A Composer’s Journal: Entry March 19, 2005

Journal entries by composer and pianist Laurie Conrad

Moderator: figaro

Post Reply
figaro
Posts: 535
Joined: Sun Mar 27, 2005 12:45 am
Location: Ithaca, NY
Contact:

A Composer’s Journal: Entry March 19, 2005

Post by figaro »

Saturday, March 19
2 a.m.

Windgarth. We are only staying for a few hours. The bottom floor is only half done, although all the plumbing is fixed. Furniture from the kitchen porch piled in the writing room - the telescope is pointed at a chair. The porch rug is not completely down nor cleaned. Some of the walls are painted, but the painter did not use the correct color, so it all needs to be redone. The wood trim has not been put back on & the kitchen cabinets are sitting on the floor. The bathroom floor needs to be put down, but the ceiling is fixed. The walls are spackled, but not yet painted. Furniture piled high in the bedroom, quite a mess. It should be ready to be rented out by the end of April. We have two groups of people signed up for May, a weekend & a full week - so the downstairs better be ready by then ...

We have been staying upstairs, but I miss the writing room. I can’t get to the “captains cabinet”, the shelves that line one wall. Nor my desk. Or the piano.

Instead, did some work in the gardens today. Took composted seaweed the lake had left behind & brought it to the gardens. Cindy used to call it “black gold”. Filled pail after pail & piled it high, will spread it out later. The lake will soon take it back again, so I can’t waste time. Today the lake was very low, one could walk parallel to the edge of the dock without boots, completely dry. In the past I would bring big rocks to the garden, of different colors & shapes, but today I concentrated on the task before me. Saw Cindy everywhere, in my mind & memory, gathering seaweed, greeting me, bringing me small, minuscule shells to examine - wearing one of her extraordinary garden outfits, jackets & scarves & strange hats against the sky & wind, the chill...

Even as she stands beside me, I can miss her. It will take time for me to become used to this new relationship that spans different realms.

Larry greeted us warmly & we had dinner together, down the road.

No composing today. Ideas continue to percolate, to inwardly form. This quintet was built entirely on motives. The opening of Movement I, for instance. The initial three-note sub-motive repeats twice to form the first complete motive. I use this motive throughout the movement, very judiciously, to delineate the larger sections - almost as a call. This first motive is immediately followed by another, this time a descending whole tone, also repeated twice. Only later do I expand these motives into themes. I have used this technique before, in other pieces. Movement I of “For Two Pianos”, for example. When the theme is finally expanded, lengthened, completed - it is as though a new door opens. Emotionally, very effective I think. The quintet’s second movement is also based on thematic & rhythmic motives; the rhythmic motives alternate between triplet and eighth note figures. The last movement uses melodic motives & themes almost evenly spaced throughout, with connecting material in-between. This is how I sketched it out in the initial manuscript, with the connecting material left blank on the page. Even the little drums become a motive, later to become the loud drums in the lower instruments. The effect was exactly as I wished, the dancers always coming back to similar steps, alternating between the thematic motives & the more primal, rhythmic, chordal motives.

I will not use this technique in the new cycle for choir & orchestra that I am now writing.

Most of the time, especially in Movement I, I did not end themes. Instead I had them always lead somewhere else, the changing harmonies & lines more a floating cloud of changing sound. Elusive. Throughout the quintet, I would establish a meter & then suddenly drop a beat, to add to the elusiveness. As though the speaker dropped a syllable or word ... or a dance step. Or took a sudden turn in a different direction. On the other hand, in Elegie & Visions, I more often added a beat for emphasis, for emotional emphasis. These are a few hints for the theorists & students who will study my scores in the future ...

As a student of composition, & as a pianist, an interpreter - I always found this musical analysis essential.

I listened to the recording of the string quintet concert. The Albert Consort has a remarkable future ahead of them. Even in the short amount of time they had to study my score, they did an admirable job of disentangling & delineating the motives & themes & counter subjects etc. For this reason alone, their interpretation is musically & emotionally superb. I very much enjoyed watching them work together, how they so intelligently & imaginatively approached the score. Music is considered an emotional expression - which it is. But without the use of the mind & intelligence, music would be a chaotic mess, much like the downstairs at Windgarth.
Post Reply