Many decades ago, I composed a ballet for 9 harpsichords (amplified occasionally), a choir of flutes from piccolo to bass flute, a choir of oboes from musette to heckelphone, a choir of clarinets from Eb to bass, 4 krummhorns, 9 trombones, strings, and percussion, and one solo bass voice with a mixed choir. 8)
It was called Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools) and described a story of an outbreak of dancing mania in a medieval town. The hysteria spreads to other areas, and the officials of the towns decide to place all the dancers onto a ship and transport them down the Rhine, where they end up at Cologne in front of the cathedral. As the dancing becomes nearly orgiastic, the archbishop of Cologne performs an exorcism (he is the bass voice) and the demons (i.e. the choir) are returned to Hell, as the dancers collapse from exhaustion.
The opening scene had the 9 harpsichords clattering down assorted 9-tone scales, accompanied by the woodwind choirs in syncopation, while the strings played a stridently angular 27-bar theme which struggled upward, joined by the trombones in nonuple counterpoint, when the woodwinds start swirling in 32nd-notes.
And then the percussion crashed into action! 0:)
There were 9 scenes. The score no longer exists, because I destroyed almost all of my music long ago, after I decided I did not want to be a composer. (Karl Henning has a copy of my Second Tuba Concerto, a non-microtonal work. Or at least, he used to! Possibly he destroyed it to protect humanity's future! ;) )
Anyway, I wondered if anyone might be interested in proposing a musical composition of any kind, with a description of the orchestra and what it would sound like, if anyone ever composed it. Or, if for a solo work, what might be involved.
Quote from: Cato on April 28, 2015, 01:10:53 PMThe score no longer exists, because I destroyed almost all of my music long ago, after I decided I did not want to be a composer.
Of everything you wrote, Cato, this is what stuck out the most to me. It's sad that you felt compelled to destroy all of your music. Even if you didn't want to be a composer any longer, it still would have been nice to hear what your music sounded like.
Quote from: Cato on April 28, 2015, 01:10:53 PM
Anyway, I wondered if anyone might be interested in proposing a musical composition of any kind, with a description of the orchestra and what it would sound like, if anyone ever composed it. Or, if for a solo work, what might be involved.
In 2006 in Australia I was in a building where some sort of inner piping/ductwork was creating two loud musical tones, a D and a C, in constant but very slow alternation: DC, DC, DC, DC, DC. Sounded sort of like trombones and French horns. So I spent the next hour mentally composing a fantasy, for extremely large Mahlerian orchestra, starting with trombones and horns quietly playing whole note D, then C, etc., and spinning off in all sorts of wild directions. I think I challenged myself to incorporate a big, nonsensical key change every five minutes.
My first string quartet piece involved an increasingly sensual theme-and-variations on Schubert's "Ave Maria" in the tempo of
tango.
Quote from: Mirror Image on April 28, 2015, 01:15:30 PM
Of everything you wrote, Cato, this is what stuck out the most to me. It's sad that you felt compelled to destroy all of your music. Even if you didn't want to be a composer any longer, it still would have been nice to hear what your music sounded like.
There is a tape of a quarter-tone piece played on a primitive Apple computer-synthesizer from the middle 1980's. Maybe I will discover how to transfer it to a digital file. Every note had to be separately programmed! 8)
From the archives (2007):
QuoteCato:
I have mentioned throughout the years here that I used to compose music, usually with exotic scales, sometimes utilizing a quarter-tone system, but gave it up decades ago, and not without a little regret. Somebody asked me why, and I said I would eventually respond, and today, while writing about Glazunov, I decided to clarify.
"Something in him holds him back" was Tchaikovsky's famous comment about Glazunov.
I could tell you that the hours needed alone for composition were not conducive to endearing me to my girlfriend and later my wife: she knew about my composing talent, but did not always comprehend it.
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
I could tell you that the frustration involved in dealing with musicians/professors/directors etc. was immense: promises of performances, promises and flattery, all leading nowhere. (I could write a novel about the trials and terror of working with a certain famous and duplicitous tubist on a quarter-tone tuba concerto! But I digress!)
