark can correct this - the echotone functions by restricting the vibration of the reed more than usual and thus by subduing the tone; it's the same thing as subtone I think, but I was aware of the term echotone first, so it's the one I reach for first.

[Guido]

Ok cheers. I will bear that in mind for the clarinet transcription that I am playing...

Echotone is more poetic than subtone. 

[greg]

Echotone is more poetic than subtone.  Smiley

Hmmmm.... yeah. 

[sul G]

The conductor of Elegy and Ascent just sent me a review - not sure what to make of this, but I think it's positive! Operative line:

Jarring, relaxing, random, with themes of fate, memory and now-ness, the first performance of Luke Ottevanger's Elegy and Ascent could not fail to grab attention. The program description did not endear me to this work, but by the end I was intruiged by its ingenuity and the thoughts it conveyed

Read between the lines for me, fellas - good or bad? 

Meanwhile, the conductor's cousin, FWIW, wrote this to him:

I am impressed by [the] Mount Kailash image in music. As we climb the mountain everything gets simpler and we leave the differences and commentaries behind. When we reach the peak, we find there all others who have also left the stuff behind.

which is really lovely!

[karlhenning]

Read between the lines for me, fellas - good or bad? 

Quite the tangle isn't it?

I take it for good, though 

[Maciek]

This might be easier to do if we break it up: he liked the piece but didn't like the program notes. So I say it's definitely positive.

I may be wrong, though, since I'm not entirely familiar with the word "now-ness".

[Guido]

I would say positive... bit of a weird one though!

[sul G]

The way I read it:

Jarring, relaxing, random - each is accurate (not forgetting that Elegy was written using 'random' methods)

with themes of fate, memory and now-ness - true as far as it goes

the first performance of Luke Ottevanger's Elegy and Ascent could not fail to grab attention. - excellent!

The program description did not endear me to this work - fair enough, but I wonder why - too wordy? just not in tune with his interests/tastes?

but by the end I was intruiged by its ingenuity and the thoughts it conveyed - well, ingenuity and intruiging thought processes are good....

[karlhenning]

. . . and the sonic affections may follow.

[Guido]

so... have you decided what to work on yet??

[sul G]

Yes. And I will post an update on it in a little while....

[karlhenning]

The electorate awaits . . . .

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The way I read it:

Jarring, relaxing, random - each is accurate (not forgetting that Elegy was written using 'random' methods)

with themes of fate, memory and now-ness - true as far as it goes

the first performance of Luke Ottevanger's Elegy and Ascent could not fail to grab attention. - excellent!

The program description did not endear me to this work - fair enough, but I wonder why - too wordy? just not in tune with his interests/tastes?

but by the end I was intruiged by its ingenuity and the thoughts it conveyed - well, ingenuity and intruiging thought processes are good....

The review is positive, IMO. The critic obviously didn't like the program description, presumably because of its intellectuality ('too clever by half') or because it pre-empted anything a critic might possibly say... But - he was convinced by the music itself. Perhaps a lesson for the future - let the music speak for itself (in spite of the fact you are a very aware artist), the music is intriguing and eloquent enough. After you have been recognised, Luke, then is the time for providing fascinating insights into the philosophical underpinnings of your music...

[mahler10th]

OFF TOPIC

Jezetha, your inbox is full.

[sul G]

Thanks, Johan - you are surely right about this. Elegy and Ascent was a big deal for me, not because it was an orchestral piece getting a performance but for all the personal reasons that a reader of this thread will maybe understand. To me, it was a very simple piece, in essence, and maybe I should have left it at that (though the program note for it was, I should mention, not significantly longer than that for either of the Beethoven pieces). But at the same time, there was so much I wanted to say....

And on to other matters...

The electorate awaits . . . .

...and the democratic will of the people shall be done! Though in this case the word 'democratic' carries about the same meaning as it does in the phrase 'Democratic Republic of Congo', as you'll see.

So, most of you put your tick in the box marked 'Orchestra piece', meaning either White Modulations or a string orchestra piece if such a thing is asked for. The string orchestra piece is a million miles off happening, however, and though I allowed myself the luxury of thinking a few things through so that if it comes off I won't have to start from scratch, nevertheless I don't feel any burning compulsion to write it yet. As for White Modulations - I love the idea (and I know I haven't gone into that here yet) and I will write the piece, but I know that I'm a 'seasonal' composer, and as White Modulations is very much a cold-weather piece I think I will leave it until later in the year. That might seem a ridiculous reason to you - reading it back, even I think it is - but it's how I feel: White Modulations (or the image I have of it) is still, magical, crystalline and cold. I can't write it when the sun is just coming out again and everything's starting to spring up...

