I woke up this morning with several possibilities for the cello sonata running through my head, both for going forward in the development section and for segueing into the recapitulation.

So far, neither has proven entirely satisfactory, but the morning’s work has moved me past what I accomplished last weekend. I’ve gotten notes on the page, breaking up what has become the hermetic “perfection” of what I have written so far. Does that make sense? If what I’ve written is good, and I don’t work on it for a week or so, then what’s there begins to sound as if it’s complete. How can I add to it?

Therefore, even though what I’ve written this morning is far from what I think I need to hear, it at least has given my brain something to reject and to improve.

Why don’t I post two bits, the original beginning of the development, and what I wrote this morning? The first is what I ended up with last weekend; the second is what I’ve stopped working on this morning, and I state up front that it is not good. As I work on it and get back into the music, it will serve as an interesting lesson in how I blunder my way into what sounds awfully organic and masterful.

Original | Saturday, Oct. 22 blundering

Today’s work is indescribably clumsy. Some interesting suggestions, but this will not be what audiences in our nation’s capital hear. This is what comes of trying to transcribe dream music.

Not a lot of time to work tonight, but I thought I would at least pull out the first 36 measures and copy them into a new file, which I’ve named i. moderato_B_recapitulation.

For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, here’s the quick and dirty explanation. (For those who do, you can skip to the break.)

A sonata is generally a three-movement work for solo instrument and accompaniment. The first movement of a sonata is usually in what is called sonata allegro form, and this is what it looks like:

(You can clink on the image to go to a ThinkQuest project that explains sonata allegro form in terms of the symphony, which is a four-movement sonata for an orchestra.)

My principal theme (also called the first theme or the A theme) is the big, swashbuckling opening theme. Loud, violent, in A minor, mm. 1-16.

There is a bridge passage, the settling down to F major, mm. 16-20. My second subject (or B theme) is the beautiful little tune from mm. 21-36. It is a perfect contrast to the principal theme, both in character and in tonality. Usually the second theme is in the dominant key from the principal theme, and the reverse tonality. In other words, if the piece were in C minor (like Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony), that means the principal theme is in C minor, and the second theme is in G major. Here, my second theme, as I mentioned earlier, is in F major when perhaps it “should” be in E major.

However, there aren’t really any “shoulds” in sonata form, something I wish someone had told me before I started listening to symphonies and concertos and sonatas trying to pick out this exact, pedantic structure. Not many works adhere to it precisely.

Mine certainly doesn’t. For example, there is no “closing section” between the second theme and the development. There’s not even a cadence. It just bleeds directly into E major (finally) and we start playing with the two themes right away.

All of this is to say that I copied the first 36 measures, my exposition, into a new file. The recapitulation of a piece is usually a more-or-less exact repeat of the opening, except that the second theme is held to the original key. In my case, I transposed it up to A major.

And here’s the strange thing. It is a totally different thing. Even if I play just the second theme without the new bridge passage to get us from A minor to A major, you can tell it’s not the same. It’s not as full and warm, for one thing. It’s higher and tinklier and not as expansive. I may have to think about this. The main determinant will be how I think the movement needs to end. I may choose another key, or I may choose to rejigger the whole theme so that it sounds completely new and wonderful before tying into some kind of end.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards a quiet, gently moving end.

Here’s another frightening thing: the music won’t stop. After spending the weekend immersed in the cello sonata, I find that returning to work is a major terror. What if I lose the thread, the inspiration, before I can get back to the score? How can I pay attention to shelving books when there’s the music waiting for me?

And every second, that music is roaring in my head, wanting to get out, wanting to push forward, to expand, to grow, to become complete.

I’m trying to regard it as merely a new phase of the process that I have to learn to deal with. But it’s frightening.

This post is all ex post facto: we have absolutely no internet connection in the remote cabin we’ve rented for the Second Annual Lichtenbergian Retreat. I’m trying to record thoughts as I go along, mostly to avoid working. Enjoy.

Friday, October 15

It is very frightening to sit down at your computer and keyboard on a brilliant fall morning in the mountains. Let me put it this way: I am very frightened to sit down at my keyboard. Upon arising (after a late night hot tub discussion on the nature of God and our ability to understand same), I have gotten my Lichtenbergian travel mug filled with coffee, come downstairs to the play room and set up my computer and keyboard to begin work on the cello sonata.

And that’s it. A couple of amiable good mornings to my fellow Lichtenbergians, and they all vanish. Everyone’s working. It’s dead silent in the cabin. We came to work, and now we’re working.

So I’m frightened. I quickly resolved a couple of harmonic issues in the Andante/Elegy as it stands, but now I’m faced with what to do with that abrupt change. Do I continue working on the Andante, or should I play around with the opening Allegro? This absolute freedom, compulsion, to work is very very frightening.

I open a file that I started on the Allegro, a very simple opening. Now I wonder if this is the opening movement for a sonata that ends up with the Andante I already have. Should it open more vigorously? Or is this quiet, gentle melody what needs to lead into the elegy of the final movement?

I suddenly remember I have not taken my meds for the day.

I’ve added one little measure to the gentle Allegro and a whole landscape opens up. That’s frightening as well.

