Henning's Headquarters

[Karl Henning]

Still mulling, but I think that final passage will flow readily, once I set my hand to the spigot, as it were.

[Karl Henning]

Ooh, and I have discovered a smooth, new method of eliding into that already-twice-used material!

[Cato]

Ooh, and I have discovered a smooth, new method of eliding into that already-twice-used material!

Inquiring minds want to hear it! 

Truly it is always fascinating how the unconscious works on problems, and then in that flash we perceive the solution!

[Karl Henning]

And here I think it may be done.

[Karl Henning]

Added the dedication, and I did manage to conflate a couple of the one-system pages.


I have MIDI, but distribution will have to wait until after Symphony tonight!

[Karl Henning]

Fibbed . . . have now made the MIDI available.

[Cato]

Even with the limitations of the MIDI version (the bass on my computer at least is very weak) one can hear the expressive brilliance in the Agnus Dei.

If you can read the score, check especially bars 17-18/34-35 (where, in bar 18, the dissonance dissolves away into a perfect fifth, but then in bar 35, the F# is held to lead into the F# an octave lower in bar 36), bars 45-47 (the silence emphasizing the qui tollis), bars 48-51 (especially the deliciously melancholy chord D-A-Bb-Eb), the octave drop in the bass voice on Bb in bar 55, and then the final bars approaching the last word pacem.

Original, beautiful, and highly expressive of the text's meaning!

[Karl Henning]

Thank you!

[SonicMan46]

Wrong thread - deleted - Dave

[Karl Henning]

Okay!

[SonicMan46]

Sorry Karl - posted in the wrong thread - will put elsewhere! Dave 

[Karl Henning]

No worries! Thanks for the visit

[Cato]

Wrong thread - deleted - Dave

The Bach Boys are not inappropriate for Henning's Headquarters!   0:)

The Beach Boys are also welcome, I'm sure!   

[jochanaan]

...
The Beach Boys are also welcome, I'm sure!   

Especially if they're the sons of Amy Beach.

[Karl Henning]

It's not a big motorcycle, just a groovy little motor bike . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Well, news this morning is actually related to White Nights — the saxophone choir version of the first Intermezzo will get a read-through this Wednesday (and, yes, that means I need to send parts ASAP . . . .)

Nana also writes to acknowledge receipt of the Credo and Agnus Dei.  Very excited about this;  I know it cannot be especially soon, but I think that this may be the best prospect for a performance of the complete Mass.  (To be sure, one reason it cannot be especially soon is, I need yet to compose the Gloria and Sanctus.)

[Karl Henning]

I did get the saxophone parts out . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Peter has a recital with a storied mezzo in March, and needs another piece.  I told him I'd write him one . . . who could resist mezzo accompanied by a baritone saxophone?

Although I still intend to set the text as part of the Cantata (whenever that may happen), I think this will make a splendid text for mezzo and bari:

"The Crystalline Ship" by Leo Schulte

And so the crystalline ship has sailed,
Where you feasted on the soul’s hard bread,
With the winds in league
With the seas calm or gale
The crystalline ship must sail
Somewhere
You rested in the soul’s long bed,
And dreamed you were alive
On the crystalline ship
With the fish and the birds
And the cook in the galley
Sings to her ears
That water is a three-edged sword,
One for the skin and one for the bone
And one for the spirit all alone,
Who is tempted to splash and thrash
The Pacific of your mind’s distress
That the crystalline ship has sailed
Somewhere
You bested the sea and split the shell
With a three-edged sword
Of pain and smiles and a wondering blue,
And now launch a vessel found only in you
Left behind by the crystalline ship.

On our drive to (or, it may have been from) our rehearsal yesterday evening, Peter told me that he mentioned to the mezzo that I might write a piece for their 15 March program, if she be game.  And she be game.

So I started work on the setting this late lunch hour, just getting the voice line going . . . made my way to lines 5/6:

The crystalline ship must sail
Somewhere

As I recall, they need only perhaps 5-6 minutes for this event (I have told Peter that there are more texts for an expanded opus).

Baritone sax . . . I am thinking of judicious, nay lyrical even, use of a multiphonic or two, which in the case of the saxophone can mean more a differently-colored primary pitch, rather than a "chord."  I think I want to get something notated, and then compare notes (!) with Peter while the work is in progress.

[Cato]

Baritone sax . . . I am thinking of judicious, nay lyrical even, use of a multiphonic or two, which in the case of the saxophone can mean more a differently-colored primary pitch, rather than a "chord."  I think I want to get something notated, and then compare notes (!) with Peter while the work is in progress.

Very exciting to be at Karl's elbow while he thinks out loud during the composition!

Experimentalist Bruno Bartolozzi has an example of what is possible for the oboe:

http://www.youtube.com/v/5arWD-rCa7A

[Karl Henning]

Good rehearsal last night with Peter, just my three duos (and just the two of us, corraling the squirrels). And Kevin confirms that the parts for the Intermezzo were received ... cannot wait to hear his report of the initial reading!