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| Karen in Avon, MT |
If my
Sonatina of 1987 was primarily conceived as a clavichord piece,
Sonata in 2 Movements, then dubbed
Langstonstod, was piano all
the way. I grew it from the
Seed for Keith that I had written for
myself, fully intending to compose something along the lines of a Chopin
Scherzo. But as I followed where the material led my ear its time scene
slowed, sending long dramatic roots outward into a stony tonal substrate. At
its first movement's most intense the music is interrupted suddenly by a
quiet, simple, almost bluesy figure that, to follow the metaphor, unfurls into
a series of lush arpeggiations. Its a fun piece to play even without all the
sostenuto (middle) pedal folderol that I loaded into it originally, which,
never having been all that effective, I chose to ignore in my later
performances.
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| your blogger in Avon, MT |
I might have made a decision at the time to alternate piano pieces with
clavichord pieces, as my next large project, Serenade, with its lighter, more
Baroque-like figurations, was intended for the latter instrument. Its several
movements don't flow together without breaks, but are each discrete thoughts.
One of the pieces, of which I was quite fond, was giving me trouble coalescing
into a shape until I gave up on making it into a single thing, divvied it up
into chunks and interspersed them between the other pieces as interludes, or
Intermezzi. It ends with a two part canon in which the time separation between
the parts reduces itself incrementally until they join at the end.
I also made another stab at writing choral music, an Agnus Dei for
choir and organ. It was performed, quite bravely, by the Chancel Choir of our
then church, Bellevue First United Methodist, with Huntley Beyer conducting.
There are a couple of versions of it, but in the end the experience told me
that I had not found a voice for myself to compose for such ensembles.
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| Neal and Anna at Yellowstone |
I had acquired my folks' old Teac reel-to-reel tape deck and was having a
great time playing with tape loops during various Banned Rehearsal and
Assembly Rechoired sessions, and also with tape-speed alterations. One project
was to make iterations of my original recording of
Sonata in 2 Movements at successively quicker speeds (and pitch),
stringing them together in a track I called Assorted Fancy. I then took the
most extreme of those tracks and slowed it back down to its approximately
original time and called it Sordid Crude. The results in both cases are
splendidly grotesque in a way unachievable except with physical media.
Somewhat more presentable was a performance of my oboe piece
Retrato de Euchababilla on piano, in big octaves, accompanied by Karen
improvising on percussion, which I then slowed down to about half speed (and
consequently by about an octave in pitch) and called it
Retrato de Euchababilla en la noche.
At some point around that time I was directing the bell choir at Bellevue
First, arranging some of my more melodic pieces for them and even trying
something original which is best forgotten. One dark and stormy October night
our car stalled out midway across the 520 floating bridge (the alternator had
failed so we also had no lights) We were rescued by the driver of a Metro bus
on its way back to base, which pulled up behind us and let us on and called
the State Patrol. The trooper pushed our car off the bridge (onto dry land,
not into the drink), where we waited for an hour or two for a tow. That
experience decided us that commuting across the lake at night was not for us,
so I resigned the position and we started to think seriously about finding a new
church home closer to where we lived. And of course Banned Rehearsal carried
on, at first mostly by Telepath, Assembly Rechoired, and Sectional, but also
in regular session once Aaron had returned to town for a clerkship at the end
of his school term.
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| Karen and your blogger at Yellowstone |
Our other big adventure that year was a trip to Yellowstone for a reunion with
Karen's Mom's branch of the family. We travelled with Karen's folks,
leaving our car in Bickleton, and visiting various relatives along the way. We
stayed at a dude ranch on the Snake River between the Tetons and the south
entrance of Yellowstone. Neal and Anna also made it up from San Diego, and we
made several Banned Rehearsal tapes by the river, and for the first time heard Neal recite a goodly portion of the first chapter of
Finnegans Wake from memory. While we were there the park was visited by
a massive series of fires. the attendant road closures forced us to come home
South through the Tetons, rather than more directly through West Yellowstone
as had been the plan.
Banned Playout:
Numbered: (118, and 128-165): 30:46:44
Telepaths: (10 sessions):
07:54:16
Sectionals: (3 sessions): 02:22:33
Assembly Rechoireds
(41-42): 01:35:05
Peripherals: (11 sessions): 08:21:24
Total 1988: 51:00:02
Grand Total: 287:37:57
scores:
Sonata in 2 Movements
Serenade
recordings:
Sonata in 2 Movements
Serenade
Retrato de Euchababilla en la noche
Assorted Fancy
Sordid Crude
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