I have a widget counting down the days to GHP and hence to the day that I might be reasonably expected to turn over a score to Stephen Czarkowski for a summer performance.
It now says 100 days and some odd hours/minutes.
Feh.
I know, I’ll begin a hysterical daily countdown post. Sort of like the 365 project, only really really neurotic and probably not as entertaining, unless you like watching a fellow Lichtenbergian melt down.
So today I was reading from Nancy Willard’s A Visit to William Blake’s Inn to some interested kindergarteners visiting my Reading Cave™, in celebration of Read Across America Day. I got to “A Rabbit Shows Me My Room,” and was stunned by an error I’ve made for 25 years.
Quick, fill in the blank:
“I will keep you from perilous starlight,
and the old __________ lunatic cat.”
If you said man’s, it’s because you’ve sung William Blake’s Inn one time too many. The actual word is moon’s.
Arrgggh!
Well, I’m sure I don’t know. I like my grandiose bit coming out of the obligatory repeat, so I’m keeping that, but I kept monkeying with the dotted trumpet rhythms. They’re supposed to be reminiscent of the agitato theme, but I don’t think they are. I’ll keep monkeying.
The grandiose bit, if you listened to the fragment a week ago, let straight into the major version of the agitato, and all that followed. I’ve tried something different, wedging a couple of variations on the Rachmaninov Ripoff™ theme in there. It’s still not falling together, but I’ve stopped for the night.
Here’s the mp3. What I’ve done is recorded everything after the obligatory repeat, with a measure rest between all the bits I keep shoving back and rearranging.
I’m writing this to avoid working on Lento. I haven’t touched it in a week: we went to north Georgia and then to Guilford, and of course when I got home on Sunday it was too late and I was too tired. Then Monday was Masterworks, and last night was the Martha Graham Company concert, which was an exhilarating example of the purity of genius. But now here it is a week later and I have nothing new.
To make it worse, I did listen to it on Monday, and I’m still very unhappy with the development part. I need to sit down and do some thinking. One thing that I may try is what Martha Graham did with Aaron Copland for Appalachian Spring: she wrote out what she wanted the music to sound like and to express. Don’t think you’re going to get that here. I have a private journal for that; you may recall that this symphony has an actual program, but I’m not divulging it. Perhaps being explicit about the program of this movement might help.
Yep, a bold move. That’s what I need all right.
Since we (the Lyles and the Honeas) are heading to north Georgia this afternoon, mostly because we like to drive in the heaviest rain this year, towards the freezing altitudes, and thence to Guilford to watch a lacrosse game for the weekend, I’ve decided to leave the computer behind. I’ll take my music paper Moleskine and probably work on III. Andante, which, if you will recall, is a concert waltz.
Then, when I re-encounter IV. Largo on Sunday evening, I will have some distance from it and can more easily slit my wrists upon realizing what utter drek it is.
Wish me luck.
P.S. I’m also taking War & Peace as my only reading.
Before Christmas, I swore an oath, that I would buy no books until I had read the stack by my bed. This stack consists of about fifteen books which have mostly been in my possession for at least a year but which I have never gotten around to reading because there’s always a new book I’ve bought that jumps to the front of the line.
After I bought Tom Bedlam, by George Hagen, I decided enough was enough. I would buy no more books until I had finished Ethics for a New Millennium, by the Dalai Lama; The Keep, Jennifer Egan; A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth; Charles Ives: a life in music, Jan Swafford; etc., etc.
To quote Adolfo Pirelli in Sweeney Todd: “You hear dis-a foolish-a, foolish-a man. Watch and see how he will-a regret-a his folly!”
Since then, I have bought (or been given, it was Christmas, after all):
One is not only forsworn, but one despairs. This list is not counting the books I am reading:
What is one to do? It is ridiculous to think that I will clear out these thirty books soon, if ever. And always, always, there are new books. And bookstores. (While waiting for Ginny to finish worshipping at the new DSW shoe store the other night, I picked up the Austen and Shakespeare books at Barnes & Noble.)
So do I have a plan? No. I already had a plan: buy no new books. It failed.
Part of the problem is of course that I’m devoting all my free brain time to the symphony. I wish I could say that reading these books could provide a break from that, but that’s not realistic. Writing this blog post is taking a break, clearing out thoughts and worries from my brain; reading is an entirely additional commitment for the brain power/time continuum. So until the symphony is finished, or at least turned over to Stephen in 110 days, there will be no concerted effort at clearing out this stack.
I can and will take a stack with me to GHP to read. That is assuming of course I don’t get sucked up into finishing another movement or two of the symphony (which is, you will notice, already assuming that I’m not going to finish all four movements in the next 110 days) or the piano piece for Maila, or even the songs for Day in the Moonlight, which would be a kindness on my part. But I have been able to find time at GHP to read, believe it or not.
