Henning's Headquarters

[Karl Henning]

(I added the title of the overall Suite.)

[Karl Henning]

And here is the first page of the piece as it has looked up at me from the paper for decades . . . it seems to scream "these are the materials I had to work with, bear with me."  Which I guess means, I was insufficiently imaginative.  But I am perfectly happy with the new look of the score.

[Luke]

Isn't it odd how these impressions strike us. As the mere onlooker, I can't see the difference - but when I'm the creator, I've often felt exactly the same way.

[Karl Henning]

!!

[Cato]

A very nice and neat manuscript!  You would have made an excellent copyist in the monastery!   

[Karl Henning]

It's short and quirky, but I find I don't get tired of it . . . I think it a good start to a set of five pieces.

As I told Cato off-line (I was composing this as a reply to Luke, and here you've joined in, Lee, sorry to seem to address you in third person!), I had first written three short pieces for Luk Vaes when we were at Buffalo together;  I called them Little Towns, Low Countries (Luk being Belgian), and I originally had a grand scheme of a set of 11 pieces.

I left upstate New York for, first, Tallinn, and then St Petersburg after;  and the "important" thing I needed to compose was my doctoral dissertation, five movements, three soli voices and wind ensemble, on mostly-rather-goofy texts of my own.  I had finished the two shorter movements (the second and fourth) before leaving New York.  I hardly composed much when in Tallinn, actually (though I got back into something of a writing groove the spring of the second year I taught there, hold that thought);  and even when I had got settled in Petersburg, it was a while before I could motivate myself to address my dissertation . . . and at times I would write another short piano piece to fill out the tale for Little Towns, Low Countries.

I did eventually finish both the dissertation (a score which probably deserves to die in obscurity) and 11 and more piano pieces.  On returning to the states, though, I was not convinced that the 11 pieces much belonged together as a group (a couple of the pieces were disproportionately long, as I thought at the time), so I parceled them out into two suites, plus the independent To Melt From a Distance, which is probably the most nearly good thing I composed while in Tallinn.

But I am now playing with the idea of arranging the 11 in an alternative "as originally conceived" Suite, although that is arguably already a misnomer, since I do not recall ever settling on an order for the 11 in a Suite as I had earlier intended . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Tonight is our Where do we go from here? Triad meeting.  Whatever else happens, supporters have already exceeded our Kickstarter goal (and there are 14 days yet in the campaign).

The meeting was an agreeable balance of personable review (as a collective, there is a lot of delegation of the "here is something that wants doing, which of us has an inclination to tackle it?" sort, and it was nice to go around with "these are the things I did to contribute to our mutual goal") and the inevitable organizational tasks . . . we've had pro tem officers, so it was needful to discuss just how we think we want to be organized, and to elect a president, treasurer and secretary for the coming year, e.g.  Our secretary (a retiree with all the time and much of the inclination to shoulder the task) has done yeoman's work, and is presently submitting a proposed budget to Fractured Atlas.  The plan seems to be three concerts for the 2015-16 season (that is a question which was hinted at but not actually addressed Monday night), and we are planning both to learn and present new pieces, and keep music we've already performed as repertory.  One wonderfully interesting proposal is that we do a concert for students at Currie College (one of our members is on the faculty) as educational outreach.

So there, I think, it is.  The president, David, is going to be traveling most of the summer, so it is unclear to me just what organizational work may get done before the fall, and yet . . . if we wait until the fall . . . .

Oh! another item of business which was decided on was that we will aim for an first concert in November;  the college outreach event would be essentially the 11 May program refreshed.

[Karl Henning]

Also, this weekend I've at last taken the viola-&-string-orchestra version of the Canzona & Gigue, and "backed it into" a va/org version.  So the time has not merely been a matter of apparent delay on the brief organ piece . . . .

Paul Cienniwa is going to play the première of the organ solo version (Op.77a) as the prelude to the FCB service on Sunday, 7 June.  That means it will be played before the live radio broadcast . . . not sure if it will get recorded, but I guess I know whom to contact to make the request.

[Karl Henning]

This was a ball I dropped, after an initial exchange of e-mail messages.  I've reached out anew today.

Okay, Carol is in for the 27 October concert, and thus, in for the new piece.

Here is the poem which Karl will use for one of his next vocal works: he wanted a monodrama sung by a woman.

From the Pit of a Cave in the Cloud

Transformed,
Novembering the bells of God’s soul,
Encased,
Unraveling cocoons of vile days,
I knew the purpose of my life.

Evil,
Dictatormenting the hells of my soul
Unswayed,
By slaughtering the worms of vile ways,
I knew the purpose of my strife.

That young girl,
A walking husk burned and enslaved
And burning with future dreams of limbs
gray and bleached!
Can you see her?

That young girl,
A desert rock boiled and despoiled
And boiling with daggered teeth and hands
Weird and wild!
Do you know her?

The desert men in the ancient robes
With modern tools for killing,
Burned and murdered the ancient town
Whose modern fools were willing
To believe their promises of mercy.

One desert man in an ancient robe
Sought young girls here for pilling.
Scorned, he captured one certain girl
With soul and mind unwilling
To believe his promises of mercy.

Branded the boys, banded the girls,
For the master lay in silk
With desires for skin of milk,
And the maidens must still his thirst.

Whipping the boys, stripping the girls,
And the maidens cried in vain,
In the tent a man inane
Had a dagger to change their wills.




A maiden of the north,
Of unyielding will,
Spirit of unchanging stone,
And a stone of unchanging spirit,
Remains a cave unknown.
Can you see her?

This diamond of the north,
Of undying strength,
Sneering at unbridled lust,
And a lust of unbridled sneering,
Awaits a time of trust.
Do you know her?

