Finding the right words

One of the things I didn't have much time to do while I was doing my music degree was write music.

The majority of my composing so far has been choral work. It isn't a particularly vast majority, a handful of songs and anthems really. Sometime soon I'll get more of it up on a website.

Usually, I find a text that, on some level, seems to speak to me, and then set it, and then it sits in a drawer until I get it onto the computer, and then it doesn't get any further (really need to get that website sorted). But sometimes I have a specific occasion or person to write for, and need to find the right words.

At that point I really struggle. My knowledge of English poetry, particularly English poetry that is in the public domain, is rather poor. There's an awful lot of it to get through and I'll never manage to read it all. At one time I might have written the words myself, but it's been a long time since I wrote any poetry and I don't think I would be able to write something acceptable these days.

I'm dealing with this problem now. I keep going to the few poetry books I have and reading through them, searching for the right poem. The result? I bookmark tens or hundreds of pages as things I'd like to set someday but none of what I've found is appropriate for this particular project.

I think I probably need to do some sort of survey course in English poetry, or even choose a century per month and use my commuting time to get familiar with the major poets.

In the meantime, if you could have one text set as a choral work, what would it be?

The internet is full of shiny.

Via Chantblog, I found this webpage which takes Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier fugues and has an analysis and discussion for each. It uses Shockwave and I had to open it in Safari to get it to run properly but it is quite seriously shiny.

Over at Vimeo there is a video of Bobby McFerrin demonstrating "The Power of the Pentatonic Scale". As someone says in the comments, I'm not convinced this demonstrates a whole lot about the power or universality of the pentatonic scale per se but it made me grin from ear to ear. What a wonderful, physical demonstration of the way humans relate spatial distance to differences in pitch.

Thirdly, over at RockOm there is an article about music and saving the world. I think this should be required reading for music students.

Performance Collective Evening Concert

London Performance Collective
7.30pm Evening Concert
Tuesday 18th August


An Evening filled with music, wine and cake

* Rimsky-Korsakov - Flight of the Bumble Bee for bassoon and piano
* Otar Taktakishvili - Flute Sonata
* Handel - Sonata in G minor Op. 1 No. 6, violin and serpent
* Schumann - Fantasiestucke, Op. 12
* Beethoven - Trio - for flute, bassoon, and piano

Tickets: £10 (Conc. £6)

The Space (directions and map)

The London Performance Collective is a new ensemble which presents classical and modern music in new ways to help audiences to experience it afresh. We perform good music from all historical periods, but aim to present it in ways which open ears anew to its impact.

Results, moving on and settling in...

Where to start?

I got my degree. Specifically, I have been awarded a Bachelor of Music (Hons), Second Class Honours, Upper Division. In ordinary terms that's known as a 2:1 in the British system.

I had a celebratory recital on 10th July. I'm listening to a recording now, to try and make a CD to hand on to someone who couldn't be there. It's interesting... a note in the Mozart that I had pegged as 'always a bit sharp' is flat in both the exam and the recital. Clearly I should have recorded more of my practising for troubleshooting purposes. Overall, the recital went well and I think I played better than in the exam, so I'm very glad I did it. Also, there's little better than playing with friends and family for a large group of my friends and family.

I've also moved house. No more shall I wander along the Roman Road, at least not in order to get the bus to take me to Trinity in the mornings. The new house has a music room, which means I don't actually need to leave to practise. I don't need to book a room, either. This is most excellent. The house even came with a piano, which, although in need of some work, allows me to put off the expensive decision on buying one for myself, at least for a few more years.

So, I've been doing some practising, some small bits of composing, and rather a lot of packing and unpacking. In an unprecedented fit of being rather more organised than usual, most of my existing teaching schedule for the autumn is sorted out. I do need to find more students locally, but I also know it will take time to build up a class in this area.

The next few weeks bring a performance on 18th August (I'll play serpent and Anna will play violin), a trip to deepest darkest Somerset to unwind for a few days, and rather a lot of unpacking. I also need to start doing some arranging and transcription of popular works for horn, violin and 'cello, as it looks like a group of us are doing some of that. I also want to get going again on putting together a horn and organ concert, but I may need to wait a little longer and get some job applications out of the way, first. A website wouldn't be a bad idea, either.

In future summers I hope I'll be able to have a longer rest in August, but as so much is in transition and there are so many new starts, this one is turning out to be mostly one where I keep my head down.

How about you?

Final stretch

Over a month since posting, again!

I have my end-of-degree recital on Tuesday next week. That's, er, a week from today.

Right now, it's all about the practising. And the programme notes... sadly I'm not allowed to have a ghost writer for my programme notes!

I'm hoping to get back to writing some more here when I have recovered from the recital.

Concert diary

Some more performances coming up!

Tomorrow lunchtime I'll be singing at Grosvenor Chapel, South Audley Street, London W1K 2PA.

Friday 8th May, 1pm
King William Singers
directed by Hilary Campbell
present a lunchtime concert of contemporary choral music.

Programme:

Lauridsen O Magnum Mysterium
Brown o sapientia
Whitacre Water Night
Campbell the isle is full of noises
Whitacre Lux Aurumque
Weir Vertue
Campbell the hand that made us is divine

There will be a retiring collection for the CYM Library and for the Grosvenor Chapel Foundation.

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On Sunday morning the London Gallery Quire will be singing Mattins at St Mary the Virgin Church in East Barnet. The service begins bright and early at 10am. I will be playing the serpent. I'm quite enjoying playing the serpent.

I haven't thought further ahead than that just now. I think there are Wind Orchestra things coming up at some point.

Mozart