Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[Luke]

I"m going to take the plunge and post my just-this-minute-finished tuplet-ridden sonata movement for flute and piano up here. It might be awful, I haven't decided myself yet, but I stopped being coy about this stuff long ago. This is the piece I started last year, and stopped halfway through; over the last few days I've provided it with an ending, lots of cut and paste so that the joins don't show too much (though they do in the score - all the new stuff is written with diamond-shaped noteheads). Hope it makes for a satisfying whole. I have my doubts, but never mind.

Also, seeing as I'm in the mood, a shoddy little MIDI file - usual MIDI listening rules apply i.e. use it as a guide, but you will need to listen past it!

[greg]

I never watched Transformers, btw. But I had friends in the playground who did...honest.

I used to watch the 3D CG version... it was one of those shows, like Batman, that seemed to last forever for only being a half an hour long. They said the animation was 90 FPS.
It was mainly something to watch to occupy my time before the other shows I really liked came on, instead of being something I actually looked forward to.

[Luke]

I used to watch the 3D CG version... it was one of those shows, like Batman, that seemed to last forever for only being a half an hour long. They said the animation was 90 FPS.

Yeah, if we're going to get technical, I composed my Transformers fugue in 100% BS....

[karlhenning]

I"m going to take the plunge and post my just-this-minute-finished tuplet-ridden sonata movement for flute and piano up here. It might be awful, I haven't decided myself yet, but I stopped being coy about this stuff long ago. This is the piece I started last year, and stopped halfway through; over the last few days I've provided it with an ending, lots of cut and paste so that the joins don't show too much (though they do in the score - all the new stuff is written with diamond-shaped noteheads). Hope it makes for a satisfying whole. I have my doubts, but never mind.

Also, seeing as I'm in the mood, a shoddy little MIDI file - usual MIDI listening rules apply i.e. use it as a guide, but you will need to listen past it!

Splendid, Luke! I'm a bit short of time for a couple of days, but come the weekend I'm downloading these and checking them out!

[greg]

I"m going to take the plunge and post my just-this-minute-finished tuplet-ridden sonata movement for flute and piano up here. It might be awful, I haven't decided myself yet, but I stopped being coy about this stuff long ago. This is the piece I started last year, and stopped halfway through; over the last few days I've provided it with an ending, lots of cut and paste so that the joins don't show too much (though they do in the score - all the new stuff is written with diamond-shaped noteheads). Hope it makes for a satisfying whole. I have my doubts, but never mind.

Also, seeing as I'm in the mood, a shoddy little MIDI file - usual MIDI listening rules apply i.e. use it as a guide, but you will need to listen past it!

Awesome, Luke! Probably the most enjoyable aspect of this piece is your sense of rhythm here.

I would love to hear a live recording if you can manage one eventually.

[Luke]

Awesome, Luke! Probably the most enjoyable aspect of this piece is your sense of rhythm here.

I would love to hear a live recording if you can manage one eventually.

Cheers, Greg. I certainly plan on approaching a flautist or two with the piece...but who knows, they'll probably blanch at those dratted tuplets!

[karlhenning]

I know a couple of flutists who will not be [over-]daunted by them.  Let me know when you're satisfied that the score is done!

[Luke]

Now there's a thought!

And I guess, down a fifth or so (though that would change the character rather) it comes within easy range of a well-primed clarinet.....

[karlhenning]

Allow me to remind you that an Ottevanger piece for clarinet and harpsichord will be most welcome!  The way Paul & I have taped it out, if you score it for B-flat clarinet, it works just as well if the harpsichord is tuned to A=415 (the clarinetist plays it on the A instrument instead).

[Luke]

It's in the works, Karl, but might take some time. Here's the proof:

[karlhenning]

Also, I need to check to make sure I have the latest version of the Canticle Sonata, Luke.  The pianist who played this past Monday is mighty good, and I've fooled him into thinking highly of my own playing . . . so I believe we'll play together going forward.  We'll start by 'reprising' the Brahms sonatas for studio recording sometime in July;  and I'd like to start reading your Canticle Sonata with him then.

[karlhenning]

It's in the works, Karl, but might take some time. Here's the proof:

Beauty!

