Henning's Headquarters

[Szykneij]

"For every battle of the warrior is with confused noise, and garments rolled in blood; but this shall be with burning and fuel of fire."

... although Im sure that isn't what the sign is referencing.

[M forever]

And, coincidentally, the Wedding Palace on the banks of the River Neva in St Petersburg where Maria and I were joined in holy matrimony:

Are you sure that was in St.Petersburg? Looks more like Las Vegas to me 

[karlhenning]

Just this morning heard from Steve Hicken, who has received the disc.  He seems pleased with the performance.

[lukeottevanger]

I've just had the immense pleasure of listening to Karl's Passion and I'm simply staggered by it. I've just overloaded Karl's PM box with a series of missives as I ponder on just some of the many and various striking qualities of the  piece, but essentially I think it is a consummately realised, perfectly paced, and above all hauntingly beautiful piece which Karl must be immensely proud of. The large-scale structure is underpinned with the most wonderful sense of harmony and harmonic type, and an ability to slip between these types completely naturally. The spellbinding chorus during the crucifixion is almost unbearable, with its aching augmented intervals, its melismas, its softly droning lower voices - I expected it would be when I first saw the score a few months ago. The restrained and sonorous beauty of the closing pages, though, really only comes home listening to a recording, and again it's bursting with subtle touches - like the soprano/alto doubling on the last page - which passed me by when I read the score but which seem inspired now I hear the music in the flesh. Which puts me to shame somewhat, I feel.

Thanks for sharing this piece, Karl - it's one of the very very few 'pieces-by-a-bloke-I-know-off-the-internet' that I've acquired which is worthy of a much, much greater hearing. Most of the others are by Henning too, FWIW..... 

[Guido]

And where or how might we share in this pleasure?

[karlhenning]

Check PM, Guido

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

The Passion is a beautiful piece. Wringing harmonies. The last section is hypnotic in a Pärt-like way (Fratres sprang to mind). I think you have created a very effective and affecting piece of music.

(Looking at your list of works, Karl, I was fascinated by one work-in-progress for large orchestra, opus 75 - White Nights. Ballet in Four Nights & a Morning. I wonder whether your Wagnerian interest has anything to do with it...)

And now I'm off to bed!

[karlhenning]

Oh, but the ballet is to be performed in a single evening, Johan, not over five days 

Many thanks, gents!

[Lilas Pastia]

Sunday should be ok for me to listen to it. Karl, what structure did you adopt? Can you describe how you have allotted the roles / voices ?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

A few statistics:

Henning, Irreplaceable Doodles, downloaded 20 times

Henning, The Mousetrap, downloaded 23 times

Henning, The Passion according to St John, downloaded 36 times

[karlhenning]

Sunday should be ok for me to listen to it. Karl, what structure did you adopt? Can you describe how you have allotted the roles / voices ?

I owe you an answer, André, only I need a day which is a bit less of a blur than today.  I crave your patience.

[Lilas Pastia]

Your cravings are mine, Karl!

As you have surmised, I want to listen with a modicum of preparation, since there are no proper notes to accompany a download! 

[karlhenning]

For several years, the Good Friday tradition at St Paul's (the Episcopal Cathedral in Boston) has included the choir's singing of an edition (prepared by the prior music director) of a plainchant setting of the St John Passion.  It's nice enough, and was an appropriately solemn musical reflection for that annual occasion.  Apart from the crowd bits (parallel organum with full choir), we always sang it with individual voices for the personages, and of course far the greatest burden rested on the Narrator, a former alto unusually comfortable in the top of her range.  In truth, the whole "lie" of the setting was high-ish (the role of Pilate especially came off as rather a squealey tenor) . . . but, as I say, musically satisfactory.

Without going into the details of the nearly-unqualified disaster which was the performance of this Passion setting the first year of the new music director's tenure — nothing went wrong with it which could not have been avoided by (a) proper rehearsal and (b) assigning the roles to voices suited to the tessitura — this new m.d. took an irrational and irreversible dislike to this lovely traditional Passion setting.  (It apparently has never occurred to that new m.d. that there are things — indeed, that there is much — which he, personally, ought to have done musically otherwise in that experience.)

Anyway, as quondam Interim Choir Director, I did not see any good outcome to a hypothetical attempt to restore that traditional plainchant Passion to the new m.d.'s graces.  So, as then Composer-in-Residence, I essentially seized the opportunity, and suggested to the new m.d. that I compose a new setting, tailored to our choir.