After the summer, I might have time to plow through some of these. But I am fooling no one, am I? This stack will never disappear. There will always be new books and new projects to keep me from reading them. I will die with a huge stack by my bed. I will probably die crushed by the huge stack by my bed.
War and Peace is a marvel. I’m halfway through it now, and it no longer feels like I’m scaling some virtuous mountain. Now when I open it, it feels like being in a warm, limitless ocean. I feel like the kids opening the wardrobe door to Narnia, returning once again to a complete world that is not my own, not without its dangers, but one that is strong and fresh and fascinating.
I’m at a curious point in the book, where all the themes and characters have been laid out like pieces on a chess board. It’s most like the end of The Two Towers, I think, where everyone is dispersed and heading off in different directions, seemingly. No one’s choices have worked out for the best, and it’s been so long since I read it before (35 years, maybe?) that, embarrassingly, I cannot remember who gets to be happy at the end. Other than Kutuzov, obviously.
Right, then. I’m going to update my reading pages, and then I’ve got a symphony to write.
Busy as a bee this morning, not even 9:00 and I’m nearly to the lead-in to the return of the R.R.™ theme. However, as I listen to the sudden outburst of the minor agitato theme, it dawns on me that this is just an interlude, not the lead-in to the return. So, more work to be done. Actually, you might recall I had reserved the right to extend this section. It’s just that I thought I would extend the minor section and then plunge into the R.R.™. Now it appears there’s more to come after that. (There is a cat watching me type this as if she has just now noticed that I do this kind of thing. Or perhaps she’s trying to figure it out. She’s the one who, lounging, keeps reaching for the space bar to start or stop the symphony playing.)
10:07 am: Here it is, from the R.R.™ statement to the beginning of the minor agitato interlude. Sorry for the abrupt ending.
5:09 pm: Honest to God, I don’t know how this happened. (You’re listening for the new bit right after the obligatory repeat of the R.R.™ theme.) But it totally works and actually sets up the rest of the balloon section.
9:00 pm: Well, actually, it sounds a little stupid at the moment. But it will totally work once I get it tightened up.
I didn’t post any of the work, minimal as it was, that I did this week, so here’s your first look at it since last Sunday.
It picks up at the end of the opening Lento section. I think this is the first time you’ve heard the Rachmaninov Ripoff Theme™ with the oboe instead of the solo violin. I think it’s better. The solo violin was just a political move anyway, to make Stephen happy.
The obligatory repeat follows, and then, instead of the wistful lullaby-like version of the agitato theme in G major, I’ve launched into an allegro with the agitato theme in D major. More exciting, and it gets us into the keeping-the-balloon-in-the-air section earlier and with more vigor. The lullaby segment will return later, I think.
I cut this mp3 off sometime after the orchestration I’ve been working on runs out and we’re back to the piano sketch of a week ago. Keep in mind, as always, that the computer is cutting off some held notes; dynamics are hit or miss (although I’ve monkeyed with the mixer to make the brass not so loud); and some of the segments are still missing… something. That’s what this week will be about.
Since I’m off this week, I’m going to try to get the balloon-in-the-air section done and be firmly into the Awfully Grand Recapitulation of the Rachmaninov Ripoff Theme™ by the end of the week.
::sigh::
I came across this photo somewhere recently, tucked away in some satchel that I must have used on a more regular basis in a past life. As for most people, a photograph of myself is a lodestone, drawing my eye again and again to this representation of a being that I know must be me, but somehow doesn’t seem right. I set it aside, but it kept resurfacing on my desk, and it kept nagging at me.
Warning: this is all about me.
I took Dvorak’s 8th with me in the car today to listen to a couple of things, the orchestration and the development. I learned enough to depress me.
First of all, my impression was (and a study of the score this afternoon confirmed it) that the strings do all the heavy lifting. They never stop playing. They may be playing pads and chords under the winds occasionally, but mostly they’re playing “the piece,” and they never stop. So I have to learn to do that. You would think this was easy. It is not.
Second, the man’s development I have always admired: tuneful, witty, inventive, and beguiling. Seemingly organic. Seemingly effortless.
I know it can’t have been. I know he took a lot of time with each of his symphonies, and he wasn’t just doing it a couple of hours twice a week. It was his day job. Besides his natural gift, he worked at his craft, many hours every day.
I begin to wonder if I would be more productive if I had all day every day to thrash out ideas and discard the less worthy ones. I think this is part of my fear of just generating crap: I don’t have time. I’m not even using everything I’m writing. I am sketching out things that don’t go anywhere. But with Time’s wingéd chariot hurrying near, I’m afraid that I will sometimes settle for what’s on the page already.
Can you tell that this evening’s work didn’t go well? I’m going to eat my Häagen-Dazs raspberry sorbet.