Chaconne, Hockets, The Abyss - 2004-2005

your blogger, playing with fire

My compositional energies during these years centered on two ambitious projects: a Chaconne (2004) for solo clarinet and a work for solo piano called Hockets (2005). I've loved clarinet as an instruments since I was a kid, my older brother Paul studied clarinet through to an undergraduate degree, and its sound has been in my ear since I was 8 or 9. I conceived of my Chaconne as an appreciative gift back to the world of clarinetdom, hoping for a similar gravitas as Bach's famous Chaconne for solo violin, or at least to aim in that direction. My recollection is that the pitch material was conceived in mod-17 terms and the "ground theme" is subjected to a series of transformations whose details are no longer important, but which were intended to make the logic seem to flow naturally, even if tracing the ground theme through that logic is likely not possible, and more likely to be simply perverse.

One of Seattle's superb clarinetists, Sean Osborn, performed it (with some cuts) at a concert sponsored by the Washington Composers' Forum, and the recording of that performance is a treasure. The cuts were likely necessary if the clarinetist hoped to have any lip at all for the end of the piece, which asks for a long quiet high note to sail off into the ether.

Hockets began when Neal, commenting on some hockety goings on in something I had written, suggest I should write some, an idea that appealed to me immediately. A hocket is a passage of music in which two or more voices combine to create a third, apparent, voice or statement. In early vocal music this was sometimes used for comic ends, weaving the words of separate texts together to make the whole "say" something else entirely - often ribald. What I wanted to do was to compose a piece that combined two different ways of thinking about pitch: a "content determinate" music in mod-12, and an "order determinate" music in mod-17. After I had spent several weeks composing a mod-17 tone row that could be combined with another version of it to outline a workable "mod-12" pitch set to use as the basis for the content determinate structure, then, for each successive segment of the content determinate music I would need to find forms of that mod-17 row that could generate the needed mod-12 notes among the piano's 88 keys. This would be trivial if the piano had 17X17 notes, but that would require very long arms or very narrow keys, and a human auditory mechanism capable of hearing 24 plus octaves of pitch.

There are, all told, 17X17X17X17 row forms available (using both transposition and multiplication of pitch-class and transposition and multiplication of order-class), and though there are many duplicates and many forms that "zero out" one way or another it was still a daunting task. So I wrote an algorithm to brute force the calculations. After all that, what aspects of the finished work result from which number system? The mod-12 pitch classes in each segment were derived from the pitch-class content of the opening statement, while their order and their registral positions were determined by the mod-17 row forms used to express them. Rhythm, dynamics, touch, pedaling, etc. were all composed unsystematically.

I had also been tinkering around with some sound editing software, and decided to have another go at the set of Byron texts I used for my big Cantata of the 90s: The Abyss. The electronic version (other than the words it has nothing in common with the original) is constructed out of a sound file of me reciting the words, supplemented by at least one then recent Banned Rehearsal session. I also composed two hymns: one for Christmas - There's a Song in the Air (2004) on one of my Mom's favorite carol texts - and Like a Bird on the Deep (2005) on a hymn by Fanny J. Crosby.

Banned Rehearsal had slowed up somewhat, but managed 16 sessions in both years, mostly with just Karen, Neal and me, but with Steve Kennedy dropping by on occasion also. I also find in my records an improvisation session with Pete Comley and his friend Jason Volk, but I find myself without any memory of doing it. I'll be interested in hearing it when it comes up for listening.

And then - oof! - four recitals, or, rather, three and a half, since I shared one with Gavin Borchert, whom I had met through the WCF. The first was in February of 2004, at University Temple United Methodist Church, which featured all of my extant sonatas: Sonata 1979, Sonata 1980, and Sonata in 2 Movements; as well as Lockrem Johnson's Fifth Sonata, and my Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The. In July of that year was the recital I did with Gavin, at Polestar Gallery in the Central District (the former occupant of the space now known as Gallery 1412). I don't have a recording, but I think that I played Gavin's Prelude, Untitled (Slow Waltz), and Berceuse (though one or two may have been played by Gavin), as well as my Create Desolation and Call It Peace; Sonata in 2 Movements; Mrs. Ramsay Rose, Lily Rose; and Work / Architecture / Unity / And / The. Gavin played some additional pieces of his, my Intermezzo VI, and together we played my 4-hands piece Entracte combining it with a like-sized duet by Gavin, mixing and matching the parts. And then, in November, back at UTUMC, Karen joined me in performing all of my recent songs, plus a few other pieces to fill out the program: Sonatina; Depth of Mercy; While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night; Lamb of God; Ruth 1:16-17 (Song for Yvonne and David); O Love, How Cheering Is Thy Ray; Song of Solomon 3:1-4; and Create Desolation and Call It Peace; as well as Gavin Borchert's Berceuse and Ken Benshoof's set of folk pieces Sweeter Than Wine. Moving on to November of 2005, also at UTUMC, I played my Two Interruptions; Ben Boretz's Partita; my Intermezzo II; Elaine Barkin's Brandeis pieces; John Verrall's Four Pieces for Piano; and my Hockets.

