Ottevanger's Omphaloskeptic Outpost

[karlhenning]

Has Cato been returned from . . . The Wedding of Doom? . . .

[Cato]

Has Cato been returned from . . . The Wedding of Doom? . . .

Oh yes, and what an event it was: complete with a dagger through a cake shaped like a skull!   

Luke!  Bar 7 of your song Down By The Salley Gardens: is the "F" supposed to be natural or sharp?  It is sharp in bar 3.

[Luke]

It's an F natural, as written...perhaps I should add a warning accidental, then. That mized mode with both F sharp and F natural appears in the first (violin only) bar and also in the bar it closes the first stanza with, too. The aim, I suppose, is a mixture of Phrygian oppression/depression (E minor with F naturals - this is the end point of a few phrases here, however much they start out with more positive intentions) with something slightly brighter, a kind of Mixolydian G (with F naturals) or D (with F sharps and C naturals) or solid A minor or even a hint of Lydian C (with F sharps)

Thanks for looking! (Still not sure about that piece, it feels too close for comfort, and it may well be utter dross!)

[Cato]

It's an F natural, as written...perhaps I should add a warning accidental, then. That mized mode with both F sharp and F natural appears in the first (violin only) bar and also in the bar it closes the first stanza with, too. The aim, I suppose, is a mixture of Phrygian oppression/depression (E minor with F naturals - this is the end point of a few phrases here, however much they start out with more positive intentions) with something slightly brighter, a kind of Mixolydian G (with F naturals) or D (with F sharps and C naturals) or solid A minor or even a hint of Lydian C (with F sharps)

Thanks for looking! (Still not sure about that piece, it feels too close for comfort, and it may well be utter dross!)

Thanks for the clarification!

By no means is it dross: I will send you my analysis later today for inspection.  So check your mail!   0:)

[Luke]

I look forward to it! Many thanks!

[Cato]

I look forward to it! Many thanks!

Check your e-mail account!  You should have it by now!

[karlhenning]

Cool! Just back from MGH, will have a read a bit later.

[Cato]

Here is my little analysis of Luke Ottevanger's setting of the Yeats poem Down By The Salley Garden: the score you can find here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?vl9o1gt2d7tygat


Down By The Salley Garden


Luke Ottevanger's setting of the poem by W.B. Yeats is subtle from the start: the violin starts off with a major ninth on D-E, telling the ear that a bittersweet conflict is on the way.  In the very first bar an F# on the first triplet vies with an F natural: D minor or E minor, or both?  A polymodal style (e.g. Phrygian and Lydian) runs through the work.


E minor seems to win temporarily, and the opening melody is accompanied by a drone E.  Triplets however are heard everywhere in the violin, using both 8th notes and 16th notes.  Bars 8 and 9 show this D minor/E minor duality very cleverly: for a split second, on the word "feet," the violin and voice agree on the note E, but then a rising scale takes us into a D minor chord (D-A-F) in bar 9, where a Bb appears in a triplet.  And yet E is reasserted in the violin, with another drone E to parallel the opening, but this time an octave higher.  The voice has a B-A#-B sequence to continue the tension on the words "she bid me".  And this is a subtle piece of melody making!  For the violin's first Bb (=A#) was heard in an A-Bb-A triplet in the bar before, a fleeting mirror image of the voice's future, and the song's!  A variation on the A-Bb-A pattern is heard in the violin in bar 12.


The word "easy" is ironically sung from E to F# in bar 11, while the violin comments in D minor triplets, and also predicts the melody's future with 2 descending 8th notes on C-Bb leading to a quarter-note D.  The vocal line will echo this twice (but not exactly) on the words "as the leaves grow on the tree."


The song's intensity is reflected now in a D-E drone, while the voice now sings its first triplet, but not quite, and here one realizes the differences between good and great: marked "bitterly," the word "foolish" is sung on 2 notes of an 8th-note triplet, Ab-G, with the third part a rest.  A mediocre composer would probably have drawn out the second syllable, or even both.  Another idea great because of its simplicity!  The Ab does two things: it strikes the ear with special force, because this its first appearance, and then leads us into a kind of doubled G minor for (most of) the rest of the song.  A triplet at the end of bar 16 sends us back to the beginning and to the conclusion with a that major ninth D-E from bar 1 now developed to G-D-E in bar 17, which in fact is a variation on all of bar 1.