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
The realization that what interested me the most - microtonalism - was still going to be a tiny niche market, was always balanced by the hope of a breakthrough. But that breakthrough never came, especially when I witnessed the rebirth of the neo-conservative movements of Minimalism and Neo-Romanticism.
That is partially involved in giving up composition.
But in the end here is what ended it: I realized that, when I heard my music, I did not want my personality, my soul, if you can abide the term, so openly exposed for public examination. When the few performances occurred, I realized that the experience was so private, that I could not feel anything but embarrassment, as if I were confessing my sins over a loudspeaker.
My best friend at the time remarked, after hearing one of the quarter-tone works: "Okay, that will be evidence at your commitment hearing!"
He was only half joking!
"Something in him holds him back."
In my case I turned away from the desire to compose because - oddly, when I finally succeeded in having a few things performed - I knew I did not want people to hear my music!
Probably the feeling is mutual in many cases! 8)
So I wonder if Glazunov and other second-rank composers were perhaps held back not by a lack of talent, but by an emotional reticence, which compelled them to compose only "surface pieces" and prevented them from creating e.g. a Schumann Second Symphony , or a Mahler or Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony.
Quote from: Brian on April 28, 2015, 01:35:51 PM
In 2006 in Australia I was in a building where some sort of inner piping/ductwork was creating two loud musical tones, a D and a C, in constant but very slow alternation: DC, DC, DC, DC, DC. Sounded sort of like trombones and French horns. So I spent the next hour mentally composing a fantasy, for extremely large Mahlerian orchestra, starting with trombones and horns quietly playing whole note D, then C, etc., and spinning off in all sorts of wild directions. I think I challenged myself to incorporate a big, nonsensical key change every five minutes.
My first string quartet piece involved an increasingly sensual theme-and-variations on Schubert's "Ave Maria" in the tempo of tango.
Well, why not use a 5-minute key change as a structural device?! And the latter has potential as well!
"So I wonder if Glazunov and other second-rank composers were perhaps held back not by a lack of talent, but by an emotional reticence, which compelled them to compose only "surface pieces" and prevented them from creating e.g. a Schumann Second Symphony , or a Mahler or Tchaikovsky Sixth Symphony."
It is a difficult thing to open one's soul. Yet, this is absolutely necessary, not only to compose well, but to perform well. I open my heart every time I get up to play; physical nakedness is relatively easy! :o But what I find is that the more I open up, the more others respond.
Quote from: Brian on April 28, 2015, 01:35:51 PM
two loud musical tones, a D and a C, in constant but very slow alternation: DC, DC, DC, DC, DC.
Byrd's
The Bells is based on just that.
The most detailed and tantalising fictitious œuvre that I know of is the works of Adrian Leverkuhn in Mann's
Doktor Faustus - from the early impressionistic symphonic poem
Meerleuchten to the great oratorio
Apocalypsis cum Figuris and the final, unfinished
Doktor Fausti Weheklag, during the composition of which he is overcome by insanity - or has the devil returned to claim his side of the bargain?
Quote from: jochanaan on April 30, 2015, 10:40:36 AM
It is a difficult thing to open one's soul. Yet, this is absolutely necessary, not only to compose well, but to perform well. I open my heart every time I get up to play; physical nakedness is relatively easy! :o But what I find is that the more I open up, the more others respond.
Very nice: I find it easier to stay in the background of my fictional characters, and always have the possibility of saying that I am not describing anything in me, but describing Life! ;)
Quote from: DaveF on April 30, 2015, 12:37:14 PM
The most detailed and tantalising fictitious œuvre that I know of is the works of Adrian Leverkuhn in Mann's Doktor Faustus - from the early impressionistic symphonic poem Meerleuchten to the great oratorio Apocalypsis cum Figuris and the final, unfinished Doktor Fausti Weheklag, during the composition of which he is overcome by insanity - or has the devil returned to claim his side of the bargain?
Yes, excellent example! Let me recommend that book to everyone: although
Leverkuehn seems connected to
Schoenberg, he is much more connected to Nietzsche, Martin Luther, and others in a pastiche of German archetypes.
Connected to this is a (unfortunately not very interesting) novel called
Tenth which imagines
Leverkuehn to be a symphonist with an unfinished Tenth Symphony. Macdonald Harris was the author. He apparently did not know much about music, and the description of the mysterious manuscript keeps it in a "Macguffin" category.
