Henning's Headquarters

[Karl Henning]

And I found the Josipovici!

[Karl Henning]

Orlando likes it!

I love this duo!  I am hoping to have a chance to play it with another flutist soon so that you may have a non-midi recording, because I think the timbral plays will sound so much better with regular instruments than the computer; also, did you imagine this antiphonally?  The counterpoint will be much more effective if we separate the flutes, even just a little bit (not necessarily across the room, but only a few feet on the stage).

I have already sent the other part to a student of mine who goes to Longy, and I hope that by mid September we can start working on it. How does that sound?

Thanks so, so very much for writing this!

[Karl Henning]

It's not what I should be writing this week.  But the idea came to me today, and I wanted to get a start, as a sort of bookmark.  Tell you its story tomorrow.

[Karl Henning]

Another part of the story I shall unfold tomorrow . . . and similarly, just wanted to record the opening as a bookmark.  Because, really, of course, Admee calleth, and she is sore impatient with me . . . .

[Karl Henning]

It's not what I should be writing this week.  But the idea came to me today, and I wanted to get a start, as a sort of bookmark.  Tell you its story tomorrow.

A tale sufficiently involved, that I thought: Why not just spill my guts on the blog?

I went to the woods, because I had a musical problem in need of a solution.

[Karl Henning]

Two pieces of light news:

Kirstin, the cellist for whom I wrote ... illa existimans quia hortulanus esset ...., wrote today to explain that the greatest reason why the piece did not get performed this past April (when I thought it might) is, that Vytas (the pianist) was unavailable most of the year.  So she will take a fresh gander at the piece.

[Karl Henning]

Big news (in a small way):  my publisher advises me that we've just sold a performance set of Out in the Sun to a university in Oregon!

. . . and, it turns out that this order is from Rodney Dorsey, the conductor who did Out in the Sun in Michigan;  the piece is on his first concert this fall.

How I learnt this is, I reached out to him to ask if In the Artist's Studio might be of interest to him;  and he has permitted me to send him the score.  We shall see how someone In the Field reacts to this baby!

[Karl Henning]

Because I was asked:

[Karl Henning]

Pending confirmation . . . I think this may be the event for Out in the Sun on (near, anyway) the West Coast.

[Karl Henning]

Dan Meyers's frame drum was such an apt addition for the adaptation of Le tombeau de W.A.G., I think I must add it as an optional addition to the original low brass trio.

More progress on the soprano monodrama, on this morning's bus ride;  I am close to sloughing off the sloth . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Some more

[Karl Henning]

I think I've reached the point where my subconscious musical mind is done fencing . . . .

[Cato]

Some more

From a Pit in the  Cave of the Cloud: if you have perused the score, note how the rhythmic complexities mirror the unease and verbal irregularities in the text.  Page 1 gives ample examples.

The accompaniment on bar 10 on the word "encased" portrays the sound of psychological claustrophobia.  Bars 33-34 on "vile ways" is especially striking.  And I have mentioned this before in connection to Karl's works: the use of silence as a structural element.  The fermatas add a certain eeriness to a musical atmosphere already hollow and other-worldly.

[Karl Henning]

Thanks!  This weekend is the Grand Push for the Op.129, so that I have a nearly-done artifact to share with (all the musicians, really, but especially with) the singer.  The chanteuse.

In other news, our man at NEC's Spaulding Library has helped me locate a P.D. version of "I Want Jesus to Walk With Me," so (later this year) I can make certain that my arrangement does not point at all to Wm Farley Smith's copyright version.

[Scion7]

Herr Henning?

I bring a message from an anonymous patron. 
I am here to requisition a Sonata for Clarinet, Bassoon, and Contra-bass Clarinet, for a man who deserved one, but never got it. 
You will be well-paid.

Do you accept?

(jingle! jingle! $)   

[Karl Henning]

Are you in earnest?

[Karl Henning]

Just as a pre-breakfast musical warm-up, I've done the arrangement I promised Joe Broom of the Little Suite, for euphonium (Op.127d)

[Cato]

Are you in earnest?

Herr Henning?

I bring a message from an anonymous patron. 
I am here to requisition a Sonata for Clarinet, Bassoon, and Contra-bass Clarinet, for a man who deserved one, but never got it. 
You will be well-paid.

Do you accept?

(jingle! jingle! $)   

I hope this is no joke!  Such a sonata would be great! 

[Scion7]

RE: "Are you in earnest?"

No, I'm in Amadeus. 



BUT ..... if you want to compose for such a trio of woodwinds,
that would rock.   

[Karl Henning]

RE: "Are you in earnest?"

No, I'm in Amadeus. 

That was my first guess;  but if you had been in earnest, I didn't like to dismiss it as a joke.

BUT ..... if you want to compose for such a trio of woodwinds,
that would rock.   

If you've got the players, I'll write the piece.