As 2011 draws to a close, holiday greetings and a wish for happy 2012. The time since my last post has been long, in part because of software issues, and bots which keep infiltrating the blog posts…those creatures with names such as “AOIHET(@*$%&SDOIYUVSBDV has a comment on your post…” We’ll see whether or not the bot gremlins have been expurgated.
As a silent film musician, I typically think that my colleagues and I work in a niche genre, yet one with potential for wider audiences. While it is almost certain that silent film will never enjoy the kinds of audiences which sound films enjoy, I’m particularly pleased to note two major releases in the past month which deal with silent film history – “Hugo,” Martin Scorsese’s film in which a small boy meets French film-maker George Melies – and, in the case of this film, “The Artist,” an honest-to-goodness new silent film (with one or two places in which sound is heard).
Director Michel Hazanavicius’ film begins in 1927, nearing the end of the silent film era, and tells the story of George Valentin, a dashing actor at the top of his fame. Something of a cross between Douglas Fairbanks, John Gilbert, and Clark Gable, we see him as an applause hog in the cinema after the rousing successful premiere of his latest adventure flick…his leading lady (also his wife), is denied the same on-stage time…only a glimpse of troubles to come. The opening scenes present a wonderful picture of a big movie palace experience in the 1920′s – full orchestra, full house with well-dressed movie-goers, plenty of authentic-looking 1920′s action seen on screen…a delight in an of itself. And, of course, silent.
Well, silent with an important exception: the splendid score by Ludovic Bourse, which captures with wit, beauty, and elegance all the moods of the film. Clever, diverse in style, fresh in sound, his score is a great model of silent accompaniment…his non-mickey mousing approach underscores many scenes very well, and he captures the entire emotional essence of a scene without losing his way in too much musical description. His Golden Globe nonimation for Best Score is well deserved, as is the director’s.
Valentin’s fortunes decline as he resists the coming of sound; an ingenue who begins to benefit from this, Peppy Miller (I think of Peggy Pepper becoming Patricia Pepoire in King Vidor’s 1928 Show People), tries to help Valentin as he one helped her break into the business. One of the nice meta-theatrical touches in this film is that it becomes the sort of film it evokes – there is a chase scene, a rescue from a fire, complete with trained dog, and an utterly wonderful nightmare sequence in which the hero interacts with his own silence vs. sound.
Many echoes of film history appear here; John Gilbert’s own troubles with Louis B. Mayer find an echo in Valentin’s clashes with his studio head, the final montage is Astaire and Rogers (in this case, Bourse falls back – perhaps at the director’s suggestion, but still quite effectively – on an ersatz Sing Sing Sing), and small winks to silent film practice appear throughout.
Throughout, the film has a warmth and wit which make this a winner…I would venture that most audiences do not miss the dialogue (and, indeed, there are comparatively few intertitles in the film). It does present the genre as pleasingly, engagingly, and effectively as could be imagined, and I hope that it enjoys great success. One could several more such nouveau silent films coming out from studios…on ne peut q’esperer…
A final thought: a recent New York Times article by Michael Cieply about THE ARTIST spoke of the lack of sound – with the exception of “background music.” Yes. It is background music. As much as, to me, it dominates and completes the action, this summation is correct: the purpose of film music is to serve the film. The best use of film music is to support, enhance, fill out, clarify, and disappear. Even when it’s the only sound in the room.
Fri, December 30 2011 » Silent Film » No Comments
This weekend, I’m participating in a particularly interesting film program at the National Gallery. Part of its ongoing screenings of newly-preserved films, “From Vault to Screen,” this year displays French restorations. The particular program here, “Poetry in Motion: The Scientific Short,” lives up to its billing. Admittedly, at first glance, it doesn’t seem to be the sort of program which would be anything but dull. But that’s the beautiful thing about this program: it makes art from nature.
