Prelude in B Minor

This thing originated around the time of my previously posted B Major Prelude. In fact, I started this one first and abandoned it in favor of the B Major idea that came out of it; despite the major/minor difference, the 2/4 vs. 3/8 time signature, and a slight difference in tempo, they share the same underlying motif of repeated 16th notes. Last week, I came across what I had done with this -- the first 12 bars, plus the first note of the next -- and within a couple hours got a little past halfway, but wasn't yet sure about the rest of it, or whether I'd even be finishing it any time soon. But Friday morning, before going to work, I decided to look it over and listen to what I had, and suddenly saw the way to the end. Fortunately, work didn't push it out of my head, and I was able to sketch out the remaining structure Friday evening, and filled in (most of) the remaining detail the next day. While listening on Sunday, I heard some spots where the left hand (and in the "reversed hands" passage, the right) could do something interesting without creating clutter, and so it was done. But Monday, I heard something right before the final chord and so fancied it up a bit. By the time I got up Tuesday morning, though, I decided that the original eighth note thing was better than the fancier idea, so changed it back and cleaned up some dynamics and phrasing (although I'm still not entirely decided on exactly which notes right before the end should be staccato). So, it's been done for a few days; the delay in posting is due to another new piece demanding my attention, combined with the hassle of having to turn it into a video in order to post it here. This one's a bit more user friendly than my previous posting, so no warnings needed here:

Scena Saltus

See? I wasn't kidding -- here's the new piece I promised/threatened to post just about a day ago last week (the initial delay was due to not yet having all the necessary software on my new computer, followed by additional changes to the piece over the weekend up through yesterday). It's a brief forest scene, and while birds are usually depicted in music by woodwinds, these are done entirely with percussion -- I guess they're using their beaks. It's not all birds, of course; there's a bullfrog or two, some distant rumblings, and other assorted woodland noises. This piece tells a story, or at least the summary of that story, but I think I'll let listeners decide for themselves what they hear.

If you like the long, repetitive stuff of the minimalist school, this is better, because it's short and repetitive, but in a less repetitive way. And if you don't like that stuff, this is still better, because it's over sooner! (Of all the prominent 12-tone composers, my favorite has always been Anton Webern, in part because his pieces are usually brief -- even when it's done well, there's only so much of that stuff I can take at once. Webern's music also seems to have a sense of humor that I find lacking among his colleagues.) The primary melodic theme here, to the extent there is one, is the tritone -- rising in the timpani and falling in the various "bird calls". The time signature is simply 4/4 all the way through, with no tempo changes, but there are lots of tuplets (3's, 5's, and 7's, some of them nested inside others) and single notes off the beat in imitation of the chaos in nature.

Note: The warning for Perenepsis #5 also applies here, but even more so: this is definitely not the piece of mine to listen to first -- in fact, it may be one of those things that only its creator can like -- but if you want to hear something a little different, go ahead and give it a listen:

A Brief Note

Ha! Music pun! Anyway, this is just to let anyone still stopping by that there's more to come. I made a New Year's resolution to post 12 pieces this year -- to average one a month, not necessarily to post one a month. Still, it does seem that I'm a tiny bit behind schedule. I actually did finish one piano piece, but can't post it yet; I think I'll remain vague about why not (well, not so much vague as entirely non-responsive).

So, I have a plan, which may involve cheating. I'm close to finishing a thing I'm calling Three Sketches for String Quartet, and I might decide to count that as three (cheat #1), even though it's a single score, and each of the three is barely over a minute long (and there are currently four different versions of the third sketch, some of which I may split off into another work, or the first word of the title may change). But hey -- my resolution, my rules, right? Also, I have an old C Major march that I can put together fairly quickly (cheat #2, if that's even really cheating), and I'm nearly done with movements 3 & 4 of my String Quartet #3 (the opening movement is already posted as Little Fugue for String Quartet, and the remaining two are each about halfway done). So that's six of the twelve right there -- no problem.

Over Memorial Day weekend, I accidentally finished one of my four percussion pieces. Just have to listen some more and make any tweaks my ears tell me are needed, but it should be posted in the next few days. It's entirely percussion, with no piano, so one of the challenges is to not put too much in there -- in painting terms, I need to preserve some of the negative space. It also needs a better title, but hopefully it'll be up before the start of June. I also made progress on the Frankenstein thing, but that's a longer-term project.

Finally, I'm actually going to take a whole week-long vacation this year, tentatively scheduled for the second week of October. But no tourist-y stuff for me. Sure, I'll go to the Zwolle Tamale Festival (it rhymes, plus there's tamales!), and probably do some fishing on Toledo Bend, but it's mainly about getting away from the usual distractions, and I'm pretty sure that I'll be able to churn out a couple of new things in addition to finishing some current items. That should get me to at least ten or eleven before November, at which point I might be able to finish the Christmas piece that didn't make the deadline last year.

