Henning's Headquarters

[karlhenning]

In any case, maybe you should follow Brahms example and declare that your viola sonata may be played on clarinet.  That would at least allow you to switch your midi player from viola mode to clarinet mode, which would produce a more sane realization of the music.

Even apart from the pizzicato passages (including some triple- and quadruple-stops . . . which will be rolled, of course — only one 'misrepresentation' by the MIDI) the solo part would have to be recomposed to a degree, in order to be made idiomatic for the clarinet.

That's a thought, really!  Though it may only suit this first movement;  I have some passages in mind for the subsequent movements which won't much translate to the clarinet.

[karlhenning]

The MIDI viola is particularly vexatious from the 3:30 mark, meseems.

[Cato]

Charles Demuth: I Saw The Number 5 In Gold

Listening mentally to Karl's Fair Warning score, I was struck by the use of "5" throughout the score, both overtly and subtly.  Whether Karl used 5 intuitively or deliberately, or deliberately at first and then it became intuitive does not really matter.  The score itself proves it, and I find the work mystically intriguing in sound, and not just because of the 5's.

For those of you with the score, see e.g. the opening bar with a 5 for 4 figuration in the viola.  The composer gives you "fair warning" that 5 will be a key to holding the piece together.  A good number of bars in 5/8 or 5/16 time also show the use of 5 as an element. 

For "subtle examples" see bar 6, where 4 short chords lead to the 5th and single note of A in the next bar, thereby emphasizing the importance of the half-note  A, and also note bar 9, where there are 5 beats spread out between the viola and piano, 4 using the note F either singly or with the notes E and G, and one on a Gb.

See also the piano part in 35 through 37, where 5 16th notes ascend three times through the music, beginning in the bass.  The viola picks up this 5-note scale in bar 39, where the piano also has a 5-figure appoggiatura in 32-nd notes.

Other examples: Bar 127 has a 4-note cluster in the piano of B C# E F# while the viola plays a 5th note of A.  Bar 219: the piano holds 5 notes, while the viola plays a triplet and a duplet.

Once you recognize this, the danger is that you will start to find 5's everywhere, even where they are not!     

So   (you knew this was coming   0:)  )  high 5's        to Karl for the opening movement of Fair Warning!

[karlhenning]

: )

[Scarpia]

including some triple- and quadruple-stops

They say Coltrane could play tone clusters on an alto Sax.  Shouldn't be a problem on clarinet.   

[Sergeant Rock]

They say Coltrane could play tone clusters on an alto Sax.  Shouldn't be a problem on clarinet.   

You're right. Even beginning clarniet students squawk out tone clusters...automatically 

Sarge

[DavidRoss]

MIDI of Fair Warning, the first movement of the viola sonata.

I like it.  I like the momentum and how it occasionally verges on some sort of deconstructed boogie.  The midi "viola" lacks the essential sense of humor.  I see a very sweet and melodic, rather nostalgic slow movement following, with piano accompanying the singing viola.  Then a raucous mashup for the finale!

[Cato]

I like it.  I like the momentum and how it occasionally verges on some sort of deconstructed boogie.  The midi "viola" lacks the essential sense of humor.  I see a very sweet and melodic, rather nostalgic slow movement following, with piano accompanying the singing viola.  Then a raucous mashup for the finale!

Yes, playfulness abounds, as mentioned (indirectly)  earlier!  I cannot comment on the MIDI version yet, but the viola's Eeyore-ish, tragicomic nature seems a fine foil for the perky piano's clownish attempts to cheer things up. 

Exactly why the viola is so "nostalgic" and why the piano should care is what I find so mysterious, and even religious.   0:)

[karlhenning]

Not sure how melodic the middle movement will shape up . . .the title is guiding me in certain other ways.  "Suspension Bridge" makes me feel rather structural . . . and yet "suspension" (even apart from its Common Practice implications of a certain sort of rhythmically prepared non-chord-tone) seems to me to demand that I create a music which floats more effortlessly than the term structure might suggest.The movement's necessary calm notwithstanding, I see the pitch-world still as (gently) dissonant.  I settled on a symmetrical 'scale' with no perfect octave. How does that work? you may ask.  There is a perfect 15th (or should I say, 15ma?) and from either end the series of intervals is the same, but in the center, no perfect octave.

The scale spelled with C as the "root":

C - D - E - G - A# - B - C# - D - F - Ab - Bb - C

So, because of the 'non-octave' in the center, it is a scale with built-in dissonance, we might say.  Yet, it starts (and ends) with the simplicity of (four notes from) the pentatonic scale.

I've also built a periodic rhythmic pattern which takes 73 measures of 3/2 to play out.

Work continues apace . . . .

[karlhenning]

And you know, having said that . . . what should I do this evening, but write a minute and a quarter of unaccompanied viola line which does indeed, I think, sound tenderly lyrical. (Not in MIDI, no, no.)

So Dave called it! : )

I think this movement will emerge quite naturally.

[karlhenning]

Should have something to show you on Wednesday or Thursday.  If I can get this in shape to send to Dana this weekend, I shall be utterly beside myself.

Looking now for the old file of the beginning of Tango in Boston, which will be the starter for the third movement . . . .

[springrite]

And you know, having said that . . . what should I do this evening, but write a minute and a quarter of unaccompanied viola line which does indeed, I think, sound tenderly lyrical. (Not in MIDI, no, no.)

So Dave called it! : )

I think this movement will emerge quite naturally.

The Emerging Viola

[karlhenning]

Do you know . . . I just found the old Finale file (from 2006) of the start I made on Tango in Boston, and some smart-aleck made the page-headers read, The Viola in Someone's Life.  (This is going to work very nicely . . . all I need do is double the tempo, and I can use the whole sketch . . . on which I shall be able to improve quite nicely.)

[springrite]

Do you know . . . I just found the old Finale file (from 2006) of the start I made on Tango in Boston, and some smart-aleck made the page-headers read, The Viola in Someone's Life.  (This is going to work very nicely . . . all I need do is double the tempo, and I can use the whole sketch . . . on which I shall be able to improve quite nicely.)

Too much a take on Feldman's The Viola in My Life, I am afraid. The Emerging Viola would do nicely. 

[karlhenning]

Oh, agreed. 'Twas just a lark ; )

[Sergeant Rock]

Just listened to Fair Warning for the first time. Thanks for the warning  --it is indeed tough and uncompromising.  It's not what I expected from a Henning piece (I haven't been following its gestation here and came to it blind, so to speak), but I really like it. The movement ends wonderfully too. I can only hope there will be a performance, and a recording, you can share for us. I want to hear it played on real instruments.

Sarge

[karlhenning]

Many thanks, Sarge!

[karlhenning]

I shan't post MIDI of this . . . but here is the opening of Suspension Bridge as I wrote it last night.

[karlhenning]

More progress on the Bridge today:

[karlhenning]

And just for kicks, here attached is the sketch for Tango in Boston as I had left it sometime in 2006.I must suppose that I really did mean it that slow, back then (crotchet = 40).  That's not how I want it today, not how it needs to be for the third movement.  The other thing (or, another thing) is that, of course, the viola is not meant to be silent from m. 54 on.I foresee making changes earlier, in all events . . . but I find that this really has the makings of the fun I crave for the final movement.

MIDI of that unfinished bit of musical business here, at double the tempo, probably where I do want it at this stage.[size=-1][/size]