There are about 80 minutes worth of footage, with about 16 short films, each depicting a specific animal or plant. The range is remarkable: from the Amblystone, a Mexican salamander, to the snail-eating creature called the “Glandina,” the many remarkable parts of the crawfish, to orchids, carnivorous plants, and translucent sea creatures. What is wonderful about these short films is how carefully and artistically they are shot. The photography is beautiful: some of the close-ups show animal scales or plant parts in extraordinary detail. Sometimes it’s clear that the camera has been over-cranked to create slow motion, and there is a beautiful time-lapse sequence showing orchids blooming. Plants are spun in a circle to show their flowers from all sides, and many scenes are shot under water or near the surface of the water. All in all, these films, most of which date from 1912-14, show remarkable sophistication and artistry.
And, again, this is a perfect example of humanistic music in action, not only in that music is paired with science, but that these silent science film allow the musician to engage with the fundamental questions about the relationship between sound and image. In particular: between sound motion, and how that motion directs and dictates sound.
The science film or documentary, as we know it in the form of NOVA or National Geographic, is narrated, a sound film, with musical underscoring (occasionally coming to the fore). But, the narrator’s voice is paramount. Indeed, there is a good deal of “talking” in these films (the often extensive French intertitles have not been translated, and so a translator will be reading the translations), but the images themselves tell a compelling story even without text. We are also accustomed to some anthromorphizing of animals in science films, as with “March of the Penguins”; again, this makes for good and compelling narrative. For example, a snake is shown doing a brief “toilette” (spinning around and around on the ground to clean itself!) before its post-prandial nap.
Dramatic music’s spot. Indeed, these images readily present narratives and dramas, one of the most clear of which is confrontation. There are some remarkable battles here, including the remarkable fight of a rat and a scorpion. We see the scorpion sting the rat at last,see the rat’s immediate responses, then return in an hour to see the rat’s final convulsion and death. Or, the snail-eating glandina, shot in extreme close-up, projects a creepy and in fact almost terrifying image as it consumes its prey. This is drama, and dramatic music and its tools readily comes into play.
Divertissement. The films showing beautiful transparent sea mollusks (jellyfish, etc.) create wonderful opportunities for delightful dance-like scores…the creatures, moving slowly and gracefully through the water, readily invite this dance-like music. The shapes of these creatures aare endlessly varied: chains of cellulose bodies, small lozenges, mushroom-shaped undulating jellies, some emitting graceful thin tendrils, moving with a poetic slowness (here is the “poetry in motion”!). Once again, the qualities of motion which suggest dance and lightness are not entirely clear, and cannot be perfectly articulated, but are still logical to the musician.
There is ample scope here for differing styles and textures of music. Some of the animals are quick and light (the dragonfly), others move deliberately (glandina). But, all of the animals and plants move, and the plant films bring to brilliant light a remembrance that plants are both living and mobile creatures. The time-lapse photography telescopes natural blooming motion, but shows that music-inspiring motion on another time scale. There is some tinting in the films as well, which lends an additional visual pleasure to the presentation.
These films make art within a scientific approach (these are clearly the purpose of the films), going far beyond what is needed to accomplish the task. Science reaching over into art and making a joint statement is humanistic music joining silent film.
Sat, July 9 2011 » Humanistic Music, Silent Film » No Comments
Yesterday’s New York Times had a story about Icelandic artist Bjork‘s new performance event/album, “biophilia,” which is premiering at the Manchester International Festival (UK) this month: (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/arts/music/bjorks-biophilia-at-the-manchester-international-festival.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=bjork&st=cse
As with the earlier “Gurs Zyklus” by the artist Trimpin, who I mentioned in a previous post, Bjork’s piece contains newly-built instruments such as the Gameleste (a combination of the gamelan and celesta), a musical pendulum, and a gigantic pin barrel harp called the Sharpsichord. This follows the great tradition of creating or modifying instruments to suit one’s artistic vision (Harry Partch and Conlon Nancarrow come most strongly to mind, similar in spirit to the earliest electronic music composers – Pierre Schafer, Stockhausen, Varese). Bjork’s own website has tanalizingly little substantive information about the instruments or the piece itself, however; a vimeo post shows the making of the gameleste (http://bjork.com/#/news/makingof%E2%80%98thegameleste%E2%80%99), and there are some beatiful photos of quartz and crystals on her news page. The amazing amount of engineering and work which goes into the creation of the Gameleste alone already tells something about the significant funding base which Bjork has at her disposal for this project: materials alone must have cost a considerable sum (it took at least $160,000 to build the instruments, which Bjork used from prize money, according to the Times). This level of exploration is something open to those with sufficient resources and the opportunity to explore (Bjork speaks about being “spoiled” by being surrounded by engineers), but this is also an example of taking advantage of one’s particular circumstances.
