Henning's Headquarters

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

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greg

Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2008, 04:43:45 AM
The Wedding Music
wow, you're actually playing that at a wedding?!
ok, how much for a plane ticket to?......

karlhenning

In this case, I am writing, not playing  :)

(But, I don't write clarinet parts which I cannot play.)

karlhenning

Quote from: GGGGRRREEG on May 25, 2008, 04:48:01 AM
ok, how much for a plane ticket to?......

Now, if you were thinking of coming to the recital in Boston, though . . . JetBlue flies direct to Boston from Ft Myers and Jacksonville.

greg

Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2008, 05:12:18 AM
Now, if you were thinking of coming to the recital in Boston, though . . . JetBlue flies direct to Boston from Ft Myers and Jacksonville.
If I could afford the plane tickets, stay, and actually get days off......
well, one day i should :)

Harry

Quote from: karlhenning on May 23, 2008, 04:34:41 PM
Just as I knew to expect: splendid!

I do have a special fondness for that Magnificat, you know!

Nana brought me up to date, concerning the first performance of your Magnificat. It was a resounding success. The concert started with it, and was again performed at the end of the concert, lots of applause, lots of compliments.
It will again be performed coming Saturday in Groningen, and I will take pictures, and a video recording will be made.
Henning's name is resounding through our parts of the Netherlands. :)

J.Z. Herrenberg

I had been wondering how it went. Good for Karl (and for you, Harry!)
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Harry

Quote from: Jezetha on May 25, 2008, 07:22:04 AM
I had been wondering how it went. Good for Karl (and for you, Harry!)

Thanks, but I did little enough, its Karl's writing, and Nana's choir. :)

karlhenning

Thank you most kindly, Harry; it is a very great pleasure when one's work is so generously received.

Harry

Quote from: karlhenning on May 25, 2008, 07:26:57 AM
Thank you most kindly, Harry; it is a very great pleasure when one's work is so generously received.

They demanded a second hearing of your work, so yes it was received with great enthusiasm!  :)
Nana wrote a Stabat Mater, and a Ave Maria for this concert, haven't seen the score, but Nana is lyrical about them, obviously! :)

karlhenning

Done composing the last of the wedding music!

(No, not quite; there's a hymn-setting yet to write.  But that is for another day.)

Now to get the parts prepared over the coming week . . . .

karlhenning

The entire compliment of instruments for the July Wedding Music is:  organ, clarinet quintet (i.e., clarinet and string quartet) and brass quintet.  Brett very helpfully furnished details of the course of the service/ceremony, especially where music was wanted, rough duration of music required, and even a few remarks on character or instrumentation.  At first the organist was apparently a bit nervous, and quite understandably.  Responsibility for a wedding's music normally rests squarely on the organist's shoulder;  then too, so much of the music prepared for most weddings comes from the same folder of a relatively small sampling of music . . . any organist worth his salt masters all this repertory in a couple of years' time . . . and the idea of having to prepare, from scratch, a substantial amount of music newly written for the occasion (and the composer an unknown to the organist), and that smoldering pile over there in the corner is all that remains of the organist's Comfort Zone : - )  But the restoration of the organist's equanimity was, for me, the work of but a moment . . . .

Apart from, say, an organist's paradigm-shift from "I've already got most of whatever music may be required in my fingers already" to "I've got to learn new music, and I don't have the music yet, nor do I even know yet just how much music I have to learn," such a project is a classic instance of the practical need to harmonize the composer's artistic freedom, with the perfectly natural expectations of music which is suited to the occasion.  What we don't want (neither the composer, nor the bride or groom) is anything on the order of the Pope demanding that Michelangelo explain his decision to include three Christs, a kangaroo and a mariachi band on the canvas of The Last Supper.

Thus, (and even though I didn't compose the numbers in order, see below) I thought of the music's unfolding in roughly these terms:  the music's character starting out in something of a stylistically 'free' vein, reflecting the gradual gathering of the guests from 'the world without';  and gradually adopting a more solemn (though not sombre) tone befitting the beautiful and elevated purpose of the Sacrament of Matrimony;  and at the last a cheerful (though still 'formal') Recessional to send everyone forth into the world in joy over the happy occasion.

Although I did not write the music in 'service order' (apart from getting an early start on the Prelude), it turned out (without having drawn up any 'instrumentation scheme' beforehand) that I composed for different combinations of the instruments (loosely speaking, on the model of, say, Pierrot lunaire and the Quatuor pour la fin du temps) number by number, so there is over the course of the service a built-in timbral variety.

