"Conceptual" Music: Embryonic Music, Forever Uncomposed

[Cato]

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.   

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.

[Mirror Image]

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.

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.

[Brian]

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.

[Cato]

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!   

From the archives (2007):

Cato:

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!   

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.

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!

[jochanaan]

"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! But what I find is that the more I open up, the more others respond.

[DaveF]

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?

[Cato]

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! 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!   

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. 

[DaveF]

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.

[Cato]

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! 

  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.

[mszczuj]

"Bowed" (?), an opera for soprano and violin solo (without orchestra). Perons are violin player and his wife.

[mszczuj]

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.

[Cato]

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.

[mszczuj]

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.

[Karl Henning]

This is without any doubts literature of the best intensions.

Isn't that what the road to literary Hell is paved with? 

[Cato]

Isn't that what the road to literary Hell is paved with? 

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

[Karl Henning]

Check yer PM, Cato! 

[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. 

Also: 9 trombones and strings, along with 9 quarter-tone recorders.   

[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. 

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! 

[DaveF]

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.

[Cato]

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.

  School concerts can be very interesting from the view of a microtonalist!