Bjork’s comment in her website audio posting about wishing to interact with electronics on a more emotional level and not get caught up in the programming when working on biophilia speaks to another personal concern, the growth of technological specialists, which needs another essay. Artists may or may not be technologically gifted; whatever their location on the skill spectrum, however, they deserve equal access to the tools which would help them to realize their visions. Software is increasingly intuitive, but still has far to go until the very high treshhold of functional entry is open to most artists.
Where biophilia is humanistic appears to lie not only in the cross-disciplinary scope of the event both in performance (video and live performance, new instruments) and concept (crystals and galaxies are only part of a strong scientific field of associations), but also in its desire to address and discuss different aspects which the work references (the Times article mentions promised analyses of the music, for example) and its focus on music education. Music and its partner arts are placed within a theatrical context, apparently thematic and coherent. The work itself has many foci and manifestations – it is not simply an “album,” nor simply a performance-art piece. By generating ancillary informational and artistic materials external to the performance (and with its educational arm) – the songs on the album will be released as apps for iphone, for example – it seems to be about exploring music in the context of the wider world – how it relates to the outside world – and perpetuating and extending the experience of the piece beyond the immediate performance, which humanistic music is about.
I say “seems” because it is not entirely clear what takes place in the piece. Festival-goers in Manchester are seeing the work this month; while the website makes the standard prohibitions against photography and recording, it seems that a hand-held camera posting smuggled video on youtube would hardly be able to measure up against the full-sensory experience which “biophilia” promises to be. Being there in person would have to be the best way to experience this.
In time, I will hope for additional video and audio samples to give a glimpse into the piece itself , if this is feasible and possible. It seems to me that having a little more would provoke more interest in the work rather than less while still allowing ample scope for the experience of seeing the work (and hearing the album itself) as well. This direction is enticing, fantastic, incredible- the proof, as always, is in the pudding, to see how well the many elements serve a greater expression.
Biophilia is scheduled to come to New York in early 2012: I hope to see it!
Mon, July 4 2011 » Humanistic Music, Music and Musicians » 1 Comment
On the lookout for evidences of humanistic music projects, the recently-announced premiere of the “Gurs Zyklus” by composer-sculptor-artist Trimpin at Stanford University seems right in line with the ideals of cross-disciplinary ventures which serve a greater purpose and reflect on a larger external narrative (events taking place during WW II in the village of Gurs). The fascinating combination of sculpture, moving parts, new instruments (a fire organ!), and Nancarrow-inspired scores from tree bark, is exciting. Alas that I cannot be at Stanford to see this premiere…perhaps it can travel.
Here’s more about the project: http://creative-capital.org/news_items/view/399
And, reading the recent list of MAP Fund grantees gives further fuel to this growing fire…http://mapfund.org/sps/swish.cgi?search_phrase.grant_year=2011&confirm=1&is_2011=1
The MAP fund and Creative Capital work together, moving in fantastic directions.
Mon, May 30 2011 » Humanistic Music » No Comments
Last month, an incredible program of film animation took place at the National Gallery in Washington, DC. Called “Art in Motion!”, this 90-minute event screened abstract animation in film from the 1920′s to the present, putting on screen a wide variety of approaches and artists. From Viking Eggeling to Norman McLaren to Len Lye to Larry Cuba and Sara Petty, the program featured painting on film, computerized animation, and culminated with four digital animations by NY-based visual artist Sharon Louden, including the premiere of her film, Carrier.