Originally, I had the idea of spare use of some instruments, though mostly for interludes, hardly at all for accompaniment, strictly speaking.  And in fact, I began by composing an instrumental introduction.  But even so, my early thoughts were to basically compose the choral setting, and fit in interludes after;  but before long, I decided on a purely unaccompanied piece.

Another early decision (especially considering how ill-suited the solo voices which the new m.d. had employed in the 'old Passion' were for this musical environment) was that there would be no solo voices;  the whole choir would (for the most part) sing through the whole thing.

At the start, I knew that for the Crucifixion I wanted to write something in the harmonically rich, rhythmically supple vein of my anthem Nuhro;  that much of the text before would be delivered in a plainchant Psalm-tone (something not all that technically removed from the 'old Passion' we had used);  and that I wanted polyphonic-ish passages to break things up from time to time ('wrong-note Monteverdi', if you like).

With that much pre-compositional notion settled, I started by writing an original plainchant Psalm-tone one morning while riding the bus into Boston.  And for probably almost a month, I would chip away at the task of setting the text on the morning commute (including the imitative material for the sections, "I told you that I am he ..." and "Now Simon Peter was standing ...").  When I had gotten a good start on the piece (perhaps a quarter of the text taken care of), I set the piece down to see to other pieces (the Nativity mini-cantata Castelo dos anjos for Tapestry, and the completion of the clarinet/viola duet, The Mousetrap).  This was perhaps late May of 2007

Time and events interposed, and it wound up being some while before I could take up composition again.  My weekly schedule got rather too hectic for me to find musical purchase in order to resume the task;  and a friend (and the unfailing patience and support of my family) made it possible for me to spend a week down in Florida, when I should be at complete liberty to compose, and do nothing else (nothing else obligatory, at any rate).

Honestly, then, I don't really have a clear, conscious bead on how I got from that one-quarter 'torso' of the piece, and the final result.  I flew to Florida, had dinner with my friends, went to bed, woke up the next morning, and got back to work.  There was a lot of work yet to do, and I was not conscious of any 'this is what I'll do at this point in the text . . . and this is what I'll do at this other point . . . .'  Enough time had passed that I simply had to get the piece finished;  I had 'lived with' the text and project long enough that I just felt that I could write it, if I had time to dedicate to the work.  And I wrote;  I just kept writing until I got to the end of the text.  One of my own favorite passages, the Descent from the Cross, I started writing one morning;  but the musical idea for that bit of the text only came to me the evening before.

One amusing post-script to that is:  once I got to the end of the text as my friend at the Cathedral had sent it to me, I realized that the end was missing a few verses.  I had written the double-bar (p. 45 of the score), and I was elated at having finished at last!  And I went for a swim.  But through that blur of delight in the accomplishment, there gradually came the (obvious, it ought to have been, really, as I've sung it God knows how many times) realization that we're supposed to sing a bit more.  I didn't do anything about it right away, since my stay in Florida was about drawn to an end, anyway.  It was a Sunday night when I returned to Boston;  Monday morning I got up, went in to the office, searched the on-line Lectionary, and found my "missing" text.  On the train-ride home that night, I composed the melody to set the text, and over that evening and the next, composed the accompaniment 'underneath' the text.

One thing I should add, especially since I've stated that I composed this setting not for solo voice(s):  in this first performance, we do hear solo voices for most of the rhythmically demanding soprano and alto lines.  It's not what I wanted;  but the music director had not rehearsed this music properly, and then time was running short.  So his "solution" was to let soloists sing.

Ah, well.

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Current statistics:

Henning, Irreplaceable Doodles, downloaded 25 times

Henning, The Mousetrap, downloaded 29 times

Henning, The Passion according to St John, downloaded 44 times

[karlhenning]

And Steve Hicken logs a note of thanks on his blog.

[SonicMan46]

Karl - thanks for alerting me to the downloads of your pieces that Johan has been tracking in recent posts in this thread! 

So far, Irreplaceable Doodles, Op. 89 - mesmerizing w/ the clarinet just floating & caressing the notes - great playing on your part!  Listening via Windows Media Player - the 'visualization' that I was using seem just a perfect combination - 

The Mousetrap, Op. 91 - enjoy the clarinet & viola together; a much longer work - loved the interaction of the two instruments; again, congrats on both of these compositions - my first listenings of Henning's music - 

Passion According to St. John, Op. 92 - coming up next - thanks again for providing these experiences - Dave 

[Wanderer]

I must have missed the announcement or something.
Karl, where can I find the new pieces?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Tasos, YHM.

[karlhenning]

Tasos, I was sure I'd sent you a PM!  Deep apologies for my befuddlement!

[mn dave]

Please, sir. May I have some more?