Quote from: Cato on May 01, 2015, 01:10:33 PM
Let me recommend that book to everyone: although Leverkuehn seems connected to Schoenberg, he is much more connected to Nietzsche, Martin Luther, and others in a pastiche of German archetypes.
Connected to this is a (unfortunately not very interesting) novel called Tenth which imagines Leverkuehn to be a symphonist with an unfinished Tenth Symphony. Macdonald Harris was the author. He apparently did not know much about music, and the description of the mysterious manuscript keeps it in a "Macguffin" category.
Yes, highly recommended - although probably the densest and least readable of Mann's books. (And apologies to Leverkühn for missing his umlaut - I'll report to the Grammar thread forthwith.)
It's sad, but I suppose inevitable, that a lot of very good novelists don't write very well about music, I suppose because being a novelist is a full-time job without also being a musician. A lightly-fictionalised Constant Lambert is a major character in Anthony Powell's
Time novels ("Hugh Morland"), but the musical side of his life never seems, to me, to come to life. Something I haven't read is Rolland's
Jean Christophe series (no excuse as it's on Gutenberg) - can anyone recommend, or otherwise?
A good cinematic portrayal of a composer is Hermann Simon in Edgar Reitz's
Heimat films - more Stockhausen than Schoenberg here - although a lot of his music does actually exist, composed rather convincingly by Nikos Mamangakis.
Quote from: DaveF on May 02, 2015, 12:19:37 AM
Yes, highly recommended - although probably the densest and least readable of Mann's books. (And apologies to Leverkühn for missing his umlaut - I'll report to the Grammar thread forthwith.)
Heh-heh! Have you gotten through the
Joseph tetralogy? ;)
My Macintosh easily allowed me to add umlauts: with my present junk from "Acer" it is just one more hassle!
Quote from: DaveF on May 02, 2015, 12:19:37 AM
Something I haven't read is Rolland's Jean Christophe series (no excuse as it's on Gutenberg) - can anyone recommend, or otherwise?
What a coincidence! I just started reading
Jean Christophe but have not yet hit the composing sections.
"Bowed" (?), an opera for soprano and violin solo (without orchestra). Perons are violin player and his wife.
Quote from: DaveF on May 02, 2015, 12:19:37 AM
Something I haven't read is Rolland's Jean Christophe series (no excuse as it's on Gutenberg) - can anyone recommend, or otherwise?
Of all the classical books I have read, and I'm trying to read all the most important of them, this one is the only (exactly!) I have found a real waste of time because of emptiness of the words and the thoughts.
Quote from: mszczuj on May 02, 2015, 08:52:29 PM
Of all the classical books I have read, and I'm trying to read all the most important of them, this one is the only (exactly!) I have found a real waste of time because of emptiness of the words and the thoughts.
Wow! Austrian author
Stefan Zweig found the series to be one of the best things in his era, and thought most highly of
Rolland. I have not yet read enough to make a decision.
Quote from: Cato on May 03, 2015, 04:05:26 PM
Wow! Austrian author Stefan Zweig found the series to be one of the best things in his era, and thought most highly of Rolland. I have not yet read enough to make a decision.
This is without any doubts literature of the best intensions. And the most solemn declarations.
Quote from: mszczuj on May 04, 2015, 10:44:04 AM
This is without any doubts literature of the best intensions.
Isn't that what the road to literary Hell is paved with? 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on May 04, 2015, 10:48:58 AM
Isn't that what the road to literary Hell is paved with? 8)
Oh yes! And the comments from our colleague above really has me intrigued now!
Today I recalled that
Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged features a kind of
Rachmaninoff character: he composes Piano Concertos, and had a failed First Symphony. As I recall, the musical description of the style is very vague.
Somebody has found the music which supposedly sounds like what
Rand had in mind:
https://www.youtube.com/v/nI5ifOzLEm8
Check yer PM, Cato! :)
Writing a note to Karl Henning recently jogged my memory about another work, which I intended to compose, but never did.
In my head for a long time was a desire to compose a group of dances - in my quarter-tone style - called The Martian Dances.