Banned Playout:

2004:
Numbered: 662-677 - 8:19:17
Peripheral: one session 1:01:43

Total 2004: 9:21:00

2005:
Numbered: 678-693 - 8:19:56
Assembly Rechoired (one session) - 00:30:46

Total 2005: 8:50:42

Grand Total: 718:44:30

Scores:

There's A Song In The Air
Chaconne
Hockets
Like a Bird On The Deep

Recordings: 

There's A Song In The Air

Chaconne

Hockets

Like a Bird On The Deep

The Abyss

The Decade of Chaos Part 2: 1995-1998

your blogger and family visit Bickleton, WA

During the latter half of the decade of chaos I spent a lot of time working on a cantata - The Abyss (1998) (since withdrawn) - for small SATB chorus, with an orchestra of five wind players and string quartet. It is based on several stanzas from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage. Being flush with how well my first mod-17 piece - Psalm 130 (1994) - had come together I wanted to make something ambitious to see if it would work on a large scale. The resulting piece has some significant performance challenges, chief among them being ridiculously aspirational ranges for the singers. That aside I was struggling with what it meant for a music to actually be "in" mod-17, and not just some funky bespoke diatonicism. Although many parts may be quite effective from an expressionist standpoint, the whole is hopelessly wooly. But no work is wasted and I did accustom myself to thinking outside the mod-12 box. I also re-used some of the melodic ideas in other smaller pieces such as Two Pomes Play (1997) for clarinet and bassoon.

Neal and Karen in Bickleton, WA

In 1995 I arranged one of my fourpartsongs of 1992 - O Love, How Cheering is Thy Ray!- for solo voice and piano so that Karen could sing it for a church service. And for a while after that I was composing a song for that purpose every year or so, among which was Glory to God (1998), a setting of the first few stanzas of Charles Wesley's hymn, later stanzas of which appeared as the first hymn in the Methodist Hymnals of the last century as Oh For a Thousand Tongues To Sing.

Karen and I remained quite busy with our church choir through these years. We rehearsed in the choir's church-basement room, but would often work our way upstairs to the sanctuary to practice with the organ. Our organist, the fabulous David Di Fiore, usually got to the loft before the choir got themselves together, and would often accompany our straggling procession to the chancel with rousing quasi-calliope music. This amused me enormously so I wrote a piece for him, based on the hymn tune "Foundation" (popularly known as Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing) that, at one point goes into full calliope mode. I named it after one of my favorite lines in the hymn -  "Here I raise mine Ebenezer" - and being the clever lad I was I folded in an adaption of the hymn tune "Ebenezer" as a counterpoint. David played it magnificently and I treasure the recording I have of his performance.

In 1995 I gave another recital - Local Flavor - at our church. The program was:

Six Piano Pieces - Aaron Keyt
Short Forms - Ken Benshoof
Fifth Sonata - Lockrem Johnson
Oracle from Dark Wood - Neal Kosály-Meyer (with Neal joining me in a speaking role)
Sonata in 2 Movements - Keith Eisenbrey

your blogger with kids having a picnic

In August of 1996 we welcomed a second baby into the family, wisely deciding to stop right there. Besides our rapidly shrinking house, Karen made it quite clear that she now considered child birth to be a younger person's sport, and that she was done. In 1998 we travelled once again to Yellowstone, destroying the radiator in our car (a used Volvo with a turning radius to die for I had purchased from a co-worker). We met Karen's folks there, staying at a cabin at Canyon. Karen's sister, her husband David and their two kids also made it there, but Neal's little family were stymied by breakdowns and only got as far as Coeur D'Alene. 

your blogger in mid chaos

And Banned Rehearsal just kept right on making tapes. some highlights were two live performances - two 1996 sets at The Speakeasy Internet Café in the Belltown neighborhood of Seattle (a few months before a fire closed it down) and back at Brechemin Auditorium at the UW School of Music in 1997 for Banned Rehearsal 440. Shortly after that I bought a DAT recording device and we have been recording ourselves digitally ever since. We also put out our one and only CD - Teach Yourself to Drive (1998). It was a milestone for us, but definitely added some stress to the system on top of the general struggles of life with small children.

