Undeterred by the ministrations of the emergency room, nuclear medicine, and the cardiology staff of Piedmont-Newnan Hospital, I have continue to work on the piece from my hospital bed. (Yes, Piedmont-Newnan has wi-fi.) I’ll have to wait until I get home to play with some kind of ending, and I’m not sure the last eight measures make any sense yet, but it’s substantially advanced enough from yesterday’s version for me to post the new one:

PBSQ3 (Dialog): score [pdf], sound [mp3]

I’m liking this a lot.

9:00 pm, Done, for the most part. I’m sure I’ll find plenty I want to tweak, the last cadenza in particular is just a place filler, and there are plenty of places where I’m sure you’ll think, “Oh, I see what he wanted to do there,” even if I didn’t. But if I don’t get to work on it again before I have to mail it out, it will serve.

PBSQ3 (Dialog): score [pdf], sound [mp3]

And with that, here is the complete Pieces for Bassoon & String Quartet:

• I. Waltz (score)
• II. Threnody (score)
• III. Dialog (score)

Today was such a glorious day that I came home from school, changed straight into my kilt, and headed to the labyrinth to soak up the sun. I also sketched out the end of the “Heartfelt” theme and the beginning of the finale.

Here’s what I got:

PBSQ3 (Dialog): score [pdf], sound [mp3]

Finale is not playing the molto rallentandos like I want, and yet it keeps playing the accelerando at m.79 all the way into m.82, making it sound like the bassoon is ripping out 32nd notes. I like the way it sounds, but I need to mess with the notation to get it to do that. Anyway, the last little sigh of the bassoon should be imagined as very slow and defeated.

From the little fragment at the end, I think you can tell where it’s heading. I should be able to wind it up tomorrow night.

Question: I played with actually writing out the dialog in the score; sometimes musicians can be obtuse. What do you think?

All right! This movement is going to be fun, fun, fun, fun to write and fun to play.

All I’ve added this morning so far is the next strings bit of the “dialog,” but it was so clear as to how this is going to work that I had to share immediately:

PBSQ3 (Dialog): score [pdf], sound [mp3]

12:00, Lunch break. And I think you’ll enjoy the piece so far. I was completely unable to suppress my tendency to wit, and now I’m just reveling in it.

PBSQ3 (Dialog): score [pdf], sound [mp3]

1:40, Added a little more Tango. I think we need one more exasperating exchange, and then I’ve got the ending all worked out, except for the actual part where it stops, of course. I think you’ll like it. But first, some sun in the labyrinth, I think.

4:45, Lots of sunning and holding cats’ tummies to the sun. Eventually, though, I gave up the sun and came inside. I pressed forward and have reached this point:

PBSQ3 (Dialog): score [pdf], sound [mp3]

This is a pretty wonderful piece, I think. It makes me laugh: poor little bassoon can’t catch a break. No matter what he does, the strings turn it into something pretty. What to do?, to quote Mr. Honea. First I have to wind up this theme, and then we can begin our grand finale. And it is grand, I can assure you.

Another thought: I like the way it begins innocently enough, a pleasing yet serious contrast with the Threnody, but it has a game to play with the listener from the very start.

When you’re writing a piece that is supposed to “sag to a stop,” it should hardly come as a surprise when it just does that of its own accord.

I’m going to post what I’ve got, but what I’m doing now is taking it out to the labyrinth and listening to it for about thirty minutes, doing my whole gestalt thing, listening for where it’s incomplete or incorrect. Then I’ll come back in a fix it, if I need to. It will be interesting to see what changes occur.

As of 10:00 am:

Threnody: score [pdf] sound [mp3]

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11:00ish: (with 30 minutes devoted to making and delivering coffee for the Wadsworth gang) Yep, I know what I need to do.

12:45: Lunch break, in the labyrinth. More listening, more fixing.

2:45: I think I’m done. Comment away.

Threnody: score [pdf] sound [mp3]

I’m working, I’m working.

I’ve decided to go with #1, and I’ve renamed it “Threnody,” because that’s what it sounds like. More later.

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10:16 pm: Here’s what I have going on. I have four motifs I’m working with:

1. the quasi-“Alberti bass” figure that the bassoon opens with
2. the quarter/half/quarter figure first heard echoing down the first and second violins
3. the dotted quarter followed by descending eighths, first heard in the viola
4. the dotted quarter followed by eighth notes grinding to a halt

There’s also the grace note attacks that keep popping up.

Anyway, I’m playing with combining those motifs in various mixes, often ending up with two instruments dwindling to nothing, only to have the wheel (of life?) given another spin. Eventually, however, the whole thing will just sag to a complete stop.

