Henning's Headquarters

Started by BachQ, April 07, 2007, 12:21:26 PM

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steve ridgway

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 27, 2021, 02:44:09 AM
It is.  These are the first two:

https://www.youtube.com/v/HAK0BwHRTxM

https://www.youtube.com/v/egru61LZWTc

Brilliant - The Nerves is like a classical version of one of my favourite rock groups. Can't wait to hear the full performance. 8)

https://www.youtube.com/v/KOpvM11YVoI

Mirror Image

Very nice to read, Karl. A few questions for you: is this a programmatic symphony? With movements titled: The Nerves, The Heart and The Lungs, it does make one wonder. How many movements are you anticipating this symphony being? I definitely want to listen to the work once it's finished (however long that will be). Also, are you finished with White Nights?

Karl Henning

Quote from: aligreto on June 27, 2021, 04:08:41 AM
Good to know Karl. It is an exciting piece. There is not much, if anything, that requires tweaking but then you composer guys are sometimes known to be a tad temperamental and finiky ;D

It pleases me in a quiet way when I say I may or I may not ....
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Quote from: steve ridgway on June 27, 2021, 06:05:02 AM
Brilliant - The Nerves is like a classical version of one of my favourite rock groups. Can't wait to hear the full performance. 8)

https://www.youtube.com/v/KOpvM11YVoI


Thanks!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Quote from: Mirror Image on June 27, 2021, 07:02:04 AM
Very nice to read, Karl. A few questions for you: is this a programmatic symphony? With movements titled: The Nerves, The Heart and The Lungs, it does make one wonder. How many movements are you anticipating this symphony being? I definitely want to listen to the work once it's finished (however long that will be). Also, are you finished with White Nights?

Happy to say John, that I wrapped up White Nights early on in the lockdown! And enormously pleased with it I am.

In a way, programmatic ... the symphony bears the whimsical subtitle Karl's Big (but happily incomplete) Map to the Body
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

krummholz

#8365
I just finished listening to all three of the movements so far... all very engaging! I think I like The Heart best, with its many changes of texture and wide-ranging harmonic language.

Trying to figure out what it's scored for... I hear percussion, piano, maybe some other keyboard instruments (celesta? xylophone? glockenspiel?), and wind and brass, but no strings... but it's very hard to tell from the MIDI rendition. The first few seconds of The Heart said "for band"... so is that the instrumentation for the entire work?

I'll be very interested to hear the finished work in an actual performance!

Karl Henning

Quote from: krummholz on June 27, 2021, 11:06:55 AM
I just finished listening to all three of the movements so far... all very engaging! I think I like The Heart best, with its many changes of texture and wide-ranging harmonic language.

Trying to figure out what it's scored for... I hear percussion, piano, maybe some other keyboard instruments (celesta? xylophone? glockenspiel?), and wind and brass, but no strings... but it's very hard to tell from the MIDI rendition. The first few seconds of The Heart said "for band"... so is that the instrumentation for the entire work?

I'll be very interested to hear the finished work in an actual performance!

Thanks, it is indeed for band, although I let the percussion "rest" in the second movement.  I suppose that is why I started The Lungs so percussively ....
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Mirror Image

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 27, 2021, 10:27:48 AM
Happy to say John, that I wrapped up White Nights early on in the lockdown! And enormously pleased with it I am.

In a way, programmatic ... the symphony bears the whimsical subtitle Karl's Big (but happily incomplete) Map to the Body

Very nice to read, Karl. 8) Let me ask you, have there been talks about recording some of your music commercially? I could imagine some Henningsmusik on Naxos for example.

