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Piano Album 2005 Part of the project “Chronicling at the Keyboard“, the Album contains the 67 pieces outlined below.
1. Rough Practice Item (Composed January 6, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’10”) It can be a hard road to practice the piano, and this little piece is a short but rough ride for listener and pianist alike. It was composed on an airplane headed to San Francisco from Boston. (13.08.05)
2. Old English Sketchette After Strowgers (Composed January 10, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’45”) ... more Composed on a few strains from Nicholas Strowgers’s Fantasia (ca. 1560-1575), this short sketch was written in about an hour during a California tour in January 2005. It is meant to function as a prelude to performances of the Strowgers piece, but can be played on its own as well. The idea illustrated here is that something new finds nourishment in something old, and we as performers and listeners can access this relationship in recital. This miniature continues a line of short pieces inspired by early English keyboard gems. (19.07.05)
3. Eastman Ave. Point After Tallis (Composed January 12-13, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’50”) A musical thank-you note for Sanford Dole and George Gibson, this offering responds to a brief Thomas Tallis piece found in “The Mulliner Book,”
4. Renewal In Vadimudi Time (Composed January 4/15-24, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’) During the Boxing Day Tsunami on December 26, 2004, our family friend and co-worker Nirosha Tilekaratne narrowly escaped being washed away, the ultimate fate of some 31, 000 people that day in Sri Lanka alone. Nirosha tells her story: SARID (South Asia Research Institute for Development, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA) volunteer Nirosha Tilekaratne was at home in Seenigama, on the southwest coast of Sri Lanka, when the tsunami hit. Nirosha relates that “our house is at Munugoda, towards the eastern end of Seenigama. At about 9 AM, I was getting ready to have a bath. I was in my nightdress. I heard my cousin shouting, so I put on my housecoat and went to see what it was. She said that a massive wave was coming. I shouted to everybody to run for it and ran along the road inland, shouting to the neighbours to run for their lives. My sister and sister-in-law joined me, with my sister-in-law's child. Most of the neighbours joined us. My aunt, who is old, had difficulty, so we put her in a vehicle which was headed away. We didn't stop running until we got to Ampegama about 6 km away. One of my neighbours had been bathing and ran all the way inland stark naked.” As a gesture of solidarity and support for Nirosha and for others who are working to renew life in the area, I offer “Renewal In Vadimudi Time,” a piece that takes its rhythmic manner from the traditional Sri Lankan folk drama (Nadagama) repertory of songs and verses. The time-measure called “Vadimudi” in the Sinhalese tradition (Tamil “vadamodi”) emphasizes beats two and five in a six-pulse bar, and in this piece serves to call forth a feeling of industrious reconstruction, a wish for rebirth. The tsunami victims are starting from scratch as you read this, and in the piece, this notion is represented by the presence of old western clefs almost never read by modern pianists; the player must become similarly industrious in learning the music, and must read and understand symbols from a bygone musical era in order to express new sentiments. In the final phase of the piece, a Nadagam tune illustrating “vadimudi” time is quoted in a bold setting. The piece begins with a brief, tragic invocation and closes with an echo of it. (Terms and Nadagam tune found in The Folk Drama of Ceylon, by E.R. Sarachchandra, published by the Ceylon Department of Cultural Affairs, Second Edition, April 1966). (31.01.05)
5. Gondolet (Composed January 18-29, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’05”) A small gondola, this gondolet sways gently, mournfully, minimally toward and away from a phrase from Liszt’s “La Lugubre Gondola I,” a funereal premonition of Wagner’s death. Here, the funereal aspect is distant, and the piece is mostly reticent. As if piloting a rickety little boat, the pianist proceeds with care so as not to upset a fragile, skeletal balance. The delicacy expressed here was also inspired by a reading of John R. Stilgoe’s Shallow Water Dictionary, a little volume that documents the disappearance of the estuarial language and landscape of the northeast coastal United States of America. (29.01.05)
6. Brief Chorale Setting (Composed January 25-26, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’) This setting was composed as an experimental harmonization for some of my students in order to illustrate what a “Bach chorale” might sound like if it could employ no triads. All the vertical sonorities derive from the first four notes of the chorale melody “Christus, der ist mein Leben.” (30.01.05) Chorale Text and Translation (Z. Philip Ambrose)
