The band piece. It's called Chaos. If I remember correctly, it is about 16-20 minutes long. Of course there would be some re-scoring to do, but I listened to the midi of the outer sections, and I think it has a lot of what I wanted to do with the piano concerto in it.
It has a free section in the middle, it has a tarantella section/movement at the end. It won't have the Parsifal quotation, but I can live without that. I think I would also still like to use the improvisation section from my concerto sketches, however, I would have to use the Chaos pitch sets, although I can use the same progression, since my set construction is similar.
I know this seems like a cop-out, but I was getting nowhere with what I was doing before.
What I worry about most is the difficulty of the orchestral part. I may have to water it down, and I'll certainly have to rebar sections.
So what is left to do on it?
1. Rescore for orchestra, expanding the piano part.
2. Incorporate the improvisation section into the middle section.
3. Write the ending.
4. Decide whether I want to add an introductory section. It starts with a bang right now. Based on the opening of Paradise Lost, it probably should, but I might want to expand the opening section in that case.
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
New beginnings
I started over again last weekend, but I think this isn't the one either.
In case you are wondering, I have two fall-back positions. I have always wanted to orchestrate Solomon's Seal as a piano concerto, and that is one option. I also have 2/3rd of a band piece that could easily be reworked as a piano concerto. The piano has a prominent role already, so it would be a matter of expanding that a bit and removing the saxophones and adding strings. I'm going to have another look at it. That would require the least work.
There is another option. I have the beginning of another piano concerto that was supposed to be for a small orchestra. There is less of it, but that could be expanded, or even incorporated into the existing plan for the current concerto. However, the pitch content is different.
In case you are wondering, I have two fall-back positions. I have always wanted to orchestrate Solomon's Seal as a piano concerto, and that is one option. I also have 2/3rd of a band piece that could easily be reworked as a piano concerto. The piano has a prominent role already, so it would be a matter of expanding that a bit and removing the saxophones and adding strings. I'm going to have another look at it. That would require the least work.
There is another option. I have the beginning of another piano concerto that was supposed to be for a small orchestra. There is less of it, but that could be expanded, or even incorporated into the existing plan for the current concerto. However, the pitch content is different.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
A few notes?
I'm getting very discouraged right now. I need time and I don't have it. I'm too busy at work, and about about to getting commissioned to do another arrangement. That is satisfying, and it happens during my 9-6 work day. Due October.
In the meantime I'm sinking on the concerto. I'm having second thoughts about the beginning. It's too haphazard. I fiddled around in Sibelius for a while and came up with a bunch of notes. That doesn't take craft. I need to be more careful, and I need inspiration.
In the meantime I'm sinking on the concerto. I'm having second thoughts about the beginning. It's too haphazard. I fiddled around in Sibelius for a while and came up with a bunch of notes. That doesn't take craft. I need to be more careful, and I need inspiration.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
More procrastination
Why is it that whenever I finally get a good start on something I get ideas for something else? I never used to need deadlines, but this piece is starting to make me think that I will only really get down and dirty on it when time gets short. Maybe it is time to contact Maya about it for some inspiration.
Today's distraction: a new story (it always happens when I'm supposed to be composing)
Ongoing distraction: publishing the violin concerto, piano reduction, and then my sax music
Other distracting ideas: I'm thinking of arranging From Her Husband's Hand for cello and a sinfonietta-size orchestra. The orchestra is already small (2222/2200/2perc/str), but there seems to be a lot of market for the one-on-a-part variety, and that would suit accompanying a cello better as well. The alto sax original probably won't need much alteration, but I might try to make this more cello-ish, and that might require some thought.
Today's distraction: a new story (it always happens when I'm supposed to be composing)
Ongoing distraction: publishing the violin concerto, piano reduction, and then my sax music
Other distracting ideas: I'm thinking of arranging From Her Husband's Hand for cello and a sinfonietta-size orchestra. The orchestra is already small (2222/2200/2perc/str), but there seems to be a lot of market for the one-on-a-part variety, and that would suit accompanying a cello better as well. The alto sax original probably won't need much alteration, but I might try to make this more cello-ish, and that might require some thought.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Sometimes you've just got to write a few notes down
I had a radical rethink of the beginning of the concerto over the past few days. I had originally intended to start with a short introduction of 6 notes in the lower strings, and then pow! A woodwind flourish, and a piano statement.
After the dream, it became a pastoral string counterpoint, before the interruption. I had something entirely different in my head, though. I started writing the two melodies, and then it blew up into an atonal canon, building with the help of a retrograde cantus firmus in the bass to a huge climax at the piano's first entrance. I say atonal, but it centres on D (major!), but I don't think you would ever hear it. It is quite dissonant with full statements of the row, technically in a linear progression of I V V/VI VI V/II II V I. It's so blurred by the canon that you won't hear it. In the last bar of the accumulation it breaks the shackles of the canon as well as the rows, with a linear scale form of I, and leads to a pure dominant sonority, and a "motto" figure stated by the piano, harp and a few woodwinds.