One of the motivations was to use 17-tone and 19-tone scales of various kinds which, depending where one inserted the quarter-tones, would create new "modes." Another motivation was to have a style of dance where the weaker gravity of Mars would be a factor: leaps could be higher, descents would be slower, spins faster, dancers would linger at an apex longer, or stay motionless on one foot longer, etc.
I thought a good number of quarter-tone percussion instruments could be built: marimbas, xylophones, vibraphones, and I was not against using a synthesizer like the Motorola Scalatron. 8)
Also: 9 trombones and strings, along with 9 quarter-tone recorders. ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
Quote from: Cato on May 11, 2015, 06:35:40 AM
Writing a note to Karl Henning recently jogged my memory about another work, which I intended to compose, but never did.
In my head for a long time was a desire to compose a group of dances - in my quarter-tone style - called The Martian Dances.
One of the motivations was to use 17-tone and 19-tone scales of various kinds which, depending where one inserted the quarter-tones, would create new "modes." Another motivation was to have a style of dance where the weaker gravity of Mars would be a factor: leaps could be higher, descents would be slower, spins faster, dancers would linger at an apex longer, or stay motionless on one foot longer, etc.
I thought a good number of quarter-tone percussion instruments could be built: marimbas, xylophones, vibraphones, and I was not against using a synthesizer like the Motorola Scalatron. 8)
Also: 9 trombones and strings, along with 9 quarter-tone recorders. ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
Addendum: the time signatures would have seemed to be presages of
Ferneyhough: 7/8 + 1/32 and so on.
The dances were supposed to be from another planet ;)after all!
Quote from: Cato on May 11, 2015, 06:35:40 AM
9 quarter-tone recorders. ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
Bah - you should have said a few years ago when my son was still in primary school - his recorder group would have played it note-perfect.
Quote from: DaveF on May 14, 2015, 01:53:08 PM
Bah - you should have said a few years ago when my son was still in primary school - his recorder group would have played it note-perfect.
8) School concerts can be very interesting from the view of a microtonalist!
Quote from: Cato on May 15, 2015, 07:12:38 AM
8) School concerts can be very interesting from the view of a microtonalist!
Hah!
As anyone who has read my thread, and especially the last few pages of it (which chart months and years of failed hopes and dreams :( ;D ) I've got a whole catalogue of these uncomposed works. I hesitate to describe them because in many cases I still intend to compose them. Titles include White Modulations and Man In His Cosmic Loneliness (Brianites, prick up your ears!). I can safely mention one which was to be called Attis - it was to be a kind of virtual flute concerto, written as if for 'real' instruments but without regard for what is physically possible, and played back through the dubious magic of MIDI - because I have no wish to finish that one.
In case I never get to write it IRL I have 'used' one of them - called ...green hills, far away... - in the book I'm currently writing, whose main character is a composer called Edward Arundel. 'Arundel' has a whole back catalogue of compositions which I specifically invented for the book, though, among which are a couple I might try my hand at myself, too, including one which would be called A Catalogue of Bird's. The magnum opus he is writing when the book starts, though, is not one I have any plans to attempt myself, and is in a way the most conceptual of them all. He keeps the piano he was given by his ex-wife in the forest outside his house, and he improvises/composes on it every day as a kind of diary (the improvisations then worked up into symphonic form). The instrument gradually decomposes until it rots into nothingness, and therefore the music he composes becomes a kind of record of the death of the love which haunts him... (I'm aware of Ross Bolleter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_Bolleter) and WARPS (http://corms30.wix.com/warpsmusic), but I don't think the idea in my book comes directly from there - I've always loved the idea of a piano in decay...)
Quote from: Luke on May 16, 2015, 10:52:42 AM
...In case I never get to write it IRL I have 'used' one of them - called ...green hills, far away... - in the book I'm currently writing, whose main character is a composer called Edward Arundel. 'Arundel' has a whole back catalogue of compositions which I specifically invented for the book, though, among which are a couple I might try my hand at myself, too, including one which would be called A Catalogue of Bird's....
Arundel? Wasn't that the last name of an associate of Sir Thomas Beecham? ???
