A Composer’s Journal: Entries February 9-18, 2005

Journal entries by composer and pianist Laurie Conrad

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A Composer’s Journal: Entries February 9-18, 2005

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A Composer’s Journal: Entries February 9-18, 2005

Wednesday, February 9

5 p.m.

Shaun came by today & announced that he & his mom were moving in a few weeks, up north. His mom met a nice man, & off they go. Shaun had a new haircut & looks very, very happy. I told him that we would miss him, he is like family. He answered with his usual & punctual “uh huh”. He asked for my e-mail address.

We will miss him.

The new Visions CDs arrived today. Spent all of the afternoon packing up CDs, to send them off to more reviewers & radio stations - & some shops. Quite a stack. The Kronos string quartet requested the score to Elegie, so I sent that out as well. I have not written a note of music in days. My time now is spent on the phone, the computer, writing and answering letters & at the post office.

E-mailed my friends about the upcoming concert & most of them can’t come. I again thought of Mozart.

Running out of Early Songs CDs. Must order more.

Through all of these other tasks & chores, music is collecting itself within me, readying itself to eventually find itself to the page.

2:11 a.m.

Looked at e-mails. Diana has finished the rough layout of Realms of Light. No news from Bob. Myra is stopping by tomorrow, to pick up more CDs. She & Laura are playing some of the Visions in Binghamton this Sunday, do I want a ride to the concert.


Thursday, February 17

1:50 a.m.

I haven’t written in this notebook for over a week. Since then, a deluge of e-mails answered, sent & responded to. WSKG, our PBS television station (in Binghamton) auditioned the Visions CD, & chose it for a television special, as background music. I assume that they will also broadcast it on their classical radio station. Also an interview with them looks probable for the future - I am supposed to call someone about arranging it, & I scribbled the number down. It is by the phone downstairs, with a map for getting there. They asked for the Early Songs CD as well, & I gave them one.

Must order more Early Songs CDs. I have a yellow post-it note stuck on the computer with that message scrawled in blue ink, with NOW underlined.

So far I have found one review of Visions, from the United Kingdom - long & very favorable. Calls my music “evocative”, says “highlights include” ... Etc. Fritz wrote from Germany - he received the Elegie score, parts & demo CD. He writes that I am a wonderful composer & sent a card with a picture of a bouquet of flowers on the front. Sent WQXR demos for broadcasting. They have played my music in the past ...

That is really the goal of these CDs - to have my music heard all over the world. Otherwise - why am I writing it?

This listing of the mundane might not be as fun for readers, but I can assure you that it is an essential part of a composer’s life.

Still have not had the time to write a single note. This means that the next time that I sit down at the piano & look at those fresh new sheets of ms paper on the music rack - many notes will quickly find their way onto the page. Many pages covered with pencilled-in note heads & occasional stems. I usually do not pencil in the stems because there isn’t time. Those vivid ideas must be scribbled down as quickly as they stream through my mind, they do not last long - they are then off to the next phrase, phrases & sections - like a blueprint being drawn on the drafting table. If the strand of inner sound breaks, it all dissolves back into silence & does not reappear. Instead a new strand appears. There does seem to be an endless supply of them, especially as a piece progresses. But I still do mourn the lost ones, that is why my initial sketches often resemble Morse code, little dots strewn across page after page of manuscript paper, stems & barlines here & there, like little frail slats of fencing found at the beach, leaning & falling this way & that.

Once the notes are captured on paper, I become quite fond of them. Until then, I barely hear them. I am only hearing the notes I am, at that moment, hearing & writing down. And those sounds are being heard inwardly, in the center of my being - or as an image in my mind. Sometimes both. Music is my primary method of speech, but it is also much more than that. It is the expression of my very Being - & all that I know & have experienced & more. Hopefully it also expresses the soul & its Knowledge & Experiences.