7. Commemorative Offering (Composed February 1-March 30, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’45”) Inspired greatly by the murals of Iri (1901-1995) and Toshi (1912-2000) Marucki, this piece was difficult to accomplish. I started with the notion of capturing some kind of musical sense of the ritual of filling the seven rivers of Hiroshima with lanterns each August 6, but my musical abilities seemed to fail in the effort. Thus, after admitting defeat, I assembled the component parts of my various attempts to come to terms with the monumental tragedy of Hiroshima/Nagasaki at its sixtieth anniversary into this modest, comparatively abstract keyboard offering. The piece is dedicated to Hosea Hirata, honoring his monumental efforts in bringing the Tufts University “Hiroshima/Nagasaki 2005: Memories and Visions” Conference to life. (19.04.05)
8. Malcontent (Composed 8. February 7-17/March 5-April 2, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’25”) Composed as a valedictory gift for composer Marco Visconti-Prasca, this two-part piece celebrates its dedicatee’s uniformly critical stance toward artistic and political modes of operation. The first section of music indicates an initial dissatisfaction that yields the second, more active passage. This active music suggests that Marco Visconti-Prasca, as he pursues his compositional path, will continue his “inclination to rebellion or mutiny,” and that he will remain “indisposed to acquiesce in the existing administration of affairs (Oxford English Dictionary, 1971).” This piece is offered to Visconti-Prasca in recognition of his indomitable spirit and infectious creative energy—spirit and energy that I hope comes through amply in the music. (15.05.05)
9. January 3, 1880: After Chadwick (Composed February 7/April 6-May 5, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’55”) Composed to celebrate the 125th Anniversary of the founding of the St. Botolph Club in Boston, Massachusetts on January 3, 1880, this piece pays twofold homage to the club by acknowledging both the VIIth century abbot St. Botolph (Boston’s Patron Saint) and Boston composer George Whitfield Chadwick (1854-1931), a former Botolphian, Director of the New England Conservatory of Music from 1897 to the end of World War I, and originator of what some historians would call an “American” symphonic style. This modest piece was commissioned by Botolphian Morgan Levine for a concert presented by the composer members of the St. Botolph Club at its 199 Commonwealth Avenue quarters in Boston on May 18, 2005 After puttering around the Tufts University Music Library Annex in February (2005), I discovered a little score by Chadwick that B.F. Wood Music Company published in 1902, entitled “Saint Botolph: Song With Chorus,” to words by Arthur Macy. The chorus defines the piece firmly as a drinking song, chanting “then drink, brave gentlemen, drink with me, to the Lincolnshire saint.” What a find! I decided immediately that this drinking song would have to figure in my piece, already intended to doubly honor St. Botolph and Chadwick. The song then became a theme for the entire May 18 concert. In its final version, arrived at over the course of a few months, my piece embraces a number of ideas and items that have to do with the St. Botolph Club. The opening strains attempt to paint a portrait of what our membership guide describes as one Club historian’s view that on January 3, 1880 “all the stars of the morning, the very early morning, sang together.” The initial distant resonance of these promising stars becomes a gently swaying, quietly grand tune that soon gives way to snippets of the Chadwick song. From part of the Chadwick original, I have fashioned three “Chadwick Variants” for the body of the piano piece, each of which refers to something striking that happened in the year 1880. “Chadwick Variant 1: Illumination” refers to the first American town (Fort Wayne, Indiana) to use a municipal lighting system, signaled by the lighting of a warehouse “made as bright as the sun” in about 1880 (www.fortwayne.com). “Chadwick Variant 2: Against Corporal Punishment” reveals a difficult issue; in 1879, “the Superintendent of the Cambridge Schools attempted unsuccessfully to abolish corporal punishment. In 1880 the Cambridge school board felt that corporal punishment was being administered far too often”(www.brainyhistory.com). Since it happened in about 85% of incidents in Cambridge in 1879, and since the form of discipline was forbidden in African-American and all-girls schools, I began to suspect that children of St. Botolph Club members at this time were often victims of sanctioned school violence. Clearly, the stars were not singing together here, and this part of the piano piece exposes a good deal of unrest (information from Joanie DiPietro, “Corporal Punishment in Beverly and Cambridge, MA: Just, or Just Plain Mean?”). “Chadwick Variant 3: For Reducing Air Pollution” calls attention to 1880 as the first year that “municipal smoke abatement laws aimed at reducing air pollution from factories, railroads, and ships” were enacted (from “Environmental Conflict Timeline,” www.geocities.com). Hence, this final brief variant completes a series of Chadwick “snippet transformations” for the purpose of calling attention to issues and events concurrent with the founding of the St. Botolph Club. The piano piece ends with a return to the music of the opening, but this time “Grandioso,” a far cry from the early creative impetus of Chadwick’s drinking song. I offer this piece in celebration of the St. Botolph Club’s continuing leadership in support of the arts, and dedicate it to Morgan Levine, with thanks to my fellow Botolphian composers Marti Epstein, Howard Frazin, and Christos Koulendros. (06.05.05)