Banned Playout (1995):
Numbered: (380-409): 26:27:52
Peripherals: 15 Sessions: 07:31:01
Total 1995: 33:58:53

Banned Playout (1996):
Numbered: (410-439): 27:15:52
Sectionals: 1 Session: 00:46:05
Peripherals: 8 Sessions: 03:55:53
Total 1996: 31:57:50

Banned Playout (1997):
Numbered: (440-477): 34:49:45
Peripherals: 1 Session 00:25:58
Total 1997: 35:15:43

Banned Playout (1998):
Numbered: (478-517): 29:14:24
Sectionals: 1 Session: 00:28:01
Peripherals: 4 Sessions 02:06:54
Total 1998: 31:49:19

Grand Total: 613:58:22

Scores:

Two Pomes Play
O Love, How Cheering is Thy Ray!
Glory to God
"Here I raise mine Ebenezer"

Recordings:

O Love, How Cheering is Thy Ray!

"Here I raise mine Ebenezer" (performed on piano)

Ken Benshoof - 1980

Sonata for Violin and Piano "Bryd one Brere" (1980)

Habitabit (1980)

Sonata 1980 (1980)

From Fall of 1977 to Spring of 1980 at the University of Washington I studied composition with Ken Benshoof. These compositions are among the last ones I worked on with him. I was pretty headstrong, and it would be another several years before much of what he tried to teach me had any effect. He gave me some advice about playing piano that I still find valuable every day. "Tell the whole story every time." He was a kind and thoughtful teacher and I am deeply grateful, both for the support he gave me at the time, and for the many wonderful conversations we have had over the years since.

your blogger ca. 1980, with what passes for a smile

I was taken by the early 14th English Century melody "Bryd one Brere" when it came up in a class on medieval music, and used it as a starting point for the showy Sonata for Violin and Piano "Bryd one Brere". I was attempting to write an idiomatic virtuoso violin part so I tried some splashy effects, such as left hand pizzicatos and multi-string glissandos. The piano part features a bunch of hand and arm clusters. My heroic violinist, Aloysia Friedmann (since gone on to great things) rose to the occasion magnificently. It's no great piece by a stretch but it's fun and makes me smile.

One of the many benefits of a large school of music is that one gets to know some phenomenal young musicians, such as Aloysia. At some point I also got to know Sue Walsh, a coloratura soprano with perfect pitch who was up for something different. Habitabit is a setting, in the Vulgate Latin, of the Peacable Kingdom passage from Isaiah ("The wolf shall dwell with the lamb . . ."). In an attempt to throw a bunch of wolves and lambs together in a pile I used, among other things, a strident ostinato bass rhythm, quotation (a Schubert dance), and called for extensive improvisation both from the pianist and the singer. It was an honest attempt, but something of a train wreck in the end. Its best moment is a long stretch repeating a loud juicily dissonant chord over and over with the dampers up. Sue sang wonderfully.

your blogger drinking ire

Sonata (1980) is a bit of a freak flag fly piece. It quotes (I was really into quoting) Nielsen's "Fifth Symphony", Cole Porter's "Let's Misbehave", and the "Dies Irae"; throws in a some twelve-tone-ish passages, loads of vigorous clusters and graphically notated clouds of scattered notes; and imitates a little music box that's winding down. Each of these features interrupts the others frequently, and are themselves interrupted by variously measured silent moments. The most interesting idea though was to use two different ways of measuring time - by breath (notated with brackets) and by meter (notated the usual way). Each different time system interrupts the other system. There are long stretches of nearly nothing happening except for a minor third tremolo. When I played it the next spring on the student composers' concert somebody, apparently, had had enough and walked out. I must admit I was rather pleased.

Performances:

Sonata for Violin and Piano "Bryd one Brere"

May 15, 1980 Brechemin Auditorium, University of Washington School of Music, Seattle

Aloysia Friedmann, violin; Keith Eisenbrey, piano

also 

June 13, 1980 home recording 

Habitabit

November 24, 1980 Studio Theater, Meany Hall, University of Washington, Seattle

Sue Walsh, soprano; Keith Eisenbrey, piano

Sonata 1980

May 13, 1981 Studio Theater, Meany Hall, University of Washington, Seattle

February 7, 2004 Music at the Edge of Space, University Temple United Methodist Church, Seattle

May 14, 2009 home recording

Keith Eisenbrey · Sonata 1980 (090514) 800511

June 6, 2009 Preludes in Seattle Part 3, Chapel Performance Space, Good Shepherd Center, Seattle

Blog Posts:

February 13, 2011 - Sonata 1980 - Keith Eisenbrey (the recording of February 7, 2004 - no further comment)

March 1, 2011 - Sonata 1980 (the recording of June 6, 2009)

My live performance of June 6, 2009. The various species of pauses and interruptions are more clearly distinguished here than in my other performances, and I managed to refrain from rushing as much as I usually do. The Chapel piano sounds good.