The program represented another aspect of music and visual art working in combination, which is a central part of my work now. During the program, some films already had soundtracks, and some were silent. Peggy Parsons, director of Film Programs at the Gallery, asked me, as the NGA’s Resident Film Accompanist, to create new scores for Sharon’s animations; as we continued our discussion, I proposed creating interludes to comment on and dialogue with the other films (in the manner, in a sense, of Mussorsgky’s Pictures). I teamed up with percussionist Barry Dove to provide live music interludes between the films with soundtracks – I crafted them as real-time responses to the music just heard in the film (a kind of live interaction with or dialogue with, or reflection upon, the music just heard). I wrote short interludes for each, as I had the opportunity to watch each film in advance. Some of the music was older music – Bach unaccompanied cello suites, for instance; some was jazz or folk music, some was electronic (Sky David’s, for example). For each, we responded musically and reflected the recorded sound. This alone created a dynamic dialogue between recorded and live.
The highlight of the program, of course, were Sharon’s films. Until now, she has always created silent animations, and so my being able to create and perform new scores is a great honor. Working on these films, I was most gratified by the fact that her films are extremely musical: their structure and flow is very compatible with music, and the motions suggested ready musical analogues for me. This is not always the case with abstract animations: as I have noted in conversation, sometimes it is difficult for me to know where I am in an abstract film. In other words, we are accustomed now, as film watchers, to recognize the signs that the film is coming to an end – there are well-accepted visual cues which we recognize. In many animations, these cues are not there; and, in default of any recognized visual coding, we can’t know how far into a film (or how far from the end) we are; and, I found that while playing for another progam of abstract films at the Gallery this past fall, I was sometimes surprised to reach the end of the film. (Even watching a fireworks show, possibly very similar to abstract film, is clearer: most of them are organized to display different types of fireworks, and then we all recognize the “grand finale” when it comes). With Sharon’s films, one’s position in the film is clear, which makes musical scores follow naturally.
Each of Sharon’s films is brief – the longest is 4 minutes – and I created a new, fully notated piano-percussion score for each. The content and structure of the films helped to determine the style of music: my scores fell along a gamut of fully-notated to notation and ad libitum playing within boundaries. The first, Footprints, was the earliest in time. For this film, I created several short motives which were repeated ad lib until the next film event. hedge, the second film, was whimiscal, and I drew on my silent film comedy experience to create something lighter, including a strummed autoharp chord pattern on the strings on the piano and a flexatone.
The Bridge was Sharon’s most-screened film to date, and I created a score with full notation and a few bars which had ad lib repeats. Then, the new film, Carrier, was the most sophiscated digitally, and I had a fully-notated score.
Sharon is an ideal collaborator, and she heard my scores for the first time that day at the Gallery. Talking afterward, I realized that she was surprised by the musical settings I had provided for some of her films. Carrier, for example, has a long sequence in which the viewer goes down into tall grass and moves steadily through it. My own field of associations was that of hunting, or pursuing something…so my music took on that feel. Sharon, however, had a far different view – hers was a positive one, running through grass with pleasure. I am glad that we did not talk about this beforehand, because my music represents an independent take. On a future screening, it would be interesting to create another score which takes her own vision into account, and see how the versions differ.
As an event of Humanistic Music, Art in Motion! was a fantastic experience, and one which I hope we will be repeating in the coming season in more than one venue.
Mon, April 25 2011 » Humanistic Music, Music and Visual Art, Silent Film » No Comments
Humanistic Music
My work seeks to explore and demonstrate music’s organic, inextricable connections with other arts and with the external world. I want to discover music’s place in the world by putting it in as many places as possible. All of the arts are particularized manifestations of the same primal creative impulse; connected like neurons to one another, in innumerable ways and on myriad levels, the several arts relate to one another as different species within the same genus, overlapping or sharing expressive language.