Now remember that A-Bb-A triplet, running past the ear in bar 9.  This minor second pattern is now heard under sussurant triplets, but on a half-note D with an eighth-note Eb and then returning to D.  In bars 21 and 22 the vocal line offers an Eb-D-Eb (bar 21) and then a D-Eb-D pattern (bar 22) using three 8th notes (but not a 3-for-2 triplet).  These two notes will be heard again on the words "easy" (bar 24) and "foolish" (bar 28), thereby unifying the music and the text.


The notes Bb, Ab, G on the words "full of tears" were hinted at earlier in the violin (bars 16 and 24).  The voice now repeats tears 3 times on G below middle C.  The ending in the violin part takes us back to the beginning somewhat, but this time we hear D major/G major with the arrival of C# and F# and offers a contrast with the voice...until a Bb appears in the final 3 bars, announcing No, this is minor territory.  An open fifth on G-D followed by Bb-D-Bb in slowing 8th notes chases away any hope of hope, as the song ends with the voice intoning "tears" on that same G.

And so a word on all those triplets found throughout the work: I have avoided so far providing any sort of interpretation of what a certain chord or interval or scale might mean.  Certainly the triplets of various kinds act as a unifying factor throughout the song, and one can say that they "paint" the image of the flowing river mentioned near the end of the poem.

But I suspect they mean more than that: 3-note figures in a poem about Love, rather than 2-note figures. 

Aye!  That could be a topic for mulling and stewing on a cold dark October day.

[Luke]

Thanks again, Cato!

The last paragraph was new! An interesting idea - not wrong, of course (how could it be?) but for the sake of those looking for biography in the work I should say that in my mind as I wrote this piece and those triplets was only the river, not the number three - and, without getting too solipsitic or self-indulgent about it all, I should add, in fact, that the river was very relevant, and the number three not. But no more on that, this isn't the place for it! I tax your various patiences too much as it is!

[Cato]

P.S.

I should mention one more thing.

The final note of the violin is an E, following an arpeggio on G-D-Bb, (G minor) with the voice holding that G below middle C.

Consider what that could imply!

Many thanks to Luke!

We need a concert now!   0:)

[Luke]

Now, that would be nice! I wonder if there are any strings I can pull... [edit - pun not intended!  ]

In the meantime, I have current projects (and old ones) pulling at me eagerly, and I am still loving the feeling! It has been such a quiet year on that front. 'The Lamb' is stalled, half-done, I love it and hate it at the same time. The piano piece, if it is done, may well end up so bulky that composing will take a long time. White Modulations (in more-or-less its original conception, but the piano more prominent in the orchestral texture) is pulling at me just as strongly. And - Guido, please don't get your hopes up - but that old idea for a cello sonata is still nagging away, unchanged and just as addictive now its in my system again. Almost too much to think about! I don't know where to turn first. A pleasant problem, that.

[karlhenning]

Bene.

[Cato]

Concerning the violin part in Luke's Down By The Salley Garden, one can hear that it is really not an accompaniment to the voice.

Similar to works by Schoenberg especially, the polyphony acts as a musical unconscious, offering layers of gnosis to the initiated.

If you followed my earlier analysis on Karl Henning's Viola Sonata, you saw how this idea applied to that work as well.

[Luke]

Concerning the violin part in Luke's Down By The Salley Garden, one can hear that it is really not an accompaniment to the voice.

Similar to works by Schoenberg especially, the polyphony acts as a musical unconscious, offering layers of gnosis to the initiated.

If you followed my earlier analysis on Karl Henning's Viola Sonata, you saw how this idea applied to that work as well.

That is of course how I saw the violin in the piece too. Even when its part looks like an accompaniment - e.g. the murmuring ripples of the river in bars 19-22 - it is more than just a rippling, word-painting accompaniment, I think, because it pushes and prods and shadows the voice...but of course that is true in many other pieces too.

