Starting work on Images: February 16- 19, 2007

Journal entries by composer and pianist Laurie Conrad

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figaro
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Starting work on Images: February 16- 19, 2007

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Chamber Music: Starting work on Images: A Composer’s Journal Entries: February 16- 19, 2007


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Photo: Harpist Myra Kovary looking at the score of Images before dinner.

Friday, February 16

Worked on Images, the piece titled The Fairy Banquet. So many pages of little notes, & all written so very quickly a few summers ago. Decided to add a violin part, so I am switching lines around between the instruments as I write the violin line. I think I will add violin to all the Images. Will write Robert Spear. He might be able to find two players to play his stringed instruments for these pieces, for concerts & recordings. For now I will write the part for traditional violin & viola; I can always make changes later, for his instruments.

JF took me into town & I Xeroxed Movement III of Trois Prieres. One copy is for Spear, at least for him to hear in his head.

The Images are in the French style - a nice change from the Piano Quintet & Trois Prieres.

Saturday, February 17
3 p.m.

Warm today, in the low 40's, & better weather for the mood of Images. Sunny. Myra is coming by tonight, we will go to dinner & discuss the scores. M. is in Bloemfontain, South Africa for the next few days. Worked on a few more pages of Images, The Fairy Banquet. Playful, happy - magical.

I must write letters tonight. There is a whole new stack of them, from all over the world.

5 p.m.

Did some chores around the house, made phone calls. Fed the cats. Finished the revision of The Fairy Banquet - added the violin line & also added a new page, towards the end. I am changing very little of the original score, a note here or there. Now the more difficult & complicated task of cutting & pasting & copying the new master score.

Then on to the next Image: Interlude. At the moment I am thinking it might be better to first sketch in all the violin lines & any other revisions I might want to make, before copying them out. Yes, that seems the wiser way to proceed.

Sunday, February 18
4 p.m.

Myra Kovary came by last night & after dinner we looked at the Images scores together, the harp parts. Myra made a few suggestions for notation for the harp; I noticed that she has already marked all her pedalings in. She will be going to Paris with Kate in a few weeks; she heads back for N.Y.C. next Friday. We discussed the Songs cycle, & decided one of the Cornell groups could be approached for concerts & recordings; I would like to use Graham Stewart again for the baritone voice. After she left I finished adding a violin part to the second Image, Interlude. This cycle of Images was written the same summer as Visions and the Songs cycle, and is very similar in tone and feeling to Visions. I wrote Images so quickly I barely recognize them, & was surprised there are so many of them. Page after page covered with notes running here & there, in all directions. Interlude is rather sad; I wrote it just before little Ian was born & it has a childlike quality. Many of the Images are magical, childlike - gay or wistful, happy or sad. I had also forgotten that the Images cycle is in memory of my dear friend Eleanor.

Tonight I will begin work on the next Image, Dance. I might make a few changes in the score, but I am thinking I will not add a violin line. In a cycle it can be effective to vary the instrumentation - & Dance has double stops in the viola. To add violin might detract from the double stops in the viola line.

Diana wrote: she will begin working on the photographs for Realms of Light.

Monday, February 19

Worked on the next Image, A Feather, last night. Decided to add violin. A Feather showcases the harp, so the problem is to keep the other lines interesting for the players. Virtuoso players often complain if the music is technically too easy to play - they want a challenge. This piece is technically difficult for the harp, the other voices are slow, extended lines - hopefully difficulty enough to keep them all interested.

When I was young & playing clarinet in professional orchestras on Long Island, I was surprised to learn that some of the most popular orchestral literature - was not always fun to play. Whenever we were given a new score, I would immediately look to see if I had any long solos.

Orchestral scores are rented, they are far too expensive to buy, so in each score was a musical history: pencilled in cues & markings & directions left over from countless other performances by countless other orchestras, from all over the world. I soon found out that the orchestral player’s rule-of-thumb is: write everything the conductor says in the score, you won’t remember it later. The same for any sharps or flats or rests you missed in the initial read through. The glyphs scribbled in pencil were universal ones, known to all musicians, an additional musical language of performance signals. In my mind’s eye I can now see the familiar, pencilled-in set of eyeglasses, meaning: watch the conductor for a tempo change.

Myra called. She played a concert yesterday at Ithaca College, for incoming students - the first movement of Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov. She said: “I had three chords to play”. I laughed & we sang the passage together; I had played the piece with the Lynbrook Philharmonic almost a half-century ago, & I still remembered the cadenza & the three harp chords. Myra had to pack up & lug her beautiful harp in the snow, in her car, unpack it again & carry it onto the stage - all for three chords.

That thought alone gives me enough inspiration to return to the Images.

Almost half done with revising A Feather, adding the violin line. This piece will require more thought. I might go on in the cycle & return to it later.
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