But the master must be obeyed!
To yield she will be made!
Beaten and racked and racked and beaten,
The diamond is cut for the master’s hand,
Savaged and clubbed and clubbed and savaged,
The maiden has left for the spirit’s land.

For the maiden must be amazed
By worlds that she has raised!
Golden and saved and saved and golden,
The diamond is free from the master’s hand,
Savaged and clubbed and clubbed and savaged,
The maiden now lives in the spirit’s land.

Fury failed to sway the girl:
Kindness, thought the man,
Will force her body to unfurl,
Kindness, thought the man
Will force her spirit to uncurl,
And then the world is right!

Kindness then the girl did hear,
Trickster, thought the girl,
I’ll bring my body to his ear,
Kindness, thought the man,
Has to the maiden made me dear,
And now the world is right!

The dictator of the sands,
Tormentor and master of closed young belles
Now gasps to see the girl’s legs smile,
And the maiden holds her breath,
As her legs so swift and with grim delight
Clamp and choke and strangle his neck,
While the maiden holds her breath,
The dictator of the sands,
Tormentor and master of closed young shells
Now gasps to stay alive and scream,
But the maiden brings him death.

Freedom is born from evil’s demise,
Purpose is born from freedom:
In the robes of the dead man,
The prince of the sands,
The girl escaped the hands
Of the slavers.

Courage is born from evil’s demise,
Constant the need for vengeance,
With the ax of her new soul,
The queen of the sands,
The girl did break the bands
Of the captives.

Roaming the desert and questing for evil,
With knives and fire and guns and ropes
The Great Protector
Did stab and burn and shoot and hang
The demons dancing around her.

Freeing the captives while questing for evil,
With sharks in heart and hands of knives
The Great Protector
Did hunt and stalk and clutch and slay
The devils killing around her.

Saving others,
Cleansing the desert,
Did she save and cleanse herself?
Sisters and brothers,
I am now alone,
I am

Transformed,
Novembering the bells of God’s soul,
Encased,
Unraveling cocoons of vile days,
I am the purpose of my life.

Evil,
Dictatormenting the hells of my soul
Unswayed,
By slaughtering the worms of vile ways,
I am the purpose of my soul.

The accompaniment will be:

soprano recorder (doubling on tenor)
flute in C
bass flute (doubling on piccolo)

[Karl Henning]

Paul Cienniwa is going to play the première of the organ solo version (Op.77a) as the prelude to the FCB service on Sunday, 7 June.  That means it will be played before the live radio broadcast . . . not sure if it will get recorded, but I guess I know whom to contact to make the request.

Oh!  And we shall likely play the original cl/org version at St Aidan's Chapel on the South Shore this summer.

[Cato]

Oh!  And we shall likely play the original cl/org version at St Aidan's Chapel on the South Shore this summer.

Okay, Carol is in for the 27 October concert, and thus, in for the new piece.

The accompaniment will be:

soprano recorder (doubling on tenor)
flute in C
bass flute (doubling on piccolo)

Paul Cienniwa is going to play the première of the organ solo version (Op.77a) as the prelude to the FCB service on Sunday, 7 June.  That means it will be played before the live radio broadcast . . . not sure if it will get recorded, but I guess I know whom to contact to make the request.

All kinds of things coming together!  Glad to be part of the excitement!  Is there no way to have the organ piece played during the radio broadcast?

Would a green picture of Abraham Lincoln help to sway the person in charge?   

[Karl Henning]

Op.11 #2

[Karl Henning]

Op.11 #4

[Karl Henning]

Op.11 #4

With this one, Luke, I pretty much managed to reflect my MS. in Sibelius to my satisfaction.  The two quirks which, in a perfect world, I might wish to tweak:

The repeat starts mid-measure, and I did not want to sacrifice that at all, since one of the "discoveries" of the invention is, that the two voices do not strike a note on beat 1 together, save artificially at the cadences.  I managed this in Sibelius by changing the meter in two measures to 7/8, and in one m. to 1/8, and hiding both those time signatures, and the change back to 4/4.  It looks to me, in both voices at the start of the repeat, as if, hidden though they are, the time signatures still command some space.  Since the piece is "open" in character, though, I am not sure I mind that much.  (In so short a piece for piano solo it does not matter much, but I hid the measure numbers, rather than do the research on how to correct the numeration.)

Both voices tie across the bar into the 1^st & 2^nd endings.  My cheat for the second ending was to add l.v. lines as symbols;  I wonder if it bothers me that those lines are less bold than "proper" ties.  (And probably I should flip the l.v. line in the left hand.)

[Karl Henning]

All kinds of things coming together!  Glad to be part of the excitement!  Is there no way to have the organ piece played during the radio broadcast?

Would a green picture of Abraham Lincoln help to sway the person in charge?   

I'll be seeing Paul next week, not sure if it may be possible to "push" the prelude later, so that it inhabits the broadcast space . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Op.11 #2

For comparison, the first page in MS.:

[Karl Henning]

Op.11 #4

Similarly:

[Karl Henning]

(I used that, BTW, as graphic elements on my blog.)

This is the cover of the notebook (bought at Дом Книги, the bookstore which was the classic Art Nouveau Singer Sewing Machine building on the Nevsky Prospect) in which I penciled the fair copy.

[Karl Henning]

This week, my inner ear has been seriously haunted by the Petersburg Nocturne.  Is this indicative of a disorder?  (Is it wise to ask such an open question on the Internet?)

[Cato]

This week, my inner ear has been seriously haunted by the Petersburg Nocturne.  Is this indicative of a disorder?

No.  Anything with "Petersburg" and "Nocturne" must be quite fine!

(Is it wise to ask such an open question on the Internet?)

Here, no problem!  But elsewhere on the Internet, who knows?