Voice and violin is a lovely pairing to write for, of course. There are those wonderful Holst songs (is this restrained exercise in twentieth century medievalism really the work of the composer of The Planets?). And there's a raw, vital Suite for Voice and Violin by Villa Lobos which just breathes the air of the rough and ready outdoors. (listen to clips here - http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/tw.asp?w=W9179 ) Like the Holst, it's one of my favourite pieces by a composer better known for grander, bigger statements.

EDIT - did I really forget Kurtag's Kafka Fragments? Not any more! Utterly masterly, words can't describe it. A great combination, this voice-violin thing - point made?   

[Luke]

That's one of the best Villa Lobos discs I know, btw (the whole thing can be explored here http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/al.asp?al=CDH55316 ) It's worth getting - it's on Helios, so not expensive. I'm lucky that it was my introduction to the composer, on LP, decades ago, so that I was predisposed to think kindly of him when I came across some of his less glorious works later!

Re the voice and violin, I meant to say also - the voice and violin setting was always going to be the case, but once it was decided upon I think another piece was in the back of my mind when I wrote this piece. That's a piece whose name I cannot remember by the composer Alan Bullard (best known to many for his countless educational works for children, but a well-known 'real' composer of distinction too - here's his website http://alan.bullard.tripod.com/ )

I had a piece for string trio and horn played at the BMIC in 1997, and also on the programme was a beautiful song by Bullard for voice and violin. I met him afterwards - he was a very nice man, complimentary about my piece which was, though, I fear, utter tosh. The score was lost after that performance and I'm quite glad of it... Anyway, maybe Bullard's song was about a wandering fiddler or something; in any case, it breathed the feel of the open air and the open road, the beauty of simplicity, the honesty and potency of this exposed medium. I loved it and it affected me more deeply than I would have suspected. I think beyond the specifics of this piece of music itself, the open-air, open-hearted English rusticity of this sort of writing in this medium became something of an archetype for me (I didn't know the Holst songs at that time, and in any case, they are not quite the same thing...)

I'm looking at his site as I write this; it has a worklist, so perhaps I can find the piece I am thinking of...

yep, here it is

The Solitary Reaper (1995) for soprano and violin (or treble recorder, or oboe)     
5 mins          Adv.
A setting of the Wordsworth poem, dedicated to the memory of Elizabeth Maconchy;  first performed by Lindsay Gowers (soprano) and Lesley Larkum (violin), Colchester 8 March 1995, and recorded on the CD New British Music Vol. 1 (same performers) FMR CD35-0996
`The revelation, when listening to this admirable CD, was the music of Alan Bullard. The Solitary Reaper is such a fascinating composition I found myself returning to it time and time again' Steve Ford, Avant magazine

Those were the performers at my concert too...I was nearly included on that CD too, and now I can't remember why it didn't happen. I think it was just organising the recording sessions; IIRC I was doing my finals at the time and didn't want the distraction. But given the piece that would have been recorded, I am not at all sorry! I'm not sure I didn't secretly feel the same way at the time...         

[karlhenning]

Lovely, Luke, well done!

[karlhenning]

While I am no string player myself (once in high school I spent perhaps a month in summer music "camp" starting to learn the cello), I love reading string parts written like this . . . mentally, I imagine the negotiation of the strings, even as I should have no hope of playing it. Well done, indeed, Luke!

(I shall say a bit more ere long, really . . . .)

[Luke]

Thanks Karl! That's good to read.

Has any listened to any of the other pieces yet? As with this, I'm uncertain about them to a greater or lesser extent, and I'd be intrigued to know how they go down with the discerning gents who hang around the Outpost! (I know Johan had a first listen to the Fantasy, but otherwise...)

[karlhenning]

Oh! I knew I was being sloppy with my attempt at catch-up . . . link us, would you, lad?

[Luke]

Delighted -

http://www.mediafire.com/?hycr77dymz2665f - Around Fern Hill (mp3)
http://www.mediafire.com/?no6zykq6464c2z2 - Around Fern Hill (score)

I wrote a post or two about that one on the previous page of this thread

http://www.mediafire.com/?3n2xc93l1a510no - Fantasy (mp3)
http://www.mediafire.com/?nhy4kh2x3yxyi9c - Fantasy (score)

That one is also discussed a little on the previous page or two, and earlier on also, about 5 or 6 pages back, when I orginally finished the piece.