10. Grumbler (Composed February 25-March 3, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’25”) There’s a huge amount to grumble about, especially when you live in a country that boasts more cars than children. So this little piece complains gruffly at its opening, yielding a second strain that is pensive—the solemn, reflective side of the initial grumble. (05.03.05)
11. Doina: Seburated (March 5-6/May 9-10, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’40”) The folk song type known as doina is widespread throughout most of Romania. It may be related to and may even have its origins in the cintec de leagan, or lullaby. The Doina is always sung in free rhythm with varying degrees of embellishment. There are a number of tune types used for these semi-improvised performances of the doina. The Romanian Doina De Catanie, of which this piano piece is an imagined imitation (I have never actually heard one of these particular songs), were sung as young men were conscripted into military service. When my colleague and former student Michael McLaughlin requested I compose a doina for him, I had already been more than somewhat distraught about the possible re-institution of the military draft in the U.S.A., a manifestation of current bellicose political buncombe that could truly influence the lives of all too many young people, including my seventeen-year-old son Eric. I became certain about composing this doina after my eight-year-old son Rohan, upset at the prospect of losing his older brother to possible conscription, wrote (spelling and phrasing intact): I had the worst day on Friday. And it was because of my stupid mouth. I even missed karate. And usually when I get angry I think a draft in the war, and if there is a draft my brother will have to go, and I don’t like to think about it. I don’t want to be seburated from him. He’s my best friend. I don’t want to loose him. I really need him. (05.03.05) I offer this music to fellow pacifist Michael McLaughlin, and to my sons. (10.05.05)
12. Hagino Potpourri (March 9-21, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’55”) The 1978 edition of the Harvard Concise Dictionary of Music defines “potpourri” as “a medley of popular tunes, operatic arias, patriotic songs, etc. which are played in succession.” Also, variously, the term means “a stew,” or refers to a collection of aromatic leaves or petals. This little medley was composed for Yoko Hagino for her Boston Conservatory recital on April 28, 2005, and is dedicated to her. It begins with an invocation of the dedicatee’s name (each letter of “Hagino” is assigned a pitch), and an accompanied melody in octaves emerges from this initial environment. Then the situation gets urgent: two short passages—one rough and the other lyrical but agitated—yield a snippet of a ubiquitous political song/holiday carol. The work subsequently concludes with a restrained tetrachord setting (“Ut, Re, Mi, Fa”) imitating certain stylistic features of music by early English keyboard masters such as Thomas Tomkins. (21.03.05)
13. Wail In The Form Of A Tyburn (March 26/31, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’20”) A reaction to a brief but difficult personal time, this piece can be heard to represent a “formal scream.” Its tyburn form imitates a six-line poem with a set syllable structure. The first four lines rhyme and are two syllables each; the last two lines also rhyme and are nine syllables each, including the first to fourth lines as the as the fifth to eighth syllables. For the purposes of understanding the musical translation of the form presented here, replace the word “syllable” with the word “chord.” (16.08.05)
14. Lyrical Tanka (March 31-April 2, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’10”) This short lyric was composed with the Japanese tanka form in mind. Thus, it boasts
15. Epicede For Robert Creeley (April 1-2, 2005) (Duration ca. 55”-1’) Poet Robert Creeley died on March 30, 2005. This short funeral ode takes material from my 1992 setting of his poem “Nature Morte” in order to honor this master of powerful concision. The text of the poem is: “It’s still life/It just ain’t moving.” (02.04.05)
16. Lara Tetractys (April 4/17-20, 2005) (ca. 2’20”) The original sense of the term “tetractys” was the Pythagorean name for the sum of the first four numbers; this sum was viewed as the source of all things. The poetic form “Tetractys” should express a complete thought, profound or comic, witty or wise using twenty syllables. Such a poem can be written with more than one verse but each subsequent verse must invert the syllable count. There is no limit to the number of verses. The structure is: line 1 - 1 syllable This particular musical representation of the form is meant to express a “profound” thought. The piece is dedicated to composer Felipe Lara upon his completion of a Master of Arts degree in Music Composition from Tufts University. (15.04.05)
17. Novice Hexachord Setting After Tomkins (April 5, 2005) (Duration ca. 55”) In 16--, Thomas Tomkins composed a little keyboard piece
