I don’t even know how to begin this post. I thought about something like, “You know why George Lichtenberg gives up on his symphony?” or something about the number of days left in the countdown, but I’m not up to being clever.

Stephen Czarkowksi, GHP’s fabulous string teacher/orchestral conductor, who requested I write this piece, will not be returning this summer, having other opportunities he should not pass up. There is no reason for me to keep working on Symphony in G major.

I’ve just been kind of numb, kind of nauseated, since this afternoon when I got Stephen’s email. This is a huge disappointment for me, needless to say, and coming on the heels of the news about the theatre losing the building, I’ve been thrown for a loop.

Oh well, easy come, easy go. I can at least get back to work on A Day in the Moonlight, I guess.

As far as I can tell, it’s finished. I mean, it needs cymbals here and there and I wish Finale would simply crash a cymbal when I click a note into the score but it won’t so there you are. And it’s still not being at all subtle or even appropriate with the dynamics. But I think it’s done.

The last time you heard it was on 4/3/08.

Here’s III. Allegro gracioso, finished. I think you will be surprised. And hopefully pleased.

Next: IV. Lento. This time I mean business.

My goal this week is to finish III. Allegro gracioso, which means essentially getting it orchestrated.

This morning I got all of it done except for the last big bit, and I want to dig in and listen to what I’ve got so far before tackling it.

A week from today, the countdown will be 42 days, which is the number of days in GHP, so it’s kind of a temporal mirror thing I’ll have going on here. Now it gets scary, because the following week will be more or less lost to me: Tuesday and Wednesday nights, my regular composition nights, I’ll be in Atlanta with the STAR program, so I won’t get any work done at all on my nemesis, IV. Lento.

However, I have to say that in listening to what I’ve got (and it’s all in tatters now with all the crap I’ve inserted and left lying around), I’ve swung back into the mindset that it’s not so bad after all. May Apollo keep me in that mind.

Also, as long as we’re counting days, the last six or seven days will also be lost, because I will be in Valdosta setting up GHP. I will not be composing anything at that point. That leaves, what, about 35 actual days? Sheesh.

Am I disappointed that I won’t have a complete symphony by June 2, the day I leave for Valdosta? A bit. But I’ll be happy to have the final two movements done, and maybe I can get at least a sketch for the first done while I’m there.

The second? Slow movements have been my downfall forever. However, I did come across this sketch from previous thinking, and you know what? It’s not too bad a beginning, I think.

I got a few more sections of the III. Allegro gracioso scored tonight, but backed off before tackling that first big bit. I’m still pretty clogged up and not as clear-headed as I might be. Still no mp3s.

Plus, I’m having too much fun over with the Lichtenbergians.

Despite allergies that will not let go, I was determined to get some work done tonight, and I did.

It was not much at all, but tiny steps are better than lying down and whining about only having 54 days left to finish two movements.

For the Lento, I was able to suggest a couple more approaches to thematic development, on paper at least. My problem at this point is that I’ll have to scrap what I’ve got so far in order to use any of the new stuff, because wedging it into what is already there is just not practical. Maybe I’ll just print it out at school and literally cut and paste it into the new configuration.

I keep hearing fully articulated, traditional, organic development at the edges of my consciousness, but not front and center enough for me to be able to transcribe. It’s very frustrating. What I get onto paper is stodgy and strophic when it needs to be fluid. I will persevere.

When I’d had enough of that, I went back to the Allegro gracioso and began to orchestrate in earnest. I got three strophes done that sound very nice. I think I’ll tackle the end next, and then work my way back from there.

I am assisted in this movement by some Johann Strauss scores in Google Books. It’s very helpful to see how he’s orchestrated his greatest hits, even if mine sound completely different.

Still no mp3s.

I was very productive today, albeit not entirely with the symphony. I got the herb garden mulched, I got new life insurance, Marc and I checked out the new parks downtown as performance venues, I did a lot of reading (War & Peace and the Dissanayake), and I almost went to the auditions for David Wilson’s 4th of July play, but I forgot about them until too late.

With the symphony, I did listen to III. Allegro gracioso while I drove around town, but am no closer to an ending.

I decided to work outside the score on IV. Largo, trying, as I’ve said previously, break up the agitato motif and create a workable theme with it. I’ve filled a page and a half with “abortive sketches,” one or two of which show promise. I had to keep stepping back and reminding myself that the theme, whatever it ended up being, had to elicit some kind of triumphant, joyful feeling. I think I’ve got some bits to do that with now.

Part of what helped was also listening to Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 as I drove around, listening once again to how he did it. (It is also in G major, interestingly.) I pulled out my copy of the score this evening and studied some pieces that had struck me earlier in the day; I’m not sure I learned anything concrete, but that’s my lack of academic training in such matters.

Anyway, I’m hearing some bits more clearly now, and I may go back to IV. Lento tomorrow and see what I can put into practice. No mp3s tonight.

I got email yesterday from Dianne Mize, my painting teacher from my summer at GHP, a newsletter kind of thing reminding us of her blog, where she posts a painting every day. Not that that kind of productivity depresses me or anything.

Anyway, as I scrolled through, lusting after her work, and her work habits, one of her posts led me to this website/post, and the concept of notan: light and/vs. dark in a composition. For Dianne and Robert, of course, the concept is literal in a visual sense.

But I began to think about notan in terms of sound and orchestration. The more I have listened to symphonic works recently in order to glom how they do it, as George Lichtenberg would fret, the more I pay attention to the clarity of the orchestration. I’ve talked before about trying to avoid the problems that Robert Schumann had in layering too many instruments into a passage; I don’t think I’ve been able to avoid them.

On the one hand, as I’ve listened, the strings are the bedrock of the symphony. They play practically all the time in most pieces, and the violins in unison more often than you might think. On the other hand, sometimes they step into the shadows and allow the other sections or soloists to have a moment in the light.

I’ve got the concept. Where I think I have failed in the execution is in setting up themes in a way that these moments of light and dark occur organically. I still feel as if, in IV. Lento especially, I’m writing too strophically. The fact that I can label each pass through a theme with a nickname means that it’s too segmented. In III. Allegro gracioso, which I swear I’m going to get to work on in just a moment, the name of the game is strophe, although as I mentioned in my earlier post I think I could try breaking those up as well.

Anyway, that’s one of my goals this week is to revisit IV. Lento and see about crushing the thematic material and seeing if something good can come of that.

Now I’m going to work. Really.