When I write or perform music, that music - the note or phrase I am playing or hearing - is all that I am & all that exists. There are no other methods of speech, no towns that I live in, no streets, no houses, no people or objects or cities or countries - just the notes I am playing or hearing. This is not true of any other aspect of my life except deep prayer.


Friday, February 18

2:25 a.m.

The Albert Consort rehearsed the new string quintet again tonight, String Quintet II. (Bob named it that because I couldn’t think of a title for it & he needed something to put on the title page of the printed version.) Not very original, but it is accurate.

It was their third rehearsal. Bob & I went to dinner before the rehearsal. Bob spoke about Stradivari again. There are some missing years in Stradivari’s personal, biographical timeline. One of his close relatives was an architect, and some scholars suspect that in those missing years Stradivari studied architecture. That would explain his knowledge of geometry & form, which would be essential for the structural changes & improvements one finds in his instruments. He was a student of Amati, another legendary instrument maker.

Bob becomes so very vibrant when he speaks of Stradivari - at those time he glows with pleasure. While Bob was speaking tonight, I inwardly traveled to Italy, many centuries ago, & felt as though I had met this revered instrument maker & walked around his workshop with my friend Bob. I have the strong feeling that the improvements & changes Bob has made on these new stringed instruments will also live on in history. He is one of the best instrument makers of our century, I am convinced of it. And I have already decided that I will write more music for his instruments.

We then went to the rehearsal, & the instruments sounded better than ever. The musicians are more used to their new instruments, my music & each other. The sound - at some points during the rehearsal, I almost couldn’t bear the Beauty all around me. I again said very little, but occasionally conducted or counted for them. The main problem is still of keeping them together, they are still getting lost in the score. This is not surprising - it is a long & difficult score & unknown to them. Answered questions & gave a suggestion or two. Changed one note in the tenor violin, added a double stop. The tenor violin player said: “That’s very interesting. I wanted to play that double stop there.” One member of the Consort was sick, so we only had four players tonight. They agreed to at least one additional rehearsal. They also agreed to a television taping after the concert. Must call Lauren and set that up. Paul to do the television taping and Al to do the CD recording. Those notes are by the phone downstairs, I hope that I remember to look at them.

I have not, as yet, heard the entire piece. Tonight, they read through the third movement twice & the second movement twice. The next rehearsal is March 3 , the concert is March 13th. It’s a good thing I meditate.

They are excellent musicians, truly professional - & at times we heard glimpses of what the piece will sound like, hopefully by the concert. The sound & artistry of the musicians at those times was incredibly beautiful. As for the piece, my intention was to show the instruments off well, & I believe that I did achieve that. Because I came mainly from my love of these beautiful instruments, rather than solely & primarily from my musical ideas - this quintet has an unusual quality & sound, a depth of perspective, a layering of voices & instruments & between instruments - & a certain clarity that I find most unusual in sound and concept. I do not think that I am imagining this. This was the result of my respect for the instruments, not a technique I consciously imposed on the music. So, I say all this in humility & detachment - merely as an observation. Once a piece has been written, I do not claim ownership of it in any case. It is as though someone else wrote it, because now it is outside myself - no longer within. Now it is everyone’s property, starting with the musicians that play it.

As a composer, I am always surprised how the musicians make my scores their own. Often musicians, in our early rehearsals, will ask me about mistakes in the score - not because the notes sound dissonant or strange - but because they do not seem right for the piece. And yes, I had written the wrong note when I copied out the parts. On the other hand, sometimes my singer, Louise McConnell, would sing a note not written in the score during our first rehearsal - & the note she sang was really better than the written one, more natural - & I would change the score.

My music becomes their music. The gifted musicians I have always been fortunate enough to work with, have always brought the music alive. My world easily became their world. Why this surprises me is mysterious to me. Perhaps, it is because the rest of the time I do not feel that I live in the same world as other people. Nor am I using the same language. During the rehearsal tonight, there were times when the world around me, the earth itself - was also my world. A world I shared with others. I was no longer alone.
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