Karl Henning

A month-ish ago, my mind turned to an old piece, the Square Dance for clarinet quartet (I may actually have a recording of it, which I should scare up (funny to think that I wrote this 18 years ago ... anyway, I composed it back when I was still using Finale. I've found that I do not have either a Finale file of the piece, nor PDFs of the parts.  Happily I did find a PDF of the score, so my "interval" project (between completion of the band symphony and getting to work on the Kerouac piece) has been to recreate the score in Sibelius.  I am enormously happy with the piece, so I am not changing a thing. As the piece takes its twists and turns, I am joying in the memory of writing it ... the intrusion of various "found object" tunes. I'm about three-quarters done. Downing tools for the night. This was my last instrumental work before I set to work on the ballet.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

krummholz

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 29, 2021, 06:26:45 PM
A month-ish ago, my mind turned to an old piece, the Square Dance for clarinet quartet (I may actually have a recording of it, which I should scare up (funny to think that I wrote this 18 years ago ... anyway, I composed it back when I was still using Finale. I've found that I do not have either a Finale file of the piece, nor PDFs of the parts.  Happily I did find a PDF of the score, so my "interval" project (between completion of the band symphony and getting to work on the Kerouac piece) has been to recreate the score in Sibelius.  I am enormously happy with the piece, so I am not changing a thing. As the piece takes its twists and turns, I am joying in the memory of writing it ... the intrusion of various "found object" tunes. I'm about three-quarters done. Downing tools for the night. This was my last instrumental work before I set to work on the ballet.

A *real* clarinet quartet, 4 clarinets, not a clarinet with some other combination of instruments! Looks like a neat piece, looking forward to hearing a recording or demo.

Out of curiosity, Karl, why did you switch from Finale?

aligreto

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on June 29, 2021, 06:26:45 PM
A month-ish ago, my mind turned to an old piece, the Square Dance for clarinet quartet (I may actually have a recording of it, which I should scare up (funny to think that I wrote this 18 years ago ... anyway, I composed it back when I was still using Finale. I've found that I do not have either a Finale file of the piece, nor PDFs of the parts.  Happily I did find a PDF of the score, so my "interval" project (between completion of the band symphony and getting to work on the Kerouac piece) has been to recreate the score in Sibelius.  I am enormously happy with the piece, so I am not changing a thing. As the piece takes its twists and turns, I am joying in the memory of writing it ... the intrusion of various "found object" tunes. I'm about three-quarters done. Downing tools for the night. This was my last instrumental work before I set to work on the ballet.

A trait quite representative of a lot of the music that I have heard from your "pen", Karl - and may I add in a very productive, interesting and entertaining way.

Cato

I just finished my thorough examination Karl's Lungs and find only the healthiest tissue!  In fact, the condition of his Lungs is so healthy it puts many other lungs to shame!

I am most enthusiastic about the flute/alto flute section at the end, especially the alto flute duet with the English horn and then the coda with the flute's soliloquy!

The Square Dance Clarinet Quartet contains an ironic, asymmetrical symmetry, and is another fine example of Karl's  never-a-dull-moment style!
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

- Brian Aherne introducing Rosalind Russell in  My Sister Eileen (1942)

Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

White Nights flashback:

14 years ago today, I began work on the Overture, and sketched the broad structure of the ballet.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

#8374
I have decided to call the Kerouac piece The Orpheus of Lowell, Op. 172 for pf/fl/cl/vc & soprano.  Will nail the text down tomorrow.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

#8375
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on July 04, 2021, 11:21:13 AM
I have decided to call the Kerouac piece The Orpheus of Lowell, Op. 172 for pf/fl/cl/vc & soprano.  Will nail the text down tomorrow.

No, I've nailed the text down today:

The Orpheus of Lowell Op. 172
Seven Choruses and a Sleepy Afterthought
for Soprano, Flute, Clarinet, Cello & Piano

Oh! for an instrument of lemon peel and steel.

XLIII.
Mexico City Bop
I got the huck bop
I got the floogle mock
I got the thiri chiribim
bitchy bitchy bitchy
batch batch
chippely Bop
Noise like that
like fall in off porches
Of Tenement Petersburg Russia Chicago O yay.
When you see,
the trumpet kind, horn
shiny in his hand, raise
it in smoke among heads he bespeaks, elucidates,
explains and drops out,
end of chorus, staring
at the final wall where in Africa the old men petered
out on their own account using their own Immemorial Salvation Mind

SLIPPITY BOP


CCXXVI

There is no Way to lose.
If there was a way,
then, when sun is shining on pond
and I go West, thou East, which one does the true sun
follow?
which one does the true one borrow?
Since neither one is the true one,
there is no true one way.
And the sun is the delusion
Of a way multiplied by two
And multiplied millionfold.
Since there is no Way, no Buddhas,
No Dharmas, no Conceptions,
Only One Ecstasy—
And Right Mindfulness
Is mindfulness that the way is No-Way—
Anyhow Sameway—
Then what am I to do
Beyond writing this instructing Poesy, ride a magic carpet
Of self ecstasy, or wait for death like the children
In the Funeral Street after the black bus has departed—
Or — what?