“Humanistic music” is the term I use to describe this system of linkages and connections, as well as my search to explore its branches. My goal is to create artworks which incorporate many arts and link them together in metaphorical systems, small working models of a larger artistic cosmos.
Music is inter-textual, referential, and symbolic, having the capacity to remind, to predict, to comment upon events, to symbolize, to contextualize an action, phrase, image, or idea. In theatrical contexts – opera, dance, film – these qualities are an indispensible aspect of music’s contribution to the artistic whole.
The Development of Humanistic Music: Previous and Current Works
I am interested in the metaphorical quality of music, by which it can reference or symbolize extra-musical things. Music’s metaphorical qualities are immense and complex; what many consider to be its narrative (i.e., “programmatic”) potential is, to my mind, a subset of this larger metaphorical capacity. Pieces of mine such as Tesserae: Six Mosaics of Ancient Rome or American Gothic Suite: Theme and Variations on Grant Wood’s Art, the second of which is included among my work samples, are metaphorical rather than programmatic.
The first two movements of Tesserae (composed as part of a residency with an ancient Roman exhibition at the Cedar Rapids (IA) Museum of Art) are musical character studies, with distinctive musical ideas, of two emperors: Caracalla and Geta, who were brothers. Caracalla had his brother assassinated, and his music symbolically “kills” Geta’s music at the close of the second movement. American Gothic Suite is a set of variations
While music is capable of serving narrative function – for example, my operatic, theatrical, and silent film scores are created to sustain and amplify narrative – it also has a broader contemplative aspect which invites reflection on analogies between music and other arts. My Four Views of Pompeii (2004), for string quartet and harp, is such a piece, musically evoking four styles of ancient Roman wall painting in its four movements. The first movement, for example, symbolizes the illusionistic, trompe l’ɶil “Second Style” by employing trompe l’oreille musical techniques: overlapping glissandi giving the impression of one continuous slide, instruments mimicking each other by playing in extreme registers, two instruments sharing a line in such a way as to create the impression of one.
I am also interested in exploring boundaries – for example, the tension between improvisation and composition, between control and chance, between preparation and spontaneous reaction (non-preparation), between visual and aural, between moving and still images, between theatrical and musical performance. Actualities: A Theater-Concerto for Pianist and Chamber Orchestra (2010), exemplifies many of these explorations of boundaries. In this piece, most of the orchestra’s music consists of improvisation upon pre-existing, notated ideas; the soloist, however, improvises the entire part, with no musical notation. Even within the soloist’s part, however, different levels of improvisation exist. Spontaneous improvisation is required in the first movement, “Pile-on,” during which the soloist responds to previously un-encountered stimuli: randomly-selected musical passages played by individual orchestra members, to which the soloist must improvise lines in counterpoint at first hearing. The soloist must also improvise musical reactions to accompany previously-unseen, randomly-chosen video images in the second movement, “Actualities.” The final movement, “Fast motion machine,” combines control and non-control, and requires continual improvisation by the soloist within a formal framework whose dimensions are determined by the conductor. Thus, this perpetual-motion movement’s content is partially controlled by the soloist, but the movement is also of indeterminate length (that aspect is determined by the conductor). In this complex of elements, then, Actualities explores the interaction between composed and improvised music, between theater and musical performance, between known and unknown elements (video previously unseen, and assembled without the soloist’s participation. Even the video is divided into two categories: live – via webcams or television broadcasts– and pre-recorded films and videos). The premiere of Actualities in March 2010, with myself as soloist, represented an initial exploration; a coming repeat performance in November 2010 will explore these elements further in a new performance space, with a different orchestra (but the same soloist).
