Henning's Headquarters

[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.

[Karl Henning]

In fact, the temptation to select more texts has been too great . . . this may turn into a Cantata [no. 1], too, for mezzo and one wind instrument, selected from the various flutes and saxophones which Peter plays.  I like that.  I have two texts in addition to the Schulte (which I shall still include in the Cantata [no. 2] which I had been planning of old), and will likely select a fourth.

[Karl Henning]

I had an idea last night just what I wanted to do with Et exspecto... and the Amen.

Okay, I think I have the Et exspecto... done.

[Cato]

Okay, I think I have the Et exspecto... done.

Yay Team!  The Credo text is not the easiest to set to music (not the first time such an observation has been made), but Karl's music for it is limber and fluid.

And those vocal works sound very exciting!  Are you still planning on using (a) Walt Whitman poem(s) ?

[Karl Henning]

Aye, somehow my eye fell upon "Ah poverties, wincings, and sulky retreats!" . . . also, I remembered that, long ago, I meant to set a stretch from the last chapter of the Song of Songs.

[Karl Henning]

Just when you were expecting nothing . . . .

Fabulous word just in, that the cellist here in Boston to whom I sent both Nicodemus and the Sonatina will program Nicodemus herself, and have a student play the Sonatina.

[Karl Henning]

I was also asked for a bio "for the records," and brief (50 words or less).  I suppose it ought not to surprise me how few words 50 can be . . . .

Karl Henning holds a B.Mus. with double major in composition and clarinet performance from the College of Wooster (Ohio); a M.A. in composition from the University of Virginia (Charlottesville); and a Ph.D. in composition from the University of Buffalo, where he studied with Charles Wuorinen and Louis Andriessen.

[Cato]

Just when you were expecting nothing . . . .

Fabulous word just in, that the cellist here in Boston to whom I sent both Nicodemus and the Sonatina will program Nicodemus herself, and have a student play the Sonatina.

The Good News just keeps on comin' !   0:)

[Karl Henning]

Here it is, I do think it's done.

For the Et exspecto..., I adapted the point of imitation I used for Crucifixus etiam... (m.106ff.)

The Amen is a less transparent adaptation of a p. of i. I used in a few places (m.91ff., m.119ff., m.151ff.)

[ EDIT :: old version removed ]

[Karl Henning]

. . . The Amen is a less transparent adaptation of a p. of i. I used in a few places (m.91ff., m.119ff., m.151ff.)

Put like that, I half wondered if the repetition is too obvious.  The points at m.91ff and m.151ff. are at the same pitch level, but I think that the two passages differ sufficiently, and there is enough music intervening, that the connection is subtle and valuable.  The intervening similar point (m.119ff) is at a different pitch level (and sets up the final cadence of the piece), and cast in a different meter.  The meter and pitch level are recapitulated in the Amen, but for the latter I both mixed up the relations of the voices, added delicate ornamental figures, and smeared the unfolding of the counterpoint.  Overall, I think it a passable application of Schoenberg's idea of developing variation.

The points of imitation at m.80ff and m.159ff. (call them collectively A) use the same head motive as B, above, but work to a different cadence.  A1 and A2 differ partly in that the latter iteration is unadorned, and also in a reversed relation to B: A1 precedes B1, while A2 follows B3.

m.170ff. is arguably a C, same head motive, briefer point overall, freer treatment.  I am pleased that the soprano elision (mm.89-101 / mm.168-170) first connects A1 to B1, then A2 to C.

All in all, I don't think my hand was too heavy, and that the connections are organic, rather than . . . bludgeons

[Cato]

All in all, I don't think my hand was too heavy, and that the connections are organic, rather than . . . bludgeons

I have not yet had the time to read through the rest of the score, or to go through it as a whole, rather than piecemeal.

Despite that, I would say not to worry about that: what the composer's ear upon reflection might think a too obvious connection will most probably be not obvious at all to the regular listener, and will present an unconscious impression of wholeness.

And yes, if your goal was to compose something as a constantly developing variation, yet with echoes hearkening back to an ancestor in previous bars, then from what I have heard (mentally) in the score so far, you have been most successful! 

[Karl Henning]

I'll find some other palette in the sounds library to export an mp3 with . . . the sampled choral sounds just don't make it.

Probably, I should also provide keyboard reductions of the four-staff sections.

[Karl Henning]

Okay, here's a daft thought which just crossed my mind.

Wait, I'll back up:  last night, I sent the Credo to Paul.  Even though there's not the least chance he could do the piece at FCB (a Unitarian parish), since it was partly on Paul's suggestion that I am pursuing the Mass as an overall project, I wanted to send him the Credo, that he may see how the plant is flourishing whose seed he planted.

We had a nice exchange of brief e-mail messages this morning, and I said that I wasn't sure which component of the Mass I wanted to address next, but that I would take a break with a chamber piece first (I didn't burden Paul with the detail, but the mezzo & bari sax piece which Peter will need).  Paul then wrote (what already I knew, actually) to the effect of, write us a Sanctus or an Agnus Dei and I'll get it done.

So, mentally I made a quick scan of the Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei . . . and here came the daft idea.  I was just writing about all the contrapuntal material which I used repeatedly in the Credo;  one contrapuntal bit which I pointedly reserved for single use, is the chromatic Et homo factus est.  And I thought, how fitting it would be to make use of that in the Agnus Dei.

There: I've said it.  Maybe I'll toss the idea out as crazy.

But, maybe that's what I shall do . . . .

[Cato]

Okay, here's a daft thought which just crossed my mind.

I was just writing about all the contrapuntal material which I used repeatedly in the Credo; one contrapuntal bit which I pointedly reserved for single use, is the chromatic Et homo factus est.  And I thought, how fitting it would be to make use of that in the Agnus Dei.

There: I've said it.  Maybe I'll toss the idea out as crazy.

But, maybe that's what I shall do . . . .

In fact that section would be very appropriate: the bass voice wandering around D and eventually stopping on the C causes a most unsettling effect with the other voices, and one should be unsettled by the the idea of et Homo factus est.  And yet, this same unsettling idea becomes the Agnus Dei.

[Karl Henning]

Thanks!

Well, I mis-guessed . . . I may just be ready to wade right into the Agnus Dei . . . .

[Karl Henning]

We all know the drill, so this must be one-third done . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Thoughts which have stolen upon me overnight:  variant of mm.1-9 for the second petition;  literal repeat (or strict transposition) of miserere nobis;  literal repeat (or strict transposition) of mm.1-7(-ish) for the third petition;  adapt a short passage from the Kyrie for the final qui tollis peccata mundi;  adapt the Crucifixus point of imitation from the Credo for the dona nobis pacem.  I like all the ties, I believe I can make it all work smoothly . . . and in a sense, the only sleeve-up-rolling labor at this stage is the working out of mm. 18-26.

So, I may have an Agnus Dei to send to Paul (and Nana) this weekend.

[I shall probably wait until I write the Sanctus before sending both it and the Agnus Dei to Heinrich.]

[Karl Henning]

Sort of feels like I'm on location for the Zeffirelli Hamlet, but that's not at all a bad thing . . . .

http://www.youtube.com/v/TdocQFG9WyE

[Karl Henning]

My first essay at mm. 17-26, which I wrote on the 6:49 train, I am not entirely sure is what I want.  So on the lunch hour, I had a second go at it;  I think it may do!

[Karl Henning]

I think we are poised to sing dona nobis pacem.