№ 1 :: Prelude (clarinet in A, string quartet, brass quintet, organ)
Written as a kind of gradual crescendo, introducing the instrumental compliment choir by choir, so to speak.  It begins with organ solo, then the brass join.  In a generally minimalist vein, it begins with simple ostinato, the two hands in a kind of canon whose rhythmic patterns are a counterpoint to the metrical framework of 3/2.  There'll be a key change, and a modification of the canonic imitation, so that there is registral and character variety as the piece slowly unfolds.  First the string quartet, and later the clarinet, are introduced very simply, a chord (or in the case of the clarinet, a sustained tone) which adds a layer to a brief moment of the organ-VS.-brass game.  Then, per a suggestion from Brett, there is a passage of energetic organ doodling which then yields to a jaunty clarinet quintet.  This yields in turn to a long-breathed brass chorale, a series of transpositions all of the same pentad (a 'chord progression' which is in fact borrowed from one of the earlier brass-&-organ passages).  At length there is a (transposed and re-scored) return to earlier material which, I think, manages to feel like a new arrival.  The number ends quietly and unassumingly.

№ 2 :: Seating of the Parents (clarinet in A, string quartet, organ)
Rather than thinking in terms of ceremonially finding the parents their seats, I wrote this as at once a sort of 'extension' of the Prelude (tempo and meter are the same;  and the musical materials come in part straight from the Prelude), and yet as a stylistic variation, a playful scherzo perhaps reminiscent of Prokofiev's toccata mode . . . in which, as well as in its instrumentation, it forms a ready contrast to –

№ 3 :: Introitus (brass quintet)
[Brett: The audience should know something is beginning]  Thus, some big, austere brass, which will sound all the more striking as they've sat silent for the past two minutes.  Since there are more-nearly-traditional fanfarish elements in Nos. 4 & 5, I went Stark Modern with this.  Actually, one of those sketches I drew up for the Prelude, but which didn't make it in, was a patch of bustling Hindemithian two-part counterpoint;  I drew this out rhythmically, and (since registrally, it was more a string-or-clarinet thing, originally) split each line between a pair of instruments.  Musically (not thematically) I was thinking on the lines of some trumpet sennets in Shostakovich's music for the Kozintsev King Lear.  At all events, I think it reasonably effective as an attention-getter.

№ 4 :: Processional:  The Bridal Party (string quartet, brass quintet, organ)
A brief fanfare figure, then directly into straightforward (thought, I believe, not banal) procession music.  Eight years ago, I had fun drawing up an original harmonization for the hymn-tune Danby;  this mini-project briefly became almost an idée-fixe of mine, different instrumentations, expanding the solo voice part to a four-part choir arrangement, &c.  Anyway, in poking through old Finale files, I found a different accompaniment I drew up, some forgotten time ago, without making finalized use of it in anything, then;  and, in fact, it was perfectly suited to this new purpose, with the tune adapted to duple meter.

№ 5 :: Processional:  Entrance of the Bride (clarinet in B-flat, string quartet, brass quintet, organ)
This is set off from the Bridal Party Processional by a brief, wispy clarinet solo introduction which echoes one of the melodic notions in № 2 (which, actually, is something of a touching idea, perhaps).  Fanfarish bits here are more elaborate than in № 4;  I composed the processional melody proper, a double-period with phrases of six, five, five and five measures, respectively.  As with № 4, I vary the scoring as the tune returns.

№ 6a :: Psalm
№ 6b :: Alleluia

(Both in unison and unaccompanied.)
Apart from the Prelude, which was a work-in-progress for rather a while, this is the first music composed for the wedding.  I'd actually had the basic idea for the Alleluia at about the time when Brett first 'taped out' the service for me;  not all that surprising, perhaps, since I have had occasion to set the text Alleluia several times in the past, and I like to do something new with it each time.  For the Psalm, I composed a Psalm-tone (probably on the bus ride in to Boston one morning), and then merged text and music.  It is a flexible method of traditional sacred text-setting which I find very apt;  it never stales for me, never deteriorates into mere 'formula'.

№ 7 :: Unity Candle (clarinet in B-flat, string quartet, brass quintet)
Probably for no more cosmic reason than that it followed the Psalm and Alleluia on the page of the outline of the Service from which I was working, this was the second number completed.  I wonder if I omitted the organ from the scoring simply because I was thinking 'no organ' from the unaccompanied service-music of № 6;  as it turned out, though, I think that reserving the organ's return for the Recessional works very nicely.  Here, I just turned my hand to trying to write a sweetly gracious melody and bass-line;  and when I had these shaped to my liking, adding an inner voice or two, one of them at times gently florid.  The writing is thus quite simple, with lots of doublings;  and the contrasting middle section began as a clarinet-&-trumpets trio, for the simple reason that timbrally I had decided to leave them out from the A section.