Rather surprisingly even to me the work which I keep coming back to is the cello sonata, and again, I think that's a seasonal thing. A few weeks ago on the 'emotions/keys' thread I expressed my feeling that:

it's precisely these mysterious early stages of the composing process, when we are closest to the composer's subconscious, in which I, personally, am most interested

Well, I've only just got beyond this early stage with the cello sonata in the last couple of days so I thought I'd fill you in on precisely these mysterious early stages, the point at which a composition really begins.

The idea of a cello sonata has been in my head for only one reason, and that's because of a couple of very simple images that stuck in my head sometime last year, summer or spring - prompted by the drive home from work through the forest, where the roads are bordered by scrubby bushes and undergrowth. The images are simple, as I say - warmth, drowsiness, a bee buzzing lazily from flower to flower, and superimposed on this a shadowy bar or two of score, a muted cello drifting, trilling, nestling in and over soft piano chords, the tonal centre somewhere in the region of B major (though the music modal, of course) - B major not because of some crass apian symbolism (B = Bee!  ) but, I suppose, because B, to me, is hedonistic, lazy, warm.

That's as far as I'd got until Sunday, though it was enough to keep the idea of a cello sonata in my mind (that should be obvious, as it was one of my proposed options a few posts back). Then on Sunday, as I drove the same home-work route I had another little flash which suggested a second movement to follow the 'drowsy' one. This time I was looking up at the trees, and the sun beating through them, and I was listening to one of my favourite pieces of non-classical music, a stunning jam session by Boban Markovic's band and guest violinist Felix Lajko. This time I felt rawness, raggedness, unbuttoned earthy joy, spontaneity; again the sun warms the music through, gives it life. I saw ways in which my music as it has been (e.g. in Ascent) could be brought close to some of the things that happen in Markovic and music of that type without relinquishing its own 'personality'. By the end of the drive I'd determined quite a lot of how the piece would work:

First movement - Drowsy, B major-ish feeling (I've determined the main mode for this movement, actually, as well, and some basic types of harmonic and melodic motion - rather pleased with this). A lazy rondo feeling, as different modal areas and textures alternate with this basic sound (the bee flitting to different flowers!  ).

Second movement - Earthy, raw, G-centred. Additive metres rather as in 7/8 of Ascent, but gradually expanding rather than contracting, so that by the later stages each bar becomes its own world full of a variety of incident. Each area of new metre/new mode or modal relation is separated by an extravert (and maybe only sketchily notated) cello cadenza which breaks down the modal barriers.

Both movements seem to be united by this feeling of warmth, of the sun making one sleepy and sweet, and the other drunk and  hairy-chested. Again, I think of spring, of the Canticle Sonata (prompted by the Canticle to the Sun, full of imagery of sun, earth, water and sky, and also composed in spring), of Quiverings, the little piano piece I wrote about this time last year which again was prompted by these first stirrings outside. At the point of 'inspiration' all this happens quite unconsciously. Then looking back at it I see the similarities, year on year.

Anyway, I'm very excited about getting going on this one, so I'll keep you posted.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

OFF TOPIC

Jezetha, your inbox is full.

Hm. Can't be. Something must have gone awry since I renewed my subscription, John. I'll inform Rob. Why not send your mail to jezetha*xs4all.nl (and the * is an @)?

And now I have to get on with my mail round...

[sul G]

By the way, for those who want to hear Markovic/Lajko's Crni Voz, the piece which got me started on the second movement of this hoped-for cello sonata. I've added in Turceasca, a track by Kronos/Taraf de Haidouks, too - a little less 'authentic', perhaps, but if it's OK by the Taraf it's OK by me. And I think it's a hell of a lot of fun. What the pieces share, apart from the obvious, is the additive rhythms and the blazing tutti-wildly out of control solo juxtapositions which I love. Well, maybe that's obvious too, actually.   Play them loud.

[sul G]

If you liked the Felix Lajko, btw, there's loads of him youtube, including the whole of a concert given with the Boban Markovic guys. Needless to say, I downloaded all of that one long ago.

However, this one, where he's simply playing under a tree, I particularly like:

http://www.youtube.com/v/lPzcTXN6Ayg

[sul G]

OK last one, and this is pure cheese, and also not really the same thing, being more 'gypsy' music (cafe gypsies, a la Liszt) than the previous ones. But spectacular exuberant playing anyway, I think.

I'll stop now.