CCVIII.

Anciently in cities
men have been sitting
in waiting rooms
in the night bloated
with food and alcohol
waiting waiting waiting
as though the city existed not.
They are so old.
They think all alike.
I've seen them die in chairs
Quietly in cities they never planned.
Seen them sing in saloons
For muffled uproars.
Seen men in coffee houses
Shoot the opium cup
With Greeks of Brotherhood. Aztec Pulque Distributors
Rembrandtian city committees
And unions of Masons--
Shoot the sperm cup to me, Jim,
These partitioned Anglo Spanese
Singing sneerers perturbing
You in the background
Are your father's kindly buriers


XXV

Don't worry about death
Once you're there
Because it is trackless
Having no tracks to follow
You will rest where you are
In inside of the essence
But the moment I say essence
I draw that word back
And that remark—essence's
Unspoken, you can't say a word,
essence is the word for the finger
that shows us bright blankness
When we look into the God face
We see radiant irradiation
From middleless center
Of Objectless fire roe-ing
In a fieldstar all its own
Is my own, is your own,
Is not owned by Self-Owner
but found by Self-Loser—
Old Ancient teaching

XVIII.

The bottom of the repository
human mind
The Kingdom of the Mind,
The Kingdom has come.

the only thing you got free,
the Mind
Per Se Williams, the critic and author,
Slept in a rainbow
When he discovered
the perfect accommodation
of Universal Mind
in its active aspect
You'll have a Period of Golden Age
Restitution of Loss
I've had all I can Eat
Revisiting Russet towns
Of long ago
On carpets of bloody sawdust

XC.

I thought I was a phantom, me, myself,
Suffering. One night I saw
my older brother Gerard
Standing over my crib with wild
hair, as if he had just pee-visited the pail
in the hall of snores and headed back for his room
was investigatin the Grail,
Nin & Ma's bedroom,
Who slept in the same bed
and in the crib alongside.
Oily is the moment so
that phantom was my brother
only in the sense that cotton is soft,
Only in the sense that
when you die
you muffle
in your sigh
the thorny hard regret of rocks
of life-belief. I knew,
I hoped, to go be saved.

XIV.

And when they saw me
Rowin my sailin canoe
Across the lake of Dreams
In the Lotus Valley Swamp,
And arrested me
For the size of my heart,
T's' then I decided
'Don't Come Back'
They'll eat your heart alive
Every time.
But there's more blood
I shed
Outa my pumpin heart
At Teotihuacan
And everywhere else
Including Turban Block,
Lookout, Ork—
I got more water
Pissed in the Ocean
As a sailor of the several seasons
Then Sallow's Aphorism
will allow



"It's all the same thing," I heard my voice say in the void that's highly embraceable during sleep.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

#8376
Made a start on the piece for Triad, counting on basically chopping it out.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

An old friend on the Left Coast writes today: I've listened to all three movements [of the Symphony № 2 for Band], and even in MIDI, it's clear that they go from strength to strength. The conclusion is deeply moving (and it helps that MIDI does reasonably well with flute tone), and all of it is gripping. Bravissimo!! I hope your Dartmouth acquaintance will find it irresistible.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

#8378
When, so far (as it were) Score is in C
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Rons_talking

Quote from: steve ridgway on June 27, 2021, 06:05:02 AM
Brilliant - The Nerves is like a classical version of one of my favourite rock groups. Can't wait to hear the full performance. 8)

https://www.youtube.com/v/KOpvM11YVoI

This is the kind of semi-improv-sounding music I really like. Great!