Henning's Headquarters

[Cato]

A Bablyak original will grace this show.

Do you have a picture of it for us?   0:) 

[Karl Henning]

Come to think of it, I do!

[Cato]

Come to think of it, I do!

The echo effect in the northeast quadrant is supremely disquieting!  Great picture!

[Karl Henning]

Okay . . . complete up until the final stanza!

(Oh, I neglected to "untranspose" the score . . . the clarinet line is pitched in A.)

Edit :: old version deleted

[Karl Henning]

Meanwhile, over at the blog . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Well, I may wind up tossing large chunks of it out as I review it tonight or tomorrow . . . but at lunch time, I hunkered down and applied myself to the rest of the text of The Mystic Trumpeter.

Best I can say is: I may possibly be done, with the voice/text 

[kishnevi]

And if nothing else, you now know how to pronounce "rapine".

[Karl Henning]

Forsooth!

[Karl Henning]

I have heard the Cello Sonatina! (Greg and Cato, I'm looking at you!)

[TheGSMoeller]

I have heard the Cello Sonatina! (Greg and Cato, I'm looking at you!)

Same sonatina that is on your soundcloud page?

[Karl Henning]

Yes, but now people are playing!

[TheGSMoeller]

Yes, but now people are playing!

Great news, Karl. Keep us informed on the performances.

[Karl Henning]

Well, there may not be one anytime soon.  The cellist and pianist "had a blast playing through it!"  The cello, though, is one (and not the chief) of a number of musical pursuits my friend is engaged in; so she has no recital per se on the docket.

However, she does have periodic need for a meditative piece for church use, so I am mulling that notion.

[Karl Henning]

Last night I relaxed . . . this morning on the train, the work was not generative.  Though it seems not the task one would choose to do on a moving train, I started a fresh copy of the voice-line of the final stanza, leaving a blank staff beneath for the clarinet.  Yesterday's burst of work setting the text yielded some 61 measures (including a couple of written-in breathers for the soprano).  The (slightly) earlier sketch of clarinet music is some 32 measures;  and although I drew that up with a certain arc to it, I knew what I did not know (at the time), that is, how much space the text would actually require.

. . . which in fact was space enough, that a diversion to a different pitch-center in the middle was called for, so that (and I was morally prepared for this from the outset, anyway) the clarinet sketch could not rest intact, but would serve as a source.

I am reviewing repeatedly the score so far, and between (a) the voice-line, with which I remain largely content, (b) the clarinet sketch, and (c) the evergreen prospect of referring to earlier material, I have all the material I need to compose out the end of the piece.  The act of writing out the voice afresh, longhand, will of itself set the necessary sparks off.

[Karl Henning]

A note on some material which first appears in this version of the document:

The clarinet's marziale material in mm. 291-303 is from a sketch I drew up late this past June, that is, some while before I made my way to this section of the composition.

The clarinet material from m. 325 (beat 2) to m. 327 (beat 1), and in mm. 341-344 (beat 1) is scavenged from a piece I was writing late in 2010, and which I am officially abandoning.  I did not particularly have the earlier matter in mind when writing this June; but a few days ago, my eye fell on that much earlier sketch, and I saw that it would readily graft into this stanza of The Mystic Trumpeter.

The fourth-y triplets (mm. 304-305, e.g.) were a spontaneous, trumpetly intuition.

[Karl Henning]

Wrote out fresh copy of the voice for stanza 8: check.

Made some minor adjustments to rhythm.  (Looks like bacchanal can be accented on either the first or last syllable, to taste.)

[Karl Henning]

Well, I worked in Sibelius last night, for a bit.

Conclusions:

1:  The voice-line is, I think, completely true.

2:  I should probably start afresh with the clarinet.  Maybe I was just tired last night, but I felt it was not working, or that about 75% of it was not creating the music I wish.

This morning, I think I'll scribble a few notes for an entirely different piece, try to clear the air.

[Karl Henning]

Gah! I left my pen at home!  All dressed up and no place to go . . . .

[Cato]

Gah! I left my pen at home!  All dressed up and no place to go . . . .

Well, you know what Herr Doktor Freud would say about this!   

"Buy a pen at the Circle K!" 

[Karl Henning]

Well, at the office, I have my pick.  But on the train . . . that was that!