18. Rictameter And Nonet (April 20-25, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’20”) Composed for Nathan Curtis as a celebration of his completion of a Master of Arts degree in Music Composition from Tufts University, this chorale-like piece combines two nine-line poetic forms to yield a two-verse structure. The music itself is lyrical, with the “nonet” following the “rictameter” with rather more motion. Substitute the word “chord” for “syllable” and “measure” for “line” in the explanations below, and the full structure of this brief offering should be sufficiently revealed. A rictameter is a nine-line poetry form. The 1st and last lines are the same with the syllable count as follows: line 1 - 2 syllables - same as line 9 line 2 - 4 syllables, line 3 - 6 syllables, line 4 - 8 syllables, line 5 - 10 syllables, line 6 - 8 syllables, line 7 - 6 syllables, line 8 - 4 syllables, line 9 - 2 syllables, the same as line 1. A nonet also has nine lines. The first line has nine syllables, the second line eight syllables, the third line seven syllables, and so forth until line nine finishes with one syllable. It can be on any subject and rhyming is optional. (21.05.05, with information from: http://members.optushome.com.au/kazoom/poetry/rictameter.html
19. The Wind Blew From The Sea (May 13/19-31, 2005) (Duration ca. 4’25”) Dzeha fell asleep beside the sea. The wind blew from the sea And awakened the maiden Dzeha. The maiden Dzeha cursed it. “Leave me alone, wind from the sea! May you never blow again! I had just fallen beautifully asleep.” (Translation by Albert B. Lord)
Fashioned for composer and pianist Ivana Lisak, “The Wind Blew From The Sea” is a paraphrase/elaboration of a verse from the Serbo-Croatian folk song “Dzeha fell asleep beside the sea,” transcribed by Bela Bartok and published by Columbia University Press in 1951. The piece opens with a tucket-like announcement that quickly gives way to a variant of the second line of the transcribed melody, to the words “The wind blew from the sea.” Albert Lord explains in his footnote to this song lyric that “what appears on the surface to be merely a charming vignette becomes on closer scrutiny a sinister and tragic poem with overtones of magic.” Apparently, the story is that the wind interprets a dream of wedding guests coming to take Dzeha to her wedding ceremony, but indicates that her bridegroom is “the black earth.” Hence, the text becomes a death nightmare. My setting of the song melody gives way to a solemn, reflective postlude in “tyburn” form (six lines, two chords each for the first four lines, then nine chords each for the final two lines) and a two-bar coda distantly recalling the initial tucket. The tyburn also includes an extraneous found object: several strains of John Bull’s keyboard piece “Dr. Bull’s Juell” in bars 31 to 35. The overall effect is meant to be melancholy, overcast. I composed this “song without words” for Ivana Lisak not only because of her interest in song writing, but to provide something for the keyboard that might interest her as a performer of new material. The piece’s eclectic references and hodge-podge of influences hopefully coalesce into a concise evocation of the spirit of the women’s lyrical songs that Bartok and Lord painstakingly assembled, transcribed, and translated in their Serbo-Croatian collection. (01.06.05)
20. Tōdāyam, Miserere, Qaddish (May 26-June 8, 2005) (Duration ca. 4’25”) An attempt to blend the musical and devotional aspects of three culturally disparate hymns,
21. Pāre Pāna (May 30-June 28, 2005) (Duration ca. 5’30”) This nocturne sprouts from a Sri Lankan childrens’ riddle in which (lamp of the street = moonlight); cf. noctilucent music
22. Don’t Know The Time (June 29-July 20, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’) Composed for Vivian Taylor, after Ellington “Daydream” text start with Rondelet—disoriented passage—setting of tune—Dodoitsu (Rondelet notes transposed)—tetra 1—Tanka (Dodoitsu notes transposed)-tetra 2—disoriented ending The rondelet is a french form consisting of two rhymes contained in a seven line stanza. Line one is the exact same as the 3rd and 7th lines. The structure is: line 1 - 4 syllables - A (the same as line 3 and 7)
23. Forerunner (July 3/August 13-30, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’30”) To Liz Anker and Wayman Chin big mockingbird improv; otherwise hymn; use “Sorry Routine” rhythm, first section
24. Enigma In Quavers (July 7-8, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’20”) An uncomfortably restrained and contained little piece prompted by the fear and tragedy that resulted from the London subway bombings of July 7, this music borrows Giuseppe Verdi’s “enigmatic scale” (used in the “Ave Maria” from the 1898 “Four Sacred Pieces”), frames the scale with a short cadential figure (at the beginning and end), and limits itself to eighth notes only. (04.08.05)
25. About To Open (February 2, 1985/July 14-August 2, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’) What is about to open? This juxtaposition of sketches from 1985 and 2005 suggests a bud just ready to bloom, something behind a door (portal) starting to emerge, or an opportunity close to revealing itself. None of these possibilities is realized in the piece, however. It exists to anticipate. (16.07.05)