June 7, 2011 - Sonata for violin and piano "Bryd one Brere"

Aloysia was a classmate of mine at the UW back in mumbletymumble, and she graciously agreed to play this little violin & piano piece. She has since gone on to great things and a wonderful career, as we all knew she would. The title comes from a 13th century English song that had come up as an example in a music history class. At the time my compositional method was to throw as many techniques as I could think of at the page and see which ones stuck. Use of quotations was one of them. The result in this case is kind of rollicking and showy. Aloysia negotiates my occasionally violinistic writing with pizazz. I do my best to keep up.

June 19, 2011 - Sonata for violin and piano "Bryd one Brere" (the recording of May 15, 1980 - no further comment)

July 14, 2011 - Sonata 1980 (the recording of May 13, 1981)

My live recording from May of 1981, at the Meany Studio Theater. The tape deteriorated some before I could rip it, but you can still hear the door opening for the guy who walked out on me.

July 24, 2011 - Sonata 1980 (the recording of May 14, 2009)

My recent studio recording.

December 30, 2012 - Habitabit

My 1980 Latin setting of the Peacable Kingdom passage from Isaiah. I was a student at the UW at the time and composed by hurling conceptual ideas at score paper to see what they would do. In this case I used quotations (a Schubert Waltz, I think), abrupt jump cuts between disparate textures, and directed improvisation, among other things. The whole thing ends up pretty much a mess, but my intrepid and phenomenally pitch-perfect soprano soldiered on admirably.

Greg Short, Dell Wade, Lockrem Johnson 1973 - 1977

Greg Short was the first composer I ever met in the flesh. He came to one of my piano lessons late in
1973 or early in 1974, a very tall young man with close-set eyes, a remarkable nervous intensity, and a large stash of scores. Mr. Smiley (I believe it was Mr. Smiley throughout our lessons, never "Vic" as it was later), probably through a local music teachers association, had met Greg, and somehow I was chosen to learn some of his simpler pieces as part of my program that year. "Knuckle Rag" was a fun and showy number featuring cluster chords hand slaps finger snaps leg slaps faceboard slaps and knocking. "Little Rose", "Rigadoon", and "The Fox", as easily as they fit into the student piece mode, are replete with Greg's deep knowledge of pianistic detail. In the spring of 1974, or perhaps the next year, I played some of them at a music teacher's association recital featuring Greg's and other local composers' music. I remember that one of those other composers was Lockrem Johnson, though I don't remember meeting him then. That meeting occurred through the auspices of Dell Wade.

Dell was composer in residence at the orchestra camp I attended, probably in the summer of 1975. He was, at that time, all of 19, but already hustling performances and collaborators. I shared some of my early pieces and ended up taking composition lessons with him. I learned about pens, inks, pencils, and staff paper, and picked up some nuts and bolts habits that are still with me today. I prefer, for example, sketching music on 12-stave 8.5X11 buff paper using #3 pencils. I don't know how much of his compositional personality rubbed off on me, though I'm sure there was a fair amount of style mimicry in my pieces from those years. At any rate, he taught me enough to make a favorable impression (I had a portfolio of music for various ensembles, orchestra, and some little piano pieces) on the composition faculty at the UW when I applied there in 1977.

In late 1976 or so Dell thought that I should enter one of my piano pieces in a statewide contest, but since he wasn't in the sponsoring teachers' association he brought me along to meet his teacher, Lockrem Johnson, who was. Lockrem listened while I played my piano piece (oh that Grotrian-Steinweg he had! magnificent!) and we looked at an orchestra piece I was working on. We listened to some music by others (it was through Dell and Lockrem that I learned about the astounding Swiss composer Frank Martin, and I remember a drop-the-needle game featuring one of Sullivan's concert overtures (Dell, if I recall, guessed it correctly, much to Lockrem's annoyance) and then he played a recording of his First Symphony while I read along in a copy of the manuscript score.

The fact that I was able to keep up, turning the pages at the right time, made an impression on him. He gave me a score of his 5th Sonata, and had suggestions about where I might want to study. He agreed to sponsor me in the contest (though he graciously called Vic Smiley for permission, since Vic could have done so also), and then called my parents, while I was still on the way home, to assure them that I really did have something going for me as a composer, and that it should be encouraged.

And, although he didn't want to take Dell's student from him, he felt that I would benefit from a more experienced mentor, offering to take me on the next year. Unfortunately, he passed away suddenly, far too young, before that could happen. At his memorial concert, at Cornish, I heard some of his 24 Preludes, and took some pains to acquire a full score from his cousin. I have performed the cycle all through once (8 at a time) and am hoping to finish the cycle again in a few years (4 at a time, in my recital series "Preludes in Seattle") along with those of Greg Short and of my first teacher at the University of Washington, Ken Benshoof.