Author: Dale

The Unfinished Angel

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I am reading The Unfinished Angel, by Sharon Creech, who won the Newbery Award for Walk Two Moons, and who has written several other wonderful books. This book is delighting me more than any book I have read in a while.

The narrator is an angel living in the tower of an old villa in a village in southern/Italian Switzerland. The angel has been there for 400 years, but is more than a little unsure of he/she is supposed to be doing: “An angel is supposed to be a happy being, no? Angels are supposed to float about bringing love and goodwill and good fortune, no? I do not know where I got these ideas. Maybe they are wrong. Me, I am not feeling all that cheerful with the peoples around, and I am not finding many peoples deserving of the splashes of love and good fortune, even if I knew how to splash and where to get the love and good fortune.”

I find myself reading it out loud in a half-Italian/half-Slavic accent and giggling.

I quote this chapter in full:

Hairs and Feets

You won’t believe this, but there are peoples who pay money to other peoples to wash their hairs and even to paint colors on their toes. Is really! And in the same world of peoples there are other peoples who have to crawl in the dirt scrounging for a measly piece of garbage to eat. I am not fabbragrating! Don’t get me started.

At night I swish in the heads of the peoples with the clean hairs and feets, showing them the peoples crawling in the dirt, but in the morning when the clean peoples wake up they have already forgotten. I think maybe it is my fault that they forget so quick and so it is my fault that there are peoples who have to crawl in the dirt. I am not knowing enough. What are the other angels doing?

I am breathless with wonder at the ability of some writers to juggle words like luftballons.

Suite from a Children’s Opera

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Here’s the promised Suite from a Children’s Opera, culled from the 45-minute score to Am Südpol, denkst man, ist es heiß. It’s about penguins and their love for opera, which arrives once a year via the Opera Boat.

  1. Overture
  2. A Cold Life
  3. Requiem for a Violin
  4. It’s Here!
  5. Ballet
  6. Young Love
  7. Valentine
  8. Music!!
  9. Coda

I’d love to hear what the winner of the competition sounded like. As far as Google knows, it’s never been recorded, though I have seen a production photo of it. (Think opera singers in full-body penguin suits.) [update: We can actually get tickets here for performances next month.]

As I’ve said, there’s some nice stuff here. Enjoy.

Ah, rejection…

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It’s official: William Blake’s Inn was not selected as one of the three finalists in the National Opera Association’s Chamber Opera Competition. Well, I didn’t think it would be. It’s not really an opera, number one, and number two, the opera world, especially the one based in Canyon, TX, is not especially imaginative. And number three, Inn‘s orchestra requirements approach Mahlerian, which is not exactly “chamber.” I think they were thinking piano and string bass.

This is a biennial competition, so maybe by next time I will have on hand something more competitive. This is something I know I can do. The other day, while my lovely first wife was out running errands, I set the Apple TV to play all my music just for the thrill of seeing it on a screen. Sort of like seeing it actually performed. In a sad way.

Anyway, it was set on shuffle, and every now and then a piece from Am Südpol, denkst man, ist es heiß came up. This is the “penguin opera” that I wrote for the Köln Opera’s children’s opera competition back in 2004, and I must say that it still holds up. Some very nice stuff in there.

So, once I clear my table (cello sonata and AFO, I’m looking at you), I may finally tackle Simon’s Dad, a project I’ve had in mind for years and years now. It’s a story by de Maupassant, and it’s a lovely story. You should go find it and read it. My challenge will be to limit the number of players and vocalists, because these competitions all want like three singers and eight players.

Getting back to the NOA rejection, I have to say that I had forgotten all about it. I almost didn’t open the envelope; I thought it was a fund-raising appeal. I was startled to remember that I had submitted anything. I wonder which competition will surprise me next?

Cello sonata, take 1

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Rather than allow those piano preludes to take up permanent residence in my head, I pulled up some files this morning that I had saved back when I was distracting myself from those piano preludes with short stabs at the cello sonata, and I got to work on the sonata. My theory is that if I get the new music planted in my head, I can start working out all the problems that I know are going to come with , once again , plowing unfamiliar ground.