As a natural extension of creating music reflecting visual art, I am actively collaborating with visual artists such as Micheline Klagsbrun and Sharon Louden, collaborations which have performative, temporal manifestations. In the first case, Ms. Klagsbrun is assembling an animated slideshow of her paintings to be projected while accompanying a performance of my piece lotus and poppy (2007), for mezzo-soprano, tenor, and chamber ensemble, at George Washington University in November 2010. Some of the images in Ms. Klagsbrun’s slideshow previously existed: her series of lotus paintings, exhibited in summer 2010 at the Studio Gallery in Washington, DC, provided me with the initial idea for this project. Some of her paintings in this slideshow, however, are newly painted for this project: paintings of poppies resulting from her repeated listening to a recording of lotus and poppy. Her new poppy paintings, then, directly inspired by my music, build an additional layer of interconnectedness between the arts for this project. Thus, Ms. Klagsbrun’s still, painted images of lotuses and poppies will acquire a moving, temporal, element to accompany lotus and poppy in a new context.
In the second case, New York-based Artist Sharon Louden works in digital animation, and I created new musical scores to partner a small number of her animations as part of a March 2011 program of animated film, called Art in Motion! at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. In this case, Ms. Louden’s art is both visual and mobile, but silent; my music lends a complementary aural dimension to the work. One of the animations for which I created music is Louden’s The Bridge (2008), which has been screened at numerous film festivals, including the 2009 Honolulu International Film Festival (Gold Kohuna Award), the 2008 San Francisco International Children’s Film Festival, and the 2010 NYC Downtown Short Film Festival. The March 2011National Gallery screening of The Bridge represents not only the premiere of my score, but will be the first time Ms. Louden has paired music with her animations. We are hoping to repeat Art in Motion! in New York and Los Angeles in the near future.
Patterns from Randomness: Mobiles
As links between visual and aural stimuli are thus central to my work, another boundary exploration interests me: that between control and chance. I am intrigued by finding patterns within randomly-assembled or collected objects, making meaningful connections between ostensibly unrelated elements. An example of this is a “text-mobile”, my term for groups of distinct texts gathered to express an overarching theme, which reference and comment, often in unexpected ways, upon each other. Examples of text-mobiles are found in my libretti for lotus and poppy and my oratorio A Crown of Stars, for soprano and tenor soloists, chorus, and chamber orchestra. Drawing on the field of associations for both lotuses (forgetfulness, lotus-eater, dreaminess) and poppy (opium, sleep, remembrance), my text-mobile for lotus and poppy collects texts from Tennyson, Thomas de Quincy, L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and others, including original text, to form a dialogue between a living (tenor) and a dead opium addict (mezzo-soprano) about the need to engage with the world, and fight the temptation to escape its responsibilities and challenges. A Crown of Stars, a wedding oratorio, draws on numerous sources, including Sappho, Propertius, Christine de Pisan, Hindu texts, and modern Syrian poet Nizar Qabbani, to illuminate the work’s central theme.
My work in humanistic music continues: anything which links music intimately, organically with other art forms or extra-musical elements is by definition humanistic. Many more roads to travel: I am actively pursuing more collaborations with artists and film makers as this path continues.
Thu, April 14 2011 » Humanistic Music » No Comments
This month, Shakespeare’s late play Cymbeline is playing at Catholic University’s Hartke Theater (in Hartke Studio, with the entire set on the Hartke stage itself, an intimate setting which I like very much). This curious play pits Romans against Britons, with the victorious Britons nevertheless agreeing to pay tribute to the defeated Romans (which is why they went to war in the first place). Eleanor Holdridge, my colleague at CUA, has put together a very beautiful and atmospheric production which cycles through the seasons and combines whimsy and pathos.
The play also contains two famous songs. I am composer for the production, and have created a Shaker hymn-like setting of “Fear no more the heat of the sun,” a Peggy Lee-inspired version of “Hark, hark, the lark,” and an operatic scene for Jupiter at his deus ex machine near the play’s end (this last was Eleanor’s great idea). For sound design, I drew on original field recordings, some samples from soundsnap.com and the BBC sound effects library, and some nifty sounds from freesound.org. In particular, I’d like to acknowledge and thank freesound contributors Benboncan, Leady, eric5335 for samples used in the production.