Noodling around is all fine and good, but eventually, if one is composing a sonata, one must settle on a theme and figure out how it can be developed. Indeed, one must settle on two themes. And develop them both.

Close the simple opening (we’ll call it Allegro_A) and open a blank file. Hammer out something gangbusters.

10:30ish
So, in playing with Allegro_B, I’ve written a great measure that must happen somewhere in the thread of the piece, because it’s not an opening measure.

10:51 (<–I’ve decided to start time-stamping this)
New futzing, and this time it sounds like an opening. I was semi-trying not to open in a minor key, but this is what’s coming out. Very majestic, very Romantic. I think I’m going to go with this for a while. Maybe the gentle Allegro_A theme can serve as the contrasting B theme for this opening.

11:40
It’s now a Moderato, not an Allegro. I’m beginning to puzzle out the possibilities of this very stark theme. Do not be fooled. I am only to measure 14. Kevin tried to distract me, and I countered by puzzling him with what I’ve written.

11:57
Lunch time.

1:00
Lunch, then a walk by the creek in flawless sunshine. I kept hoping that further ideas for the stark theme would pop into my head. Hoping, not working. Instead, the fragile second theme from the Andante/Elegy keeps nagging at me. Still, I think what I shall do for another couple of hours, before the hot tub claims me and I have to cook supper, is to develop chunks of variations that I can use later.

For both the Andante and now the Moderato, I have two separate files. One is the piece itself; the other is an “ideas” file where I can play around and put out garbage without worrying about having to reclaim or undo what I’ve done. I generally don’t delete anything from the ideas file; stuff just piles up. Often I’m able to go back and snag some of the detritus for other stuff. Such is the Way.

1:50
Holy smokes. The B theme has appeared. (I tried the original Allegro_A theme to see if it would work, but it didn’t. It will have to wait until the Cello Sonata No. 2.) This new theme is simple and lovely, a complete contrast to the stark A theme, which is as it should be. The relative keys are not classically correct (A minor to F major, instead of E major), but it’s too pretty to mess with. (I tried taking it down the notch, but it didn’t work, and F is such a bright and pretty key that I’m leaving it alone.)

2:32
It’s very odd not being able to interrupt myself with email. The B theme is easy to extend and sustain the pretty quality, but there has to be more to it than a Hallmark sensibility. Plus, I have to herd it towards the development section, and then where will we be?

Saturday, October 16

11:20
After a long and interesting night, I am circling back around to look at this work. I listened to the two fragmentary movements repeatedly last night, and was always impressed with what I heard. I think I’ve fixed the bare spots in the Elegy, and the opening Moderato is very solid. At the moment I find I am transfixed by the Moderato B-theme. It is pure and delicate, simple sweetness, and a perfect contrast to the opening. The next question is whether it can hold up its end of the conversation.

2:47
Short nap, a little lunch, a little Lichtenbergian distraction playing a neat card game with Kevin and Craig. Back to work, approaching the development section of the Moderato. This is where the Hallmark theme has to pull its weight. There’s no demarcation of the development in the classical sense; we just kind of blend into it before we know it.

I worry that once again all this is not very developed, but Stephen asked for about a 12-minute piece, which means that I have to get the ideas out there quickly and then develop them rather immediately.

4:37
Knocking off for the day, and by extension, for the weekend , after getting a nice little notch cut out of the development. Not set in stone by any means, but enough to get me through the door.

I think what I need to do next is go to the Ideas file and just play around with development ideas and have lots to choose from.

Here it is so far, the Moderato. (And the score.)

I wasn’t going to share this movement as I went along, because it may be good enough that you would want to hear it whole and complete the first time. But then this thing happened this morning.

There I was, cleaning up some weak-sounding bits and moving forward, when suddenly the music decided it needed a change, so it drew itself to a fermata, then double-barred itself and began a completely unexpected B section, completely different in character and goals from what had come before. This is not necessarily a problem, because ABA is a perfectly respectable form, but I hadn’t planned on using it here.

So here’s my dilemma: do I accept this new section and try to work with it a while before heading back into the higher energy of the A section, or do I squash it and channel the first part into further explorations of itself? This is the last movement of the piece, so it should sound as if it’s closing out whatever has come before, and I’m not sure the new section contributes to that feeling.

At any rate, here it is. If you want to wait to hear it finished, don’t click. If you want to give me advice, plunge right in.

III. Andante (Elegy): score | mp3

I’ve been very hardworking on Friday night and today. The third movement of the cello sonata is about a minute and a half long at this point, and I dreamed the ending this morning, so it’s going nicely. I figure the thing needs to be about 3:30 or 4:00 long.

As I worked this morning, a strange thing happened. I suddenly realized that I did not feel like a fraud. I felt like a composer, someone whose friend asks him to write a cello sonata to perform, and who sits down and proceeds to do just that. It was very odd. I wonder if it will last.

This feeling was occasioned by the most recent additions to the Andante/Elegy, which if I do say so myself are intensely beautiful. Do you want to continue to hear this piece in progress or shall we do it like we did the Preludes and spring it on you when it’s done? I suppose it could be interesting to hear the changes as I tinker with the thing, but I really think that this particular piece will astound you if you hear it completed.

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?