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drawing
by Karen Eisenbrey |
These years found me working on the idea of telling a story in music, the
upshot of which was
A Cat's Life, a little opera for solo piano (and narrator
(optional)). I wrote the narration myself, developing the story as I composed
the music. I loaded the score up with what would later be called "Easter
Eggs": There are three "Act"s (anagram of "cat") played "attacca". The music
is openly diatonic, though I wasn't thinking in "keys" as much as shifting
stances among segments of material. In addition to the narration I made use of
a bunch of tricks of the trade, including something like
leitmotives or
idées fixe, (including one "secret"
leitmotive that is labelled
in the score but never mentioned by the narrator), and egregious tone painting
(twittering birds, a forest sunrise, a ferocious tiger). I was under some hope
that some better pianist than I would pick it up and give it a whirl, but so
far I have had no takers. The keyboard writing is flashy and fun, and includes
a rather wicked double fugue in the second act ("The Great Task"), the first
subject of which spans multiple octaves. It was among the last pieces that I
made a fair copy of by hand (in pencil), getting up early on Saturday and
Sunday mornings to work on it while the house was quiet. It was probably about
the last time I payed much attention to television, which I would turn on low
to keep me company. I vaguely recall some early morning interview shows,
fishing adventures, and Thomas the Tank Engine. After the score was completed
Karen drew some cute cat drawings in it, which I managed to carry
forward into the digitally engraved score. I've trotted it out in public three
times over the years, but it takes me longer and longer to relearn the notes,
and the last time was pretty spot-on anyway, and fabulously narratived by a
high-school actor, Olivia Sterne, who also let me make a recording of the
narration so that I could assemble a "studio" version of the whole.
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| Anarchy |
My setting of Ruth 1:16-17 ("Song for Yvonne and David") was written for
Karen's sister's wedding, and is the first piece of vocal music of mine that
works well and that sounds like me. I figured it would be inappropriate to the
occasion to flaunt what intellectual pretension I have, so I tried my best to
make it approachable: tuneful and without blatant dissonance. There is a tempo
change at a structural point in the text, and I was quite pleased with my
solution. The music needed to broaden so I switched from quarters and eighths
to halves and quarters, but marked it "faster". The result, to my ear, sounds
less like the deployment of a drag-chute than like suddenly breaking out into
open country and clear sky.
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| Amnehitabel |
Although the score is brief, my treatment of Psalm 23, the quintessential
Judeo-Christian centering meditation, there is much ado in it. I wanted to
treat the text plainly, as a deliberately and clearly spoken object, read
aloud, one verse at a time. Each verse is printed whole on its own page while
on each facing page are two fragments of music (I was thinking clavichord, but
guitar could also be an interesting choice). The first fragment of each pair
is the same throughout, while the second of each is unique. One way to interpret
it, which is pretty much how I eventually realized it, was to
alternate/intersperse the reading of each verse with an improvised trajectory
from the first music fragment to or through the second. I may have recorded
the clavichord part shortly after completing the score, but didn't get around
to putting it together with the text for several years, taking advantage of a
visit by Neal to record his voice speaking. Much later, after I became more
adept at digital editing, I was able to realize a version I am pleased with.
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| your blogger, as Skeeter for Halloween |
Karen and I took a two-week vacation in September of 1989. The first week was
spent in Palo Alto, to be at, and in, Karen's sister's wedding (at which Karen
sang my setting of the Ruth text) and the second week was spent visiting Neal
& Anna in San Diego. We probably made some tapes, but the big news was
that, while we were there, they learned they were to expect a baby that
spring. In other Banned Rehearsal news, Aaron was back in town, more or less
to stay, and in consequence of both those happy events and the loss of spare
time and energy ensuing upon the arrival of a new baby, the Telepath project
fell by the wayside, not to be revived for many years. The Seattle contingent
made a Telepath for Banned Rehearsal 200, but alas, it was never consummated
by a corresponding San Diego session, and so #200 remains undone to this day.
Banned Playout (1989):
Numbered: (160-199): 27:38:54
Telepaths: (3 sessions): 02:22:09
Assembly Rechoired (43): 00:47:16
Peripherals: (1 session): 00:20:30
Total 1989: 30:30:49
Grand Total: 338:08:46
Banned Playout (1990):
Numbered: (201-224): 33:54:30
Total 1990:
Grand Total: 371:03:16
scores:
recordings:
A Cat's Life
Ruth 1:16-17
Psalm 23 (meditation, responses)
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