So that's the plan. All I have to do now is execute it.

Memorandum

This is a prelude and fugue for piano. Instead of a prelude followed by a fugue in the same key, however, this is an E-flat major fugue wrapped inside and intertwined with a C minor prelude. It's in 5/4; the fugue subject kind of wanted to be in 3/4 (as in the entries of the first three voices in the stretto section), but the opening prelude idea was in 5/4, and I knew that the two were going to end up being played together. While I'm obviously not opposed to changing time signatures (for example, Allegro in C, Perenepsis #3), in this case it seemed that maintaining a single time signature helped unify the prelude and fugue.

What surprised me here is that after several attempts to write a major key fugue, none of which seemed to quite work, I finally managed to do one inside of an otherwise minor key piece. It still seems to me that minor keys are somehow inherently more conducive to fugues, but this piece encourages me to try again to write a stand-alone major key fugue. But not right away -- now that this thing's done, it's time to work on another "accidental" Christmas piece (a la Bells). I hope to finish it within the next few weeks, but no guarantees; I'm still tinkering with the instrumentation, which could significantly bog down progress.

Introit

This is more a general impression than a setting of a specific text, following the overall form of an Introit in the Tridentine Mass (hence the absence of guitars, tambourines, slide whistles, etc.). The instrumentation is string orchestra plus solo violin, viola and cello (the solo viola part could be played by a violin, but I prefer the darker tone of the viola for it). It came together fairly quickly -- about two weeks, with much more time spent listening than writing. I thought it was going to take a good bit longer to complete, but once the final structural decision was made, it pretty much finished itself. It's in F Major, with no tricky rhythms, and as with Bells, I made a conscious effort to avoid excessive complexity.

Colloquium Inter Amicos

A conversation among friends -- arguing, agreeing, joking, teasing, talking over each other, changing the subject, bringing back previous topics, and finally adjourning. It is simultaneously an animated landscape with running water, rising and falling hills, birds and other critters, and the occasional moment of stillness.

So, nothing for months and then two pieces within a couple of days. I do have a few other pieces getting near completion, but don't expect this pace to continue. I actually thought this piece was going to be completed before the previous one; it took considerably less effort to finish, but unlike most of my pieces, the ending was the very last part done. Once the early flute theme resurfaced, the ending became clear, and a few minor tweaks finished it, all but one of these being in the final six measures.

With 88 bars in 4/4 at 88 bpm, it's actually slightly over 4 minutes long, due to a couple of fermatas. A few brief false ritardandi are accomplished rhythmically -- my favorite is around 2:08, where the bassoon seems to be dragging the tempo down despite steady quarter notes from the flute; a couple of other milder ones are done with half-note triplets.

Formally, this is similar (but not identical) to something I've wanted to do for a long time -- it's a sort of theme and variations, but with the variations coming first. In this case, it's really themes and variations, with the full version of the primary theme not coming until 3:13 into the piece. It opens in C minor, with the full theme in G major, and ends on a D-flat major seventh chord, so it does wander quite a bit harmonically, with a lot of chromaticism.

As you might guess from the second part of the opening description, it shares some conceptual similarities to The Pensive Ploughman below, and even some thematic relations (e.g., the meandering eighth note background figures, representing water), but has a very different harmonic language, more lively and varied rhythms (although not much faster tempo), and due to the different instrumentation, different colors. I'm not sure which of the two I like better, but that's usually the case for me.

The Pensive Ploughman

A farmer stands at the edge of his field, his dog sitting at his feet. Within earshot of a nearby stream, he ponders the day's efforts, wondering what else has happened in the world while he worked. As the sun touches the horizon, he offers a brief prayer of gratitude before heading inside for the evening.

The instruments portray different elements of the above description: the clarinet, of course, is the farmer; and more or less, the violin is the faithful canine companion (can't just call a violin a dog, can we?), the viola is the stream, and the cello is the land itself.

It's sort of a companion piece to Shepherd's Call -- while it was finished a little over a year later, it was started exactly two months after starting S.C. I got to thinking that I was working on my second piece for oboe and piano, and Bells (along with the Mozart clarinet concerto) had finally shown me that the clarinet can actually make some nice sounds. So, I decided to write something for clarinet -- and harpsichord! They just didn't get along with each other, but I liked the beginning of the clarinet part, so I thought a string trio might provide a better accompaniment. It did. The opening eighth note figure in the viola brought the picture together, and it was just a matter of fleshing it out from there. The main stumbling block (after the one mentioned in an earlier update) was the transition back to the opening theme just past the halfway point; once that was worked out, the rest fell into place, and I finished it on July 4th -- and went back to that section and finished it again on the 6th. And then once more today.

Musically, it is roughly in D minor / B-flat major (with a middle section in G minor that ends on F major), and the time signature is 5/4, although it could just as easily be in 3 or 4, as the barlines in this piece are mostly there to hold up the staves.