[Luke]

I get a bit confused myself, but here are what I think are the last versions of the Canticle Sonata, score and part

[karlhenning]

I get a bit confused myself, but here are what I think are the last versions of the Canticle Sonata, score and part

Okay, I think I may have an even later 'take' of the clarinet part . . . a quick comparison doesn't reveal any apparent alterations in content, but I've got a part in which you've already "de-crowded" accidentals, for instance.

[karlhenning]

[Of the Große Fuge] Yeah, but that's a bit too modern and dissonant, dontcha think?

At the risk of repeating (and the initial report I might have made while you were on hiatus, Luke) . . .

In one of many great programs during the two years that Levine was doing his Beethoven & Schoenberg series, the BSO opened with the string orchestra arrangement of the Große Fuge, then Christian Tetzlaff played the Beethoven Violin Concerto.  After the interval, Tetzlaff then played the Schoenberg Violin Concerto (I'd call that evening a tour-de-force), and the program closed with a reprise of the Große Fuge.

In November 2004, Alex Ross blogged:

[Levine] had figured out how to present Beethoven's thorny "Grosse Fuge," which rivals anything by Schoenberg in its capacity to make audiences fidget. With a grin, he said that he would play the "Grosse Fuge" twice in the same program, with the violin concertos of Beethoven and Schoenberg in between. He was hoping to create a time-warp effect in which Beethoven would be heard as both past and present.

It was a wonderful instance of contextual listening. Starting the concert cold, the fugue felt monumental and unyielding (and one could find it likeable on those terms, to be sure).  After the Schoenberg concerto (which, if it isn't Transfigured Night, is still towards the composer's Romantic range), the fugue felt in some sense positively cozy.

[Luke]

Sounds like fabulous programming! I can imagine it working out just the way you described. Illuminating.

Need to get down to some composing, but everything is so busy, bitty, end-of-termy, hot-and-bothered! Oh for a day with nothing to do and a piano to do it at....

[Franco]

I"m going to take the plunge and post my just-this-minute-finished tuplet-ridden sonata movement for flute and piano up here. It might be awful, I haven't decided myself yet, but I stopped being coy about this stuff long ago. This is the piece I started last year, and stopped halfway through; over the last few days I've provided it with an ending, lots of cut and paste so that the joins don't show too much (though they do in the score - all the new stuff is written with diamond-shaped noteheads). Hope it makes for a satisfying whole. I have my doubts, but never mind.

Also, seeing as I'm in the mood, a shoddy little MIDI file - usual MIDI listening rules apply i.e. use it as a guide, but you will need to listen past it!

Very interesting piece.  I especially liked the bit around 6'-6:30 where the piano is answering the flute in the low register.  Overall, the piece struck me as somewhat "French" - don't know why.   I hope you can arrange a reading or performance and can update us with the new audio.

Thanks.

[Luke]

Thanks for listening! I'm very pleased you liked it. There is something French about it, I agree - it might be, partly, just the use of the flute, such a French instrument in many ways. But also, maybe there;s something in the harmony, lots of major sevenths and ninths, which may recall e.g. Ravel distantly. Which is no surprise to me - Ravel is one of the composers closest to my heart, and I wouldn't be shocked if something of him has seeped in somewhere here.

Thanks once again - I will certainly try to convince a flautist to have a go at this before the school term is out (I'm thinking of one of the flute teachers I work with)....but I'm not surewhat her attitude to trying this sort of thing out will be!

[karlhenning]

I"m going to take the plunge and post my just-this-minute-finished tuplet-ridden sonata movement for flute and piano up here. It might be awful, I haven't decided myself yet, but I stopped being coy about this stuff long ago. This is the piece I started last year, and stopped halfway through; over the last few days I've provided it with an ending, lots of cut and paste so that the joins don't show too much (though they do in the score - all the new stuff is written with diamond-shaped noteheads). Hope it makes for a satisfying whole. I have my doubts, but never mind.

Also, seeing as I'm in the mood, a shoddy little MIDI file - usual MIDI listening rules apply i.e. use it as a guide, but you will need to listen past it!

Love it! More comment later . . . .

[Luke]

All that talk to Saul, and I've just spotted a nasty parallel in one of my fugues! (I'm sure there are more). Surgical excision later on - they were never meant to be entirely by the book, but this is just lax! Bad Luke....