Henning's Headquarters

[karlhenning]

Is it a tuned instrument?

Lots of irregular overtones, but Dan did tune the head to a sort of E . . . not that my piece was in E, but he finds that with that drum, the head rings best tuned to E.  Dan has a few different-sized frame drums . . . we didn't use his deepest, but a nice mid-sizer.

Honestly, the piece sounded pretty good when we were rehearsing it in Peter's house, but in the semi-reverberant space at St Paul's, Peter remarked, "It sounds even cooler and Taj-Mahal-ey . . . ."

This score is my return at last from sabbatical, and I feel entirely restored to the groove.  Ready to talk to Héloïse about her sundry recorders, and get cooking on the Cantata (which will now be Opus 104 . . . .)

[karlhenning]

Yes Karl good luck tonight! And hold back a little on the honking, and add some wubba wubba!!

Concert was lunchtime! : )

We players had a lot of fun.  A few of the tempi in the Warren Duos are rather fast.  Too fast, even.  Bordering on science-fiction, perhaps.  Peter & I were planning to ratchet the speed down in all events, because of the reverb in St Paul's — play a lot of rapid notes, and all the audience hears is a kind of wash.  That said, though . . . we wound up somehow playing a few of them even slower than we'd rehearsed them chez Peter.  It was a sort of WWCD? (What Would Celibidache Do?) experience.  Frank was a little surprised (and as I say, we somehow settled into hitherto unknown slow grooves, so my earlier mention to Frank didn't prepare him for this).  Right after the concert, Frank said to me, "I'm more from a jazz tradition where the practice is keep the tempo brisk, and fake the notes."  Peter joked, "If we'd known that, preparing the pieces would have been a lot easier."  I said, "But they're good notes, that's why we liked the pieces; and as written, the interplay between the instruments is so delightful, how could you want us just to fake through it?"

Any disappointment on Frank's part is (I think) not permanent.  He joined Shauna and me for lunch.  (Shauna is angelic; she does such great work with the recording, and all she asks is that I take her to dinner.  Today's lunch is actually catching up from the last project, and so I still owe her dinner for this concert . . . I'll take her out when she has the CD for this concert ready, should be sometime next week or so.)  Anyway, when the three of us broke up after lunch, Frank suggested that he might write us some more music (so he cannot have been mortally offended).  I said, "Do. And now you have a closer sense of how we operate."

Joe's quasi-Scelsi study on one note felt like fun . . . I will be curious to hear the recording. Joe as in all events pleased.

How to Tell largely went brilliantly!  We flubbed the ending, somehow (nerves, first performance and all).  But Shauna was recording while we practiced earlier, when in fact we effortlessly nailed the ending . . . so the final document may be a Mercy Splice.  Before she powered down, she asked me if I wanted to hear some of it on the headphones, and I was really pleased. I mean, I had been more than content with the performance (the gaffe at the end notwithstanding) but hearing the recording exponentially increased my happiness with the event.

Peter & Dan are keen to repeat this program, BTW.  Just need to find a venue.

[karlhenning]

Great turnout of the folks at my office, BTW. There must have been 12 of my co-workers in attendance (which alone is a larger audience than normal for the St Paul's series these days).

[Cato]

Yay Team!

We want, we would like, we desire, we yearn for, we very politely demand...the recording!!!   

What is wrong with Boston that the audience is so small?  For a free concert!!!   0:)

[DavidW]

Truly chamber music... a modest, but enthusiastic crowd... congratulations! Now give us a recording!!

[karlhenning]

It will happen! Le peuple le veult!

[karlhenning]

Blushing with pleasure here; everyone here at the office who attended is saying that yesterday's event was their favorite Henningmusick date yet.

[Sergeant Rock]

Blushing with pleasure here; everyone here at the office who attended is saying that yesterday's event was their favorite Henningmusick date yet.

Congratulations on the rosy cheeks, Karl

Sarge

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Blushing with pleasure here; everyone here at the office who attended is saying that yesterday's event was their favorite Henningmusick date yet.

Onwards and upwards!!

[karlhenning]

Woot!