I hadn't heard of that. Googling 'Thomas Beecham Arundel' doesn't turn up anything, but you might be right. My Arundel is an English composer living in Scotland (on Skye, in fact), and the name was chosen just to subtly suggest his 'southernness' (Arundel being a very English town with a very English castle (http://www.arundelcastle.org/) in the south of England).
Quote from: jochanaan on May 19, 2015, 10:06:20 AM
Arundel? Wasn't that the last name of an associate of Sir Thomas Beecham? ???
There is a reference to the Earl of Arundel, but I cannot find a thing about Beecham knowing somebody by that name:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Arundel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_of_Arundel)
Arundel's Dirndl
Quote from: karlhenning on May 19, 2015, 10:42:43 AM
Arundel's Dirndl
Sounds like a title for bagpipes and oom-pa-pa band! ;)
Perhaps it would be better to keep that idea at the "conceptual" level! 0:)
Och! Aye!
I just placed this on the
Penderecki topic:
Quote(Richard Whitehouse, in Naxos' program booklet, noted that "though a 'No. 6' had been fully worked out in concept, it had not yet been written." Penderecki completed his Eighth Symphony in 2005, but at that time, the Sixth had still not appeared.)
The comment and the discussion of the religious aspects of the Seventh Symphony reminded me of another work which I had planned and even had a few parts sketched out:
Baumdom or
Cathedral of Trees.The idea was a liturgy for forest animals, with a squirrel as a chattering, chanting priest, a chorus of birds, and assorted soloists. The liturgy was in Latin with texts by the composer. The vocal lines were - so to speak - eccentric. (Alvin and Company were not involved! ;) )
Orchestration included a choir of flutes from bass flute to piccolo, choir of clarinets bass to Eb, marimbas, xylophones, 2 pianos, strings, and 5 celestas and tubular bells.
An idea I keep going back to from time to time is to write an Earth movement for The Planets. It keeps expanding to become a suite in its own right. Thankfully, Holst gave me plenty of orchestra to play with.
Quote from: Maestro267 on August 01, 2015, 11:09:25 AM
An idea I keep going back to from time to time is to write an Earth movement for The Planets. It keeps expanding to become a suite in its own right. Thankfully, Holst gave me plenty of orchestra to play with.
:D
I believe somebody has written a Pluto movement.
https://www.youtube.com/v/N_v8G0fo4Ws
Quote from: Cato on August 01, 2015, 11:38:36 AM
:D
I believe somebody has written a Pluto movement.
Yes. I have a recording of The Planets including Colin Matthews' "Pluto, the Renewer".
Quote from: jochanaan on April 30, 2015, 10:40:36 AM
It is a difficult thing to open one's soul. Yet, this is absolutely necessary, not only to compose well, but to perform well. I open my heart every time I get up to play; physical nakedness is relatively easy! :o But what I find is that the more I open up, the more others respond.
All music is perhaps a tension and play between that opening up and the closing up of the restrictions of style/convention/genre, and maybe that is inevitable.
Quote from: starrynight on August 02, 2015, 12:32:54 PM
All music is perhaps a tension and play between that opening up and the closing up of the restrictions of style/convention/genre, and maybe that is inevitable.
Yes, those elements are certainly present, or can be. That the form is a way to open and close off the expression of the (un)conscious is also a possibility.
Before I planned the work described above (
Cathedral of Trees), I had seen two rows of tall trees whose branches had entwined above a street and practically formed Gothic arches. The idea of a "liturgy" sung by forest animals struck me as a wild yet enchanting possibility. "Play" was certainly involved and "tension" existed from the roots of the idea, i.e. that people might find such a work a mockery of religious cantatas or Masses.
Tension in how to handle things could easily have filtered its way into the music itself.
Quote from: starrynight on August 02, 2015, 12:32:54 PM
All music is perhaps a tension and play between that opening up and the closing up of the restrictions of style/convention/genre, and maybe that is inevitable.
Limitations are inherent in music (at least in this space-time continuum): limits of vocal and instrumental ranges including dynamic ranges, of attention span from audiences, of whatever form you choose to use, and of many other factors. But within those limitations it is possible to fill up the "space" available; not necessarily as merely showing what you can do (although there's nothing wrong with that), but in focusing all one's physical, mental and spiritual energies into the performance and/or composition. :)