26. Sijo About Decline (July 17/August 2-4, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’20”) The “Sijo” is a Korean poetic form resembling the Japanese “Haiku.” Its three lines follow a 14-16-14 syllabic pattern, with the first line stating a theme or attitude, the second contrasting or contradicting it, and the third providing resolution. In this short piece, I equate “syllable” with “quarter-note beat” so that each “line” lasts 14-16 quarter notes. The “decline” referred to in the title alludes to the emptying of the center of the United States of America. More than 60% of the counties in the Great Plains lost population in the past ten years; Kansas has more land in “frontier status” (fewer than six people per square mile) than it did in 1890, and some land is now considered literally vacant. This Sijo is dedicated to poet/writer and tax preparer Peter Desmond, whose brilliant email “The Republican Heartland is Rotten (June 30, 2005)” inspired this composition in the first place. (04.08.05)
27. Province Lands (July 24-August 2, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’20”) This little tone poem, composed in response to a hiking visit to the “Province Lands” near the tip of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, includes the call of what seems to have been a towhee, the sound of toads moving among pines and dunes, and music evoking of the gingerly passage of humans through this unusual landscape. I didn’t include the green-head flies. (03.08.05)
28. In Kīrtanam Meter (July 27-August 14, 2005) (Duration ca. 6’45”) One of the typical meters of songs performed as part of the Sri Lankan Nadagama, or folk opera, Kirtanam is “a fourteen-pulse time, similar in rhythm to the North Indian Dipacandi.” This substantial piano piece is a response to my superficial knowledge of the folk opera and its music, and is part of a group of abstract piano works that will explore several other meters present in the music of the Nadagama (Tirlana, “a six-pulse time with accents on the first and fourth pulses of a bar,” Pasan, or “eight-pulse time,” and Tangapata, or “twelve-pulse time”). An earlier work in this album, “Renewal In Vadimudi Time,” explores a meter with six pulses and accents on the second and fifth pulses of a bar. I have found that following these metrical patterns and allowing for the influence of the Nadagam melodies has created a new melodic/harmonic fantasy and freedom for me at the keyboard, nevertheless providing built-in compositional limits similar to ground basses or the adherence to specific dance rhythms. “In Kirtanam Meter” is cast in seven sections, moving from dramatic blocks to florid writing, from imitative counterpoint to emptiness, and then building again to dramatic blocks of sound that give way to a contemplative last passage. (17.08.05)
29. Frame Without Picture (July 29-31, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’35”) …Or form without content, backbone without flesh, empty building or promise, container holding nothing. (29.07.05)
30. In The Waning Weeks Of August (August 3/15-17, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’) Composed for poet/writer Marc Widershien on the occasion of a performance of excerpts from his Boston memoir “The Life Of All Worlds” at Boston’s St. Botolph Club on August 24, 2005, this miniature was inspired both by the annual directionlessness I tend to feel in stagnant August heat, and by several lines from the nineteenth section of the memoir. Widershien begins: “In the waning weeks of August, 1961…,” continuing with the following lines that help pinpoint the atmosphere sought in my music: “…The sky was open—and wild flowers peeked out of ditches…The wind moved through the jaded air,…like a good ghost keeping vigil over the silent land.” I thank Marc for his vivid and personal work, and offer this brief tone poem to him in honor of his achievement and to his wife, the soprano D’Anna Fortunato, in celebration of our continuing collaborations. (18.08.05)
31. Graft From The Past (1986/August 3-4, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’55”)
32. Moving Parts No Longer Covered By An Existing Service Agreement (January 13, 2000/August 3-4, 2005) (ca. 1’ 25”)
33. Upon Ormavoyt (2000/August 5/Sept. 13, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’35”) Completed for my colleague Jane Bernstein and dedicated to her on the occasion of her election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, this miniature was begun in 2000 as a setting of a curious tenor line included in one of the Appendices to a substantial volume of Tudor keyboard works (ca. 1520-1580) published as part of the Musica Britannica series. This anonymous piece, according to Professor Bernstein’s note, “is a transposed and textless version of the tenor part of the chanson Or me veult esperance mentir* from the ‘Mellon’ chansonnier (housed in Yale University’s Beinecke Library).” The copy printed in the Britannica collection “may have been intended as a cantus firmus for improvisation upon.” So improvise upon it I have, but perhaps in a different manner than would have once been predicted. (27.09.05) *hence the anglicized abbreviation Ormavoyt?