[Père Malfait]

Congratulations, Karl! 

I'm still planning on taking a look at the Toccata at some point, when work demands and the responsibilities of caring for elderly parents allow . . .

[karlhenning]

Thanks, Lee!

[karlhenning]

I have an idea, which came to me last night, regarding The Next k a rl h e nn i ng Ensemble Event (that is to say, a concert which at the moment has neither a date nor venue). And involving one of the singers who would have taken part in Castelo dos anjos this past Thursday.  As a sort of study before plunging into the Cantata proper, I feel moved to write a piece for soprano and clarinet, and as I mulled on this last night, I decided I wanted to set a Whitman text (other than the one which will be part of the Cantata proper).

So this morning, I reach for my copy of Leaves of Grass (a B&N budget edition . . . somewhere, maybe over in St Petersburg actually, I have a Norton Critical Edition), to begin leafing through to settle on a text.  What I find is a slip of paper as a bookmark, keeping place at "The mystic trumpeter" — a poem which I was planning (oh, perhaps eight years ago) to set, for soprano and clarinet . . . and for which I actually started sketches which I don't think I'll use and thus shan't trouble to hunt up.  So it feels like an errant idea which has come home to lay in some work at last . . . .

At FCB in the Back Bay, we're singing Bless the Lord, O My Soul this morning.

[Cato]

I have an idea, which came to me last night... I feel moved to write a piece for soprano and clarinet, and as I mulled on this last night, I decided I wanted to set a Whitman text (other than the one which will be part of the Cantata proper).

So this morning, I reach for my copy of Leaves of Grass  What I find is a slip of paper as a bookmark, keeping place at "The mystic trumpeter" — a poem which I was planning (oh, perhaps eight years ago) to set, for soprano and clarinet . . . and for which I actually started sketches...

The mind's desire wanted your attention now for some reason, no doubt catalyzed by the idea of the Cantata.

Unconscious gears can whirl for years before they weave a stitch for the soul!

[karlhenning]

Got some work done on it already this morning!

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

So this morning, I reach for my copy of Leaves of Grass (a B&N budget edition . . . somewhere, maybe over in St Petersburg actually, I have a Norton Critical Edition), to begin leafing through to settle on a text.  What I find is a slip of paper as a bookmark, keeping place at "The mystic trumpeter" — a poem which I was planning (oh, perhaps eight years ago) to set, for soprano and clarinet . . . and for which I actually started sketches which I don't think I'll use and thus shan't trouble to hunt up.  So it feels like an errant idea which has come home to lay in some work at last . . . .

Holst wrote an Op. 18, The Mystic Trumpeter... Don't know it, though. I recognized the title, never knew it stemmed from Whitman.

[Cato]

Holst wrote an Op. 18, The Mystic Trumpeter... Don't know it, though. I recognized the title, never knew it stemmed from Whitman.

Apparently the NAXOS CD with this work is the premiere recording of it: Amazon reviewers give it a rave.

It is on a CD with The Planets.

[karlhenning]

I should guess that I knew of the title first when at Wooster, must have seen it in a list of Holst's works. (Of course, I haven't heard a note of the piece.)  I bought my Norton Critical ed. of Leaves of Grass while at UVa . . . I must have dipped into it a bit then, but I did not read it entire until I was in Tallinn.  So . . . I expect that I first came upon the Whitman text while I was in eastern Europa.

[karlhenning]

Paul's choir did a great job this morning with Bless the Lord, O My Soul! I was a bass this morning, which was a little unusual.  Not in terms of my voice, which is more bass than tenor, certainly . . . but more frequently, the absentee for whom I substitute will be a tenor.  The other piece this morning was an exquisite Palestrina motet, Loquebantur variis linguis. A fun morning!

[karlhenning]

Some more work on The Mystic Trumpeter this morning . . . a little trippy, finding myself setting the text listening alert I catch thy notes while aboard an MBTA bus trundling down I-93 . . . .

This piece will be Opus 104, which will bump the Cantata to Opus 105.  Afterwards, I may add further settings, and make of them a brace of Cantatas, who knows?