The jury is still out, but I may have some interjections over the opening string texture (muted brass/woodwinds). Initially, it was going to be the piano, but I'm now thinking that would be out of place.
Is 2'13" too long to wait for the soloist? Perhaps. It was fine in a classical concerto, but it may be too much here. I'm going to have to think about it.
Next is the solo introduction. It probably won't be completely solo, but I need to balance that long string texture with something of equal weight, and establish my tonal boundaries.
More soon, I hope.
After the dream, it became a pastoral string counterpoint, before the interruption. I had something entirely different in my head, though. I started writing the two melodies, and then it blew up into an atonal canon, building with the help of a retrograde cantus firmus in the bass to a huge climax at the piano's first entrance. I say atonal, but it centres on D (major!), but I don't think you would ever hear it. It is quite dissonant with full statements of the row, technically in a linear progression of I V V/VI VI V/II II V I. It's so blurred by the canon that you won't hear it. In the last bar of the accumulation it breaks the shackles of the canon as well as the rows, with a linear scale form of I, and leads to a pure dominant sonority, and a "motto" figure stated by the piano, harp and a few woodwinds.
The jury is still out, but I may have some interjections over the opening string texture (muted brass/woodwinds). Initially, it was going to be the piano, but I'm now thinking that would be out of place.
Is 2'13" too long to wait for the soloist? Perhaps. It was fine in a classical concerto, but it may be too much here. I'm going to have to think about it.
Next is the solo introduction. It probably won't be completely solo, but I need to balance that long string texture with something of equal weight, and establish my tonal boundaries.
More soon, I hope.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Stagnation
I spent some time on the second movement yesterday. I typed my progression into Sibelius and listened to it, just a series of ascending scales. It works - of course, it should, but it didn't send me running to a piece of manuscript paper to write down the movement in one big belch.
Instead, I came to the conclusion that I'm a beginning-to-end writer. The only times that I haven't written pieces in order, I haven't been happy with the result. No Free Lunch is better in its original 8 min torso, than it is in the commissioned five minute distillation. It just all seems in the wrong order. Inner Sanctum is a distillation with a difference. Like Stimmen, it appears in the same order in which it was composed. Okay, I didn't use everything in the final version, and it isn't what I originally planned, but both pieces work. Likewise, Remembering the Night Sky will never be as good as the Night Vision sketches.
You know what that means. It's back to the beginning. Of course, all my source material is still useful, but I can't write the second movement until I have a skeleton of the first. In any case, the second movement is really an interlude, and the other piece that I wrote the interludes first, that was all I wrote.
Instead, I came to the conclusion that I'm a beginning-to-end writer. The only times that I haven't written pieces in order, I haven't been happy with the result. No Free Lunch is better in its original 8 min torso, than it is in the commissioned five minute distillation. It just all seems in the wrong order. Inner Sanctum is a distillation with a difference. Like Stimmen, it appears in the same order in which it was composed. Okay, I didn't use everything in the final version, and it isn't what I originally planned, but both pieces work. Likewise, Remembering the Night Sky will never be as good as the Night Vision sketches.
You know what that means. It's back to the beginning. Of course, all my source material is still useful, but I can't write the second movement until I have a skeleton of the first. In any case, the second movement is really an interlude, and the other piece that I wrote the interludes first, that was all I wrote.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Still catching up
I had a strange dream last night. It was a dream of a dream, in fact. I was at a university where a rehearsal was taking place, possibly York (but different). I dreamt that I dreamt about revisions to my first symphony. Although at the end of the dream, I realised it was actually my second symphony. I could hear it very clearly. I was revising it as I was typesetting it (the original is a fair-copy ms).
When I awoke, I realised it was neither. I was dreaming a new piece. I remember hearing it clearly in my head. Unfortunately, it wasn't a piano concerto, but I might be able to incorporate the ideas into it. A slow section of widely spaced string harmonies (open 5th & octave), two lines of which overlapped. The first movement had a series of interrupting chords that in the revision were preceded by glissandi or runs up to them in the winds.
I'll have to think about it.
When I awoke, I realised it was neither. I was dreaming a new piece. I remember hearing it clearly in my head. Unfortunately, it wasn't a piano concerto, but I might be able to incorporate the ideas into it. A slow section of widely spaced string harmonies (open 5th & octave), two lines of which overlapped. The first movement had a series of interrupting chords that in the revision were preceded by glissandi or runs up to them in the winds.
I'll have to think about it.
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