Thu, April 14 2011 » Music and Theater » No Comments
Ok, I’m off for Cinefest in Syracuse in a couple of hours, one of the great film festivals in the USA. I’ll be one of the musical accompanists this year (the 31st), and will be playing many films.
More to come…
Wed, March 16 2011 » Uncategorized » No Comments
Next month (Sunday, March 6), my wedding oratorio, A Crown of Stars, will be performed by Cantate Chamber Singers, the ensemble which originally commissioned it in 2006. Following the afternoon performance, the work will be recorded for Albany Records on March 6-8 for a fall 2011 release.
Watch the new VIDEO on youtube about the March 6 performance by Cantate Chamber Singers!
It has been a pleasure revisiting this work after a few years: for the most part, I have not greatly revised it, leaving most of the structure intact. The forces are: soprano and tenor solo, SATB chorus, SSA children’s chorus, and large chamber ensemble.
This oratorio is an ideal example of what interests me in music – that is, in large part, how music connects with the world. It exemplifies Humanistic Music, the unifying thread of my work. My starting point in this piece was the universal nature of love, and the global phenomenon of marriage, which takes place in many different ways, in many different places, through many centuries of our shared history. Wanting a universal subject with which to start,this is a good one. This universality provides a jumping-off point for many things: first, the universality is reflected in the choice of texts. I like to assemble different texts from different time periods, places, authors, and languages (although I prefer to set my own language), and place portions of them together in new contexts so that these texts dialogue with one another, or comment upon, contradict, or reinforce each other, in ways not imagined by their original authors. I call this construction a “text-mobile:” like Calder’s floating sculptures, the texts themselves are suspended in the larger structure of the piece,and interact with other texts in unexpected ways. (While my pieces do not involve the indeterminacy inherent in Calder’s sculptures, whereby one cannot predict how the pieces will come together, there is still a surprise in how the different texts in my mobiles interact). In this piece, then, are texts from ancient Greek and Roman poets (Sappho, Propertius), medieval and Renaissance voices (Christine de Pisan, Lorenzo de’ Medici), English and American voices (Rosetti, Blake), and contemporary texts (New Orleans Mardi Gras, Nizar Qabbani, a wonderful Syrian poet, American folk song text, and some original text). Also, because love and weddings are the central elements, the central large wedding ceremony continues the theme of universality in incorporating language from Christian, Jewish, and Hindu ceremonies.
Because I am interested in theatrical music, and write and work a good deal in this area, A Crown of Stars has a theatrical element, and follows an underlying narrative (in fact, I would very much like to stage the work as an opera at some point: we almost got there with choreography by Bowen-McCauley Dance, but space restrictions in the performance venue led us to save that for next time). Soprano and tenor soloists are the characters, and the chorus is – well, the chorus. The piece falls into three large parts. Part I, Courtship: soprano and tenor meet at the Carnival (capital C). Part II: Wedding Ceremony, Crowning of the Bride and Groom. Part III: Wedding Night and Shivaree.
Carnival – that season prior to Lent, in which the normal rules of decorum are suspended – has a manifestation in New Orleans (Mardi Gras) and its original European form (Italy). Carnival is the setting for part I, in which the two soloists meet. I draw on two distinct Carnival texts here: one, the “official” song of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras, “If Ever I Cease to Love,” and the other, a carnival song from Renaissance Florence by Lorenzo de’Medici.