So far it seems to be working. I cheated—a bit—by pulling up an old Prelude No. 6 sketch and recasting it for the cello and piano. It has a nice elegiac sound to it, so I think this is going to be the third movement, kind of a free-form rhapsody kind of a thing.

I seem to have an irrational fear that I’ll be accused of relying on traditional form. What?? That’s what they’re there for, you idiot. So why not go ahead and plan for the third movement to be a sonata allegro or a theme & variation or something. I don’t know.

In addition, the free-form idea for the third movement is problematic in that the slow movement will probably also be free-form. And the Ayshire sketch that I keep thinking will be the first movement is similarly slow and meditative, though I do plan a sonata allegro there.

It seems I have some more thinking to do. Maybe I’ll make the middle movement a scherzo. Take that, traditional form!

At the end of the day, I have to confess that what I got onto the screen was so interesting and so vital that it scared me. I’ve been listening to it off and on all day, but I haven’t dared work on it more. I need to understand, at least in some way, what I’ve done so that I can extend it into a full movement. I’m not going to share at the moment. Well, OK, I will, but it’s just the first stab. Literally.

There’s a gap in the accompaniment where I haven’t worked on the cello melody, followed by a resumption where I knew exactly what should happen. (Only, it didn’t.) There’s also this odd hiccup at one point where the piano is playing what sounds like staccato notes in the left hand and it’s written to be sustained quarter notes under the quintuplets. Yes, that’s right, you’re hearing quintuplets. Cello Sonata: Stab One.

The inadequacy of the computer in translating live players has never been more clear. Hear it under lights, as we say.

Discuss: is it as interesting, as—dare I say?—ravishing as it sounded to me all day today?

Prelude (no fugue) No. 6, no kidding

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All right, I know you’ve heard this before, baby, but I swear this time it’s true. I have absolutely finished with Prelude (no fugue) No. 6.

Funny how it happened. I needed one more variation in the first third, for bulk, as it were, and I put in this tiny little baroque thing. It sounded puny, though, and before I knew it I was adding the second voice. That sounded awful, just amateurish plopping of notes in there with no sense of voice leading, which would be because I have only the vaguest of notions about voice leading. It didn’t go anywhere.

You didn’t get to hear it in that state. Be grateful. I don’t mind sharing my process, but exposing my incompetence would be just plain stupid.

So early this morning, I awoke with the idea of making it a minor key variation. I began futzing with it, literally moving notes around on the screen until it flowed not only smoothly but interestingly. I think it works.

I also stuck in a three-measure transition into the middle section which I’m still not convinced of, but perhaps it will grow on me. Comments are welcome.

Prelude (no fugue) No. 6: score | mp3

Yes, Maila, you may begin learning it.

In other news, my lovely first wife’s birthday present finally arrived: the new Apple TV. (Did you know that a straight line between Hong Kong and Atlanta goes through Anchorage? Get a globe and a piece of string: it’s astonishing. Good bar bet.)

Wow. I know I’m an Apple fanboy, but wow. First of all, it’s tiny, like not even four inches square. It’s cheap(ish) at $99, although it does not come with the actual HDMI/optical audio cables you need to hook it up. (The website tells you that.) And it’s astoundingly flawless. Plug it in. Select the input on your television. Answer its questions. And you’re streaming video from Netflix, YouTube, the iTunes store, iTunes itself, even iPhoto.

It was fun pulling in the Six Preludes (No Fugues) from upstairs and playing it on the television, with the “album cover” in all its glory filling the screen. It was fun pulling in the 2005 Rotunda Concert performance of “Sonnet 18” from YouTube. It was fun checking out what is actually available from Netflix for streaming (not everything is at the moment.)

I think I noticed some video quality issues in the Netflix movie we watched, but then I’m not impressed with the TV’s regular video quality. All those high-def images one sees on the TVs in the stores? They are not to be had in real life, period, so I’m content.

