Henning's Headquarters

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

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karlhenning

Quote from: D Minor on August 16, 2007, 03:09:30 AM
I've been watching for 2 hours ........... still nothing ..........

Well, I was just sketching some more on the bus this morning, you know . . . .

karlhenning

My Muse bids me work up the Passion setting.

I didn't plan it, but then, you may plan, and your Muse does just as she lists.

Having got the proofing of the Castelo dos Anjos score, and the percussion part, entirely in the can, there is the elation of the Job Done at last.

And the arrival of the Stravinsky box has maddened my ears like wine; these recordings are sounding so good, my enthusiasm for Igor Fyodorovich (which has never been inactive, mind you) has been restored to a pitch I have not experienced since my heady student days when each new Stravinsky score was a delightful discovery.

Of course, my Passion will not be especially Stravinskyan . . . but, howsoever that might be . . . .

As I laid my head on the pillow, musical ideas for the Passion setting came to me. And my sleep last night was unusually restful, so that I was awake at around 4:30, and couldn't go back to sleep (didn't feel in great need to, either) for all the musical thoughts of the Passion.

Ed Broms sent a "pre-season" message out to the St Paul's choir this past weekend, and among the highlights he alerted the choir to, he mentioned my Passion setting (yes, if anyone asks you if it is nice to have a music director who has such respect for your compositional work, you tell him that the adjective "nice" doesn't begin to cover it).  When Ed mentioned that I would be writing this, at one of the last choir rehearsals last season, the choir responded very warmly.

Anyway, this message of Ed's this past weekend 'remindered' me;  and, I don't know, the combination of having wrapped up Castelo, of having my musical mind open to the next fit of inspiration, and not least the earnest welcome from Ed and the choir – I'm just ready to write it.

Since composers such as Arvo Pärt and Ivan Moody have already creatively addressed a "back to the pristine beauty of traditional Orthodox chant" sensibility in their lovely Passion settings, I feel I want to do something a bit otherwise (not otherwise than lovely, I don't mean).  On the opposite end of the spectrum (maybe), the Bach Passions feel from our perspective (perhaps) a bit less like liturgical devotion and a bit more like concert monument (I do not mean by this simplification to cast aspersion on Bach, who was certainly devout, and who wrote the music as devotional).  So my feeling is (and I think this is conditioned not only by the need to suit the St Paul's performing forces, but musically) to use a discreet instrumental accompaniment;  this is also probably something of a seed planted by Liszt's Via Crucis.  There will be plenty of unaccompanied singing, and probably the instruments will never all play at the same time, but I am using viola, Baroque cello, organ and drum;  possibly also some medieval harp;  this will make use of instrumentalists of the choir, and yet will leave a manageable mixed choir to sing.

karlhenning

On consulting with the instrumentalists/fellow choristers, the scoring of the (sparse, discreet, mysterious) accompaniment will be:

Baroque viola
bass viol
harp
organ
djembe

greg

Quote from: karlhenning on August 16, 2007, 07:12:13 AM
On consulting with the instrumentalists/fellow choristers, the scoring of the (sparse, discreet, mysterious) accompaniment will be:

Baroque viola
bass viol
harp
organ
djembe
wow

karlhenning

I wrote Castelo dos Anjos for the group Tapestry.

An example of their music-making (with sound samples) is here: The Fourth River.

I had e-mail from Tapestry this morning, and have just spoken with one of the singers to sort out some details;  and I am very pleased to say that the group like the piece, and will include it in a program they are singing in Denver on 1 Dec 07.  I will post details as I learn them!

karlhenning

The Passion setting has gotten off to a good start, too.  With a little luck, this should go quite smoothly.

Maciek

Quote from: karlhenning on August 21, 2007, 06:36:11 AM
I wrote Castelo dos Anjos for the group Tapestry.

An example of their music-making (with sound samples) is here: The Fourth River.

I had e-mail from Tapestry this morning, and have just spoken with one of the singers to sort out some details;  and I am very pleased to say that the group like the piece, and will include it in a program they are singing in Denver on 1 Dec 07.  I will post details as I learn them!

Great news! 8)

karlhenning

Thanks, Maciek!

Some more work on the Passion on the morning bus ride, and during my lunch break today.

karlhenning

And a bit more work again last night and on the bus this morning.  In general, I am looking for a quiet, 'non-dramatic' declamation of the text (leaving, you might say, the drama in the text).  I've composed a plainchant psalm-tone which I am both employing, and varying, so that it is not simply a matter of "pointing" the text.  Also making use of different styles of four-part writing to highlight different passages (though without 'getting loud' . . . almost I could imagine the entire performance residing at around mezzo-piano).  And lightly punctuating the 'seams' between episodes of the narrative with spare instrumental statements;  as I think of the use of instruments here, I imagine them used so lightly, as almost not to be a presence, serving more to emphasize that it is a choral work.

karlhenning

More work, both on the Passion, and on the clarinet/viola duet I started back in June, The Mousetrap, this weekend.

Cato

Quote from: karlhenning on August 27, 2007, 05:28:57 AM
More work, both on the Passion, and on the clarinet/viola duet I started back in June, The Mousetrap, this weekend.

I missed that last one because of everything happening this summer!

Is Agatha Christie somehow involved?    $:)

Or Tom and Jerry?    0:)
"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

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

karlhenning

Quote from: Cato on August 28, 2007, 03:51:01 AM
Is Agatha Christie somehow involved?    $:)

Or Tom and Jerry?    0:)

Nay. 'Tis a knavish piece of work: but what o' that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not . . . .

karlhenning

Further progress on the Passion in the morning, and on the knavish piece o' work this eventide.

karlhenning

The compositional weave of The Mousetrap is snaring the odd fragment of classics . . . the Royal Theme from the Musical Offering, the accompaniment triplets from the first movement of the Moonlight Sonata, the opening of the Brahms E-flat Major Clarinet (or Viola) Sonata, and other things more recent.

About the first five minutes of the piece are in (what I consider, anyway) very good shape.  My violist is preparing for qualifying exams anyway, so it isn't as though he needs the music to practice just yet.  This and the Passion are pacing very nicely.

Maciek

Quote from: karlhenning on August 28, 2007, 04:05:50 AM
Nay. 'Tis a knavish piece of work: but what o' that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not . . . .

That explains one of the rare film threads you've started, Karl. ;D

Is the piece to be performed in some sort of enacted version then?

karlhenning

Quote from: Maciek on August 30, 2007, 07:45:55 AM
Is the piece to be performed in some sort of enacted version then?

No, it's just a plain piece of musick :-{)

Maciek


Cato

"Meet Miss Ruth Sherwood, from Columbus, Ohio, the Middle of the Universe!"

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

karlhenning

I cannot take credit for it.  While I don't have any source that I took it directly from today, I feel sure I've seen it around somewhere.

Pretty much unlike The Mousetrap, the sources of whose quirky borrowings are a matter of public musical record  8)

karlhenning

A violinist in town has kindly expressed interest in a violin version of Irreplaceable Doodles, which involves among other things a judicious transposition.  I've finished the initial draught of this adaptation today.