I like multiple layers of symbolism, and subjects which allow multiple meanings. The Crown of Stars plays in here, as it has three distinct meaning. First, in Greek mythology, Ariadne (dumped by Theseus on the island of Naxos) is found by Bacchus (Dionysus), who marries her. Ariadne, alas, is mortal, and dies: after her death, Dionysus places her wedding crown of stars in the heavens (Crown of Ariadne). Second, many Orthodox traditions continue the wedding crown, which is depicted here. Third, “Will There be Any Stars in my Crown?” is a familiar American text…I employ it, but use an original tune. To further enrich the connections, the Carnival text of de Medici mentions Bacchus and Ariadne, and so we can think of the two lovers, in a sense, as these (in the last part’s love duet, one of the lines from Propertius is “Our wine cups gave no god offense”). Dionysus, as god of wine (and theater), surely fits this well. This is the sort of multi-layered chain of references and associations which I like to build in my pieces.
Another aspect of the carnival is its free-wheeling, inclusive,and universal nature. I’ve drawn on a vast number of styles and influences, as they may fit the text and mood of the narrative. Jazz, Middle Eastern music, English madrigal, opera, and so on – all reflect this carnival-like atmosphere. I’m taken by Schumann’s “Carnaval,” and have been since my teens – not only the piece itself, but its alternation and quick succession of short, distinctive, often widely different scenes which contribute to some larger narrative.
A brief word about a shivaree: what is it? It’s an ancient tradition, which involves a newlywed couple being harassed – or having their newfound privacy violated – by their friends. A shivaree might involve the friends striking up loud noises and music outside the couple’s window. It could involve pranks – fixing the bed to fall down the moment the couple lies on it. It could involve invasions: the friends knock on the door, not to be denied, and make the couple serve them food. It probably was an old custom which the classicists call “apotropaic,” – that is, evening out the score with those who have just had good fortune. This way, the gods won’t be jealous and strike down the fortunate mortals. (This is probably why the maker of a hole-in-one must buy the clubhouse a round of drinks afterward…”Remember thou art mortal!”). Probably the only remnant of this custom in most places now is the tying of cans to the back of the newlywed couple’s car. In any case, the notion of interruption is appealing and suggests a natural musical analogue. So, part III begins with a text from Sappho (“Raise up the roof”)…escorting the couple to their night of bliss. The beautiful ancient Roman love elegy by Propertius, “O My Bliss,” is interrupted more than once by the revelers: hence the shivaree. The music of this oratorio is symbolic, metaphorical: it references more than it depicts, expresses more than it explains.
Fantastic soloists: soprano Lisa Edwards-Burrs and tenor Joseph Dietrich join the Cantate Chamber Singers, directed by Gisele Becker. The Maryland State Boy Choir, directed by Stephen Holmes, participates as well.
The piece’s page on the website tells more about this work – one of my favorites (since composers do have favorites). This is a universal carnival celebrating love and its surroundings.
Thu, February 10 2011 » Humanistic Music, New Music » No Comments
Last week, the new president of Catholic University, John Garvey, was inaugurated in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. For the occasion – which was a Mass – I was asked to create a setting of the hymn “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name” (Grosser Gott) to accompany the sacerdotal procession with Cardinal Wuerl and many, many priests. A very grand occasion.
Because of this, having orchestra, chorus, and organ at my disposal, I wanted to create something grand and worthy of the occasion. There are seven verses in the hymn, each of which was set. I also began the piece with brass fanfares, made room for organ interludes, had one verse with very chromatic harmonies, and finished with a tutti fff.
Later that week, a story appeared in the CUA student paper, “The Tower,” which contained possibly the best quote ever about my music. N.A. Rosas, the Tower staffer, began by introducing the scene for the reader (“The trumpets sounded majestically as the introductory rites were proclaimed and the first hymn was sung [that was mine]…”
Then, this great passsage of prose:
“The sounds of the orchestra rang throughout the Basilica almost as if to blast the caps, bonnets, mortarboards, and mitres off the heads of academics and clergy members that had assembled to celebrate this grand occasion.”
YES! If each of us gets a description like that in our careers, I think we can consider it well done. Thank you, Tower!!
Here is the link to the youtube video of the inauguration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws67EBea3p4
The Grosser Gott arrangement begins around 32:00.
Mon, January 31 2011 » New Music » No Comments