The tech writers have had a field day (the thing just started shipping last week) taking it apart and looking under the hood. Apparently it’s essentially an iPad, capable of storing and running apps. There’s a thing called AirPlay, where you can stream from your iOS device (iPhone, iTouch, iPad), and that apparently can be used by any app. No one seems to know what this portends. Reply hazy, ask again later, it seems.

And now I have to go relearn all those 17th century dances that I researched and taught but rarely danced 35 years ago.

Muddling through

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Let’s see. I had a cat go into surgery to find out why he couldn’t keep food down, and they found nothing, yet he’s back to snarfing canned cat food as if it’s nachos with no ill effects. He insists on climbing stairs and jumping onto furniture , a big no-no , and he won’t take his medicine.

I had a battery and cable die on me and so had to have the van repaired.

I went back into Prelude No. 6 and stuck another little baroque-y bit in before the 12/8 section–and then it started turning into a two-part invention which I am completely unqualified to write , so I’ve been hammering my way through that and it sucks.

I mailed off “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way” to a competition elsewhere. The Newnan Vortex™ being what it is, I think I will not mention the name of the competition, because submissions are to be anonymized. (Scores are marked with a nom de guerre and a sealed envelope contains our identities.) Still, even if someone in V_____ came across this post, let’s face it: I’m still anonymous as far as they’re concerned.

I missed a competition deadline, a choral group celebrating some anniversary, because I do not have an a capella piece in my portfolio and didn’t have time to write one. After the cello sonata. Between the Ayshire piece. Sometime.

So it’s no wonder that my acid reflux has bubbled back up. Feh.

On the horizon, though, there’s hope: the Lichtenbergian Annual Retreat! Only 13 days! (Please, please, please let me have started the cello sonata by then!)

Prelude (no fugue) No. 6

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Provisionally. Consider this a beta version. Maila, if you download it, don’t commit it to memory yet.

Prelude (no fugue) No. 6: score | mp3

It’s a huge sloppy mess, and as usual I think it is too short. However, I’m going to leave it as is, I think, unless obsessive listenings over the next few days reveal some obvious tweaks I need to make.

You can get all six preludes (but no fugues) here.

Note: the version in this post is in fact the beta version. You can hear the completed version here and here.

Prelude 6, stab 6

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One step forward, five steps sideways.

In playing with the tone-row that is the theme of Prelude No. 6, I transposed some notes octavewise to smooth out some of the spiky leaps , and found that the two halves of the theme are identical and lead into each other. I could make the harmonies of each half the same, but that would be boring.

The bigger problem is that, left to itself, the theme is static in the extreme. I will have to break it up to get it to go anywhere.

I played with several modulations, mostly rhythmical. None are grabbing me at this point. I am truly in the phase of creating a lot of crap.

I did write an ending which grew on me.

The situation is this: I have to take that step out into the void and create such weird, useless, lame crap that something decent will appear in order to balance it out.

Prelude 6, stab 5, et al.

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I didn’t have email because my provider had migrated my account over to the new server, and his email telling me about all that got caught up on the transfer and didn’t go out until it went to the new server. Oops. All is well now, however.

I worked on Prelude 6 again last night, struggling with the harmonization of the tone-row. I didn’t like the middle, where the notes wander without real purpose and so the harmonies have to be rather forceful to get you to follow along. I believe I have that fixed now. Tonight I will work on the ending, which I think is necessary because I need a boffo finish, as we used to say in vaudeville, and I don’t want to leave it to chance.

In other news, I got the next set of Artist Trading Cards mailed off, finally. Terry had sent me his last week, and I had just lazed about before sending them off again. I’ll reveal the next artist in a couple of days. No word from Craig, who got the other set.

I have a couple of composition competition deadlines coming up next week. I had one last week, but upon close examination it turned out that “Blake Leads a Walk on the Milky Way” was too big for the criteria, and the “Allegro Gracioso” from the symphony was actually too short. Feh. I guess I should go through all the upcoming competitions with a similar fine-toothed comb so I can go ahead and get them off my schedule.