[ When I was playing back the music (via MIDI, of course) to my wife and mom-in-law, they liked everything, to my great pleasure;  it was the Entrance of the Bride and the Unity Candle which they especially liked, though.  What above all was gratifying, was to hear my wife say, "Too bad we couldn't have you write music for our wedding" . . . because part of my preparing to write the several numbers of this piece, was reflecting on the hypothetical question, If this were my wedding, what music would I write, to touch my bride at this uniquely solemn moment? ]

№ 8 :: Recessional (clarinet in B-flat, string quartet, brass quintet, organ)
Here I wanted cheerful and lively music, with sprightly antiphonal call-&-answer of phrases, and with some fluidity of phrase-length as part of the rhythmic liveliness of the piece.

Actually, there does remain one bit of service-music yet to write, a strophic hymn-setting.  The groom is necessarily busy with many tasks preparing for the Big Day, but sometime soon he is to advise me of the text . . . .

karlhenning

To recapitulate:  I set out this year with three compositional goals: 1.  To complete the St John's Passion (which I had begun writing last summer, and for which there was the performance opportunity in March);  2.  To complete the music for Brett's wedding (complete rather than start; Brett and I had gotten the conversation going on this back in September);  3.  To complete, at last, White Nights.

So, with 1. and 2. accomplished before the end of 1H08 (and clocking in together at a bit more than 70 minutes of music), it does not seem at all unreasonable to manage the 20-25 minutes of music yet to compose, so that the ballet will at last see completion by the end of 2008.

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: karlhenning on May 28, 2008, 09:55:57 AM
What we don’t want (neither the composer, nor the bride or groom) is anything on the order of the Pope demanding that Michelangelo explain his decision to include three Christs, a kangaroo and a mariachi band on the canvas of The Last Supper.

;D

Will someone record your Wedding Music?
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Harry

Quote from: karlhenning on May 28, 2008, 09:57:43 AM
To recapitulate:  I set out this year with three compositional goals: 1.  To complete the St John's Passion (which I had begun writing last summer, and for which there was the performance opportunity in March);  2.  To complete the music for Brett's wedding (complete rather than start; Brett and I had gotten the conversation going on this back in September);  3.  To complete, at last, White Nights.

So, with 1. and 2. accomplished before the end of 1H08 (and clocking in together at a bit more than 70 minutes of music), it does not seem at all unreasonable to manage the 20-25 minutes of music yet to compose, so that the ballet will at last see completion by the end of 2008.

Send me the St John passion, and I will try to program it with a choir as soon as I can.
Just send it.

Catison

Quote from: Jezetha on May 28, 2008, 10:42:16 AM
;D

Will someone record your Wedding Music?

I would definitely like to, but I have to clear it with the musicians, who will be professional, and the church and organist.  And if I can, I will definitely put the event on YouTube.

Its going to be awesome.

Now to that hymn...
-Brett

Catison

And let me add that I had been taking a small break from the forum to concentrate on work.  What a pleasant surprise to find your post here.  I really enjoyed reading your notes Karl.  If it would be possible, I would like to include something in the program about your thoughts on the music.  I am sure there will be many people who would love to read about the music, and then there will be others who will need some help figuring out what we are doing.

Listening to the Prelude now.  Your music keeps growing on me.  I have to admit that at first I didn't know exactly what to think, but now I am quite sure it is exactly what the bride and I want, and that is all that should matter.  If anything, we are having a live blue grass band during the reception, so if they don't like the music, it's their fault!
-Brett

J.Z. Herrenberg

Quote from: Catison on May 30, 2008, 09:20:40 PM
I would definitely like to, but I have to clear it with the musicians, who will be professional, and the church and organist.  And if I can, I will definitely put the event on YouTube.

Its going to be awesome.

Now to that hymn...

I hadn't realized it was your wedding, Catison... So, a bit belatedly - Congratulations! I hope you and your bride-to-be will have a day to remember.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

greg

Quote from: Jezetha on May 30, 2008, 11:11:35 PM
I hadn't realized it was your wedding, Catison... So, a bit belatedly - Congratulations! I hope you and your bride-to-be will have a day to remember.
Same here.... didn't realize it was Catison's wedding (and Congratulations!)

Catison

Quote from: Jezetha on May 30, 2008, 11:11:35 PM
I hadn't realized it was your wedding, Catison... So, a bit belatedly - Congratulations! I hope you and your bride-to-be will have a day to remember.

Thanks for the good wishes.  We are at the tail end of wedding planning, and everything is coming together.  Working with Karl has been awesome.  Honestly, the idea of him composing music for our wedding was one of my first thoughts I had when I decided I was going to propose.
-Brett

karlhenning

Quote from: Harry on May 25, 2008, 07:18:52 AM
Nana brought me up to date, concerning the first performance of your Magnificat. It was a resounding success. The concert started with it, and was again performed at the end of the concert, lots of applause, lots of compliments.
It will again be performed coming Saturday in Groningen, and I will take pictures, and a video recording will be made.
Henning's name is resounding through our parts of the Netherlands. :)


How did the choir do last night, Harry?  Was the program well received?