Posts Tagged program notes
Program notes for tonight’s performance…
I find one of the most difficult things a composer can be asked to do—right up there with starting a new piece and coming up with a title—is to write program notes for his or her music.
My teacher is trying to convince me that what my next piece really needs is some kind of extra-musical concept to tie it all together. A program, a story, a poem, an image, a character, a game, an object. I don’t buy such things. They’re fine for other people if they want to organize their thoughts, but I’ve never listened to Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and thought to myself, “Hey, that sounds just like the rolling hills of West Virginia and parts of twelve other states.” Have you? I just got home from the premiere of my friend Matt Schoendorff’s wind ensemble piece The Standard Model, which is a set of character pieces inspired by the standard model of particle physics. It was an incredible piece, but never did I think to myself, “Wow, so that’s what the Higgs boson would sound like if it existed!” (+5 nerd points if you got my quantum physics joke). I think of music as a complete abstraction. There are exceptions, obvious among them are songs with words. But in general, I think the only thing music is “about” is music.
I have a piece being played by the incomparable h2 quartet on their program Thursday night at 6:00 in the MSU Music Auditorium. If I had a concept like Aaron’s or Matt’s program notes would still not be easy, but at least I’d have somewhere to start. Compounding my problem is the way I come up with titles. I write most of the piece, and then I think to myself, “You know, this kind of reminds me of …” and I come up with titles like Falling Up the Down Escalator and Inner/Outer Monologue (which for about a year, my mother thought was Inner/Outer Mongolia).
The first of those titles is the piece being played this week. I can’t say, “This piece is about some guy falling on an escalator that is moving down, but somehow he’s falling up it, against gravity.” I can’t say that because 1) It’s not true, and 2) It doesn’t really make much sense. Here’s the problem: if my music is as I posit, an abstraction, how can I write meaningfully about it in a program note? It’s not impossible, but it’s very very tricky. Considerations of audience are key. No one wants to read a theory paper in their concert program, not even a theorist. Also, you don’t want to spoil any surprises. My piece has a section (which for the sake of mystery, I will not name or describe) that I like to think of as a social experiment, but it wouldn’t really work if the audience knew it was coming.
Here’s what I came up with for the note. It’s short, but I think it’s solid:
Falling Up the Down Escalator was influenced by jazz, blues, and contemporary concert music. My hope is that the piece will reorient the listener’s concepts of what is musically “comfortable.” The piece presents musical ideas that are generally considered uncomfortable (groupings of 5 notes, for example) and uses them as though they are not, in some ways, inverting the senses of consonance and dissonance.
So, how do you feel about extra-musical concepts? What do you want to read in your program? Tell us in the comments!
Erebus
Posted by Ben in Uncategorized on March 26th, 2009
Seeing as Matt has already started the trend of posting program notes for those little bundles of [HELLISH] joy we call dissertations, I’ve decided to jump on the bandwagon while the jumpin’ hot. Here’s the abstract/preface/other to my diss – Erebus. Since I’m not posting the score, I’ve excluded the section on graphical notation used in the piece.
Enjoy?
Abstract – Theoretical Concepts
I was approached in August by Jeff Loeffert to write a piece for saxophone quartet and computer for the H2 quartet. After six months of work, Erebus is the result.
The work is divided into four movements, each of which is based around the symmetric pitch collection [D, Eb, F#, G, A, Bb, C#, D], its transpositions, and its component trichords and tetrachords (and their respective transpositions). This pitch structure is then combined with an independent computer voice based on Xenakis’ work with sonic clouds (see Formalized Music, Chapters 1 and 13) to create an aggregate of order and chaos in the form of the quartet and the computer, respectively. Over the course of the work, this dichotomy gradually resolves itself into a duet of equal forces, with a formal climax in the chorale of the final movement, when the two separate entities resolve into one.
The individual movements follow a generally ternary structure, with the addition of introductions and codas. The exception to the rule is the third movement, Ghost Winds, which is rhapsodic. This decision was based on my previous experimentations with formless music, none of which produced any satisfying results. The choice of ternary form is primarily due to the lack of a traditional tonal structure, and is instead reflective of the relative speed, density, and rhythmic similarities of the sections within the movements.
Program Notes
In Greek mythology, Khaos was the primordial state of existence from which the gods emerged. The first born of these was Erebus, the embodiment of the primordial shadow from which order was eventually born. Over the course of time, Erebus began to be seen as a sort of antechamber to Hades rather than a deity, eventually becoming a synonym for the land of the dead. Within this work, I have attempted to create this idea in sound over the course of the four movements, highlighting various aspects of the evolution of this mythology.
Insect Noises begins with the computer relegated to a supporting role as a drone, symbolizing the essential nothingness of the primordial state. Over this, the saxophones take on the dominant role, creating chaotic and distorted sounds interspersed with solo lines and a brief chorale in measure 50. The saxophones then continue in a slightly less distorted manner, employing a greater number of multiphonics before a brief coda that recalls the amorphous introduction.
Wasteland reverses the roles of the quartet and the computer from the previous movement. Now the dominant voice, the computer moves from a desolate cloud of sound into a pointed, if arrhythmic, sequence of plucked string timbres created from a synthesis of guitar, mandolin, banjo, and koto. As the movement continues, this section grows to a point before tapering off into a large-scale formal decay, ending with a return to the opening sections formless expansion, and concluding with a figure of repeated vocal sounds.
Ghost Winds is a slow rhapsody for both the computer and the saxophones, creating a pas de deux that briefly flirts with synchronicity through the ascending lines of grace notes that meld around the instrumental lines. As the movement progresses, the individual saxophones gradually begin to emulate the computer, creating an ever increasing amount of complex counterpoint.
Electric Night concludes the work by bringing the computer and the quartet into true synchronization, symbolizing the emergence of order from chaos. The computer and quartet gradually become more and more similar, culminating in the central chorale, before a recapitulation of the “blazing” tempo used in the beginning. In this final section the quartet and the computer continue to play off of the other’s part, ending the piece in a massive crescendo of rapid notes and multiphonics.
Performer’s Preface
Q. What happens when you stare into the void?
A. The void stares back
Q. Anything else?
A. If you look hard enough, you may see yourself in it.