34. Imitating Figural Style (August 11-15, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’45”) Obrecht
35. Several Lunes And A Whitney (pianist plays piano and toy piano) (August 24-October 2, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’45”) Commissioned for the Extensible Toy Piano Festival, co-directed by David Claman and Matthew Malsky at Clark University in November 2005, this miniature “suite” takes two minute poetic forms and explores their possibilities as musical forms. The “several lunes” of the title are four versions of Robert Kelly’s “American haiku” form invented in the poet’s early career (the 5-7-5 syllable count of the haiku becomes 5-3-5 in the lune, of which Kelly [born 1935] writes “I tried trimming, and finally got to a five-three-five pattern, concave rather than convex, thirteen syllables, number of the lunar months.”). The lune also suggests the moon (French “lune”) and madness (lunacy). For these reasons, it became an attractive, power-packed little form to use for the four piano/toy piano mini-duets found here: two “Massachusetts Lunes” and two “Maine Lunes.” The “Massachusetts Lunes” appear first and fourth and use several sonorities from other pieces in this album, while the “Maine Lunes,” two acknowledgments of composer Elliott Schwartz’s seventieth birthday appearing second and third in the sequence, borrow (recomposed) chords from Schwartz’s piano work “Four Maine Haiku.” The final section of the work, a “Whitney,” comprises a musical version of a syllabic form created by Betty Ann Whitney of Wesley Chapel, Florida. The syllable pattern becomes a chord pattern: 3,4,3,4,3,4,7 syllables (or chords) in each line. The whitney serves as a more substantial coda to the earlier chain of lunes. The innocent, fanciful qualities possible with the toy piano also suggested a bit of lunacy. The joy I have taken in finding brief moments of sonic magic between the smaller and larger keyboards have made the whole endeavor a pleasure for me. I hope this pleasure comes forward in the music. (28.09.05)
36. Appalled (September 1, 2005) (Duration ca. 30”) This piece is a spontaneous outrage reacting to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. The impetus to write the music came in the form of an email (“Appalled By Katrina”) from a close Sri Lankan relative of mine whose work carrying out extensive tsunami relief efforts in January-March 2005 had been an inspiration. (26.09.05)
37. Hagino Sedoka (September 2, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’30”) A small lyric poem for pianist Yoko Hagino, this piece boasts two little verses in the 5-7-7 “syllable count;” i.e. the meter (5/4, 7/4) and number of structural notes in a bar (5 or 7) yield a musical allusion to the sedoka’s linear structure (‘katauta’). The first three-line/three-bar verse (katauta) begins in the middle/high register, and the second darkens as it draws to a close. (26.09.05)
38. Thought Before A Lesson (September 3-5, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’) Composed for Jiwon Chang as a prelude to an initial composition lesson, this contemplative miniature uses a progression of two, three, four, and five-note chords only. The first “phrase” presents the chords in the following order: 4,2,2/5,3,2/3,2,5/2,2,4. Subsequent phrases mimic this same order. The goal of the piece is to use the piano with vivid moderation; vertical spacing is paramount. (06.09.05)
39. Gratulatory (September 7-14) (Duration ca. 2’) This brief offering celebrates the musical accomplishments of Daniel Blake, whose composing and saxophone playing illuminates the Boston-area new music scene—at this writing, a mere one year after his graduation from the Tufts/New England Conservatory double degree program. This congratulatory piece can be heard as a form of alarm as well as a paean—a wake-up announcement to challenge the aural palate. It is not without conflict and dread, qualities that appear in Daniel’s music as well. (26.09.05)
40. Epicede For Anthony Cornish (September 15-18, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’) Anthony Cornish (1935-2005) was artist-in-residence in the Tufts University Department of Drama and Dance from 1994 to 2002, and I was startled to read of his death in the September 2005 issue of the Tufts Journal. To me, he was perpetually youthful--acting, directing, teaching, or riding the bus with equal relish and comfort. This “Epicede” juxtaposes three “musics:” a dissonant chord-stacking passage, a few strains “in larmoyante (tearful comedy) style,” and a setting for piano of the keyboard version of the choral “Doulce est la mort (Sweet is death)” by Philip Van Wilder (ca. 1490-1553, composer in the service of Henry VIII). I fancy that these three kinds of music are all of a type Anthony would have appreciated, and I dedicate the work to his vivid memory. (26.09.05)
41. Disappointment In Shadorma Form (September 18-October 13, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’) Begun as an homage-of-sorts to Henry Cowell for a provisional recital featuring several of his works, this miniature….