In the sound file, the last thing you hear is the first violin rousing itself to a bit of bravura. It doesn’t work yet, so don’t bother to comment. I’ll have to keep playing with the line until it makes sense.

More tomorrow.

PBSQ2(threnody): score [pdf] sound [mp3]

Here we go with the Pieces for Bassoon & String Quartet. So far, my plan is to have three movements. The first is I. Waltz, which some of you may recall from this past summer. I really like this piece.

The second movement will be a Rhapsody of some kind. More in a moment.

For the third movement, I am seriously thinking I want to take the “clouds” sequence from “Phoenix” and turn that into a quasi-rondo: have the strings launch into this intense, even romantic passage, repeat it, embellish it, make it impossible to keep up with. Relegate the bassoon to some deformed, crabby crawlings around either at the bottom of it range or at its top.

For the Rhapsody, I was delighted to find that I had started two sketches for this. So you get to help me choose which one to work on in the next eight days. Make sure you listen to the first movement first to get a feel for the overall work.

• Rhapsody #1: score [pdf] sound [mp3]
• Rhapsody #2: score [pdf] sound [mp3]
• Rhapsody: #3: start over

What’s your pleasure?

Having slammed “Phoenix” in the mail yesterday to the Meistersingers out in California, I feel as if I’m accomplishing… something. Second competition in as many weeks. Wow.

True, last week’s was just the SATB arrangement of “Sonnet 18,” and this week’s was the mostly unsatisfactory “Phoenix,” but still, there it is. I have re-entered the world of competitive composing.

Next up, I want to tack on two more movements to the bassoon/strings piece from this past summer, in turn based on “I dance a club-foot’s waltz” from the 24 Hour Challenge, which I also need to get back into. There are two competitions with deadlines of March 15 to which I can submit that.

Yes, it’s simultaneous submissions. The day I win either competition, much less both, is a day you should all be worried about, since clearly the entire universe has changed some of its core functions.

Making time for this could be a little problematic. The social life is once again whirring up. Atlanta Opera tonight, if it doesn’t snow; Lacuna starts back up tomorrow night; the Wadsworth concert Saturday; Boys & Girls Club benefit on Sunday (Oscar party); math/science night at school next Thursday; and massive Masterworks weekend next weekend.

If push comes to shove, I’ll steal some of the nicer bits from “Phoenix” for this next piece. Might as well.

I’m going to live-blog this thing out of sheer frustration.

10:16: cheesy setting of I feel so helpless, but right now I’m feeling it. Setting All the familiar doctors/Touching the familiar folds is a brick wall.

10:21: got a rhythm worked out for All the familiar doctors/Touching the familiar folds. Now I have to segue from the pattern I’ve set up in I feel so helpless to something that will bear up under the lengthy line. Lengthy, however, is a good thing: I have only about 3:00 so far, and the piece has to be 4:00 at least. Who knew all this collapsed into so tiny a timeframe?

11:06: A death spiral phrase written. This simply has to be longer, so I’m going to break up the phrase and repeat it in fragments, actually setting up/anticipating the breakup of the water coda.

12:01: It’s patched together. I’m going to go have some lunch, then listen to it again afterwards. It almost coheres.

2:30: Lunch, Kroger, and now I’m in the back yard. I’ll share what I’ve got. Comment at will. I still have to construct a piano reduction, and there are some automations in Finale which will do most of that for me, print it, and mail it. They suggest a CD with a MIDI realization. I might do that, too.

“Phoenix”: PDF score, mp3 soundfile

It is four minutes long by the grace of unwarranted repetition. The last measure’s infinite repeat in particular nudges it over the four minute mark.

The knowledge that Mozart never felt this way in his entire life is very annoying to me. The fact that I have outlived him by twenty years is hardly consolation.

On a side note, I am ready for it to be a great deal warmer. I am weary of sitting in my labyrinth and feeling cold air on my body. I want the caress of the sun. Have another Carlsson’s Gold, Dale. Thank you, I will.

In another thirty minutes I need to go in and hammer out the piano reduction, then start the coq au vin we’re having for the Olympics Closing Ceremony Feast.

Well, at least I have a good start on my Lichtenbergian goal of churning out a great deal of crap. I wonder how much of this piece I can steal for next week’s continuation of the bassoon/string quartet? Discuss.

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update: Here’s the piano playing the piece. It’s almost tolerable here. Piano [mp3] (There are some minor changes from the score/mp3 above. One of them is fiendish.)

I didn’t post this yesterday because I was so disgusted, but as I work to finish the piece today, I might as well share what I nearly abandoned.

Score [pdf] | Sound [mp3]

Bleh. It just doesn’t work. But screw it, I’m going to hammer out the last third of it, duct-tape the “water” coda onto it, and mail it in. If they pick the thing, the joke’s on them.