42. Ort (Composed October 7- November 1, 2005) (Duration ca. combo of tanka, sedoka, then splodge
43. Vigil Mondo (October 9/November 1, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’) Composed after an excerpt by my former student Ryan Vigil that was in turn inspired by a chord from Schoenberg’s Op. 15 song cycle “The Book of the Hanging Gardens,” this little piece takes on the question/answer form of the Japanese poetic form “Mondo.” Its two stanzas are each imitative of the 5-7-7 syllable count of the old Japanese form, where a syllable equals a beat. The first stanza is repeated, and the second is not. As was often the case with mondos, two authors are at work here: Ryan Vigil provided the idea used as a question, and I tried to answer it. (03.10.05)
44. Al-Doory Than-Bauk (October 14-16, 2005) For Abigail Al-Doory
45. Songlet Seeking Balance (October 15-
46. For Robert Smithson (October 16-
47. Monomania In A Cradle Song (Composed October 18- For Evan Ziporyn
48. Emergency Street Sound (Composed October 22-27, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’20”) The opening four-note figure of this selection intones the pitches of a Rotterdam ambulance siren heard while walking in the city on the evening of October 22, 2005. (03.10.05)
49. Kyle Gann In Worcester (Composed November 7-17, 2005) (Duration ca. 3’)
50. Gardner Read His Exequy (Composed November 11-12, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’50”) In memoriam Gardner Read (January 2, 1913-November 10, 2005).
51. One Chord As The Complete Piece (Composed November 13, 2005) (Duration ca. 25”)
52. Unexpected Entry (Composed November 13, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’) For David Cleary
53. Grand Gunther Greeting (Composed November 15/29, 2005) (Duration ca. 50”) For Gunther Schuller at 80
54. Something For The Middle Register (Composed November 15, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’45”)
55. Li Po (After Lines By Charles Olson) (Composed November 17-26, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’30”)
56. Beau Scheme (Composed November 17-26, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’15”)
58. Hailing RC (Backbite) (Composed November 20-
59. Wrinkle After Antoon (Composed November 26- Sinan Antoon, Iraqi poet
60. Please Continue To Hold (Composed December 3-
61. Tired (Composed December 3-4, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’)
62. Concerning Xu (Composed December 9-21, 2005) (Duration ca. 1’55”)
63. Tenebrism (Composed December Inspired specifically by the painting by a Follower of Rembrandt (ca. 1630-50) entitled “A Man Seated Reading at a Table in a Lofty Room,” this piece imagines a pianistic equivalent to the “dark tonalities” of the “tenebroso” style associated with the 17th-century painter Caravaggio. I discovered the “Man Seated Reading…” painting in a wonderful little book by E.H. Gombrich called Shadows: The Depiction of Cast Shadows in Western Art.
64. Kernel By Koulendros (Composed December 17-19) (Duration ca. 1’35”)
65. Browsing The Low Register With Martinson (Composed December 17-
66. Faint Music-School Memory Of The Name FAURE (Composed December 18-19, 2005) (Duration ca. 2’35”)
67. With Lucky And Don In Mind (Composed December 22, 2005) (Duration ca. 55”)
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Copyright © 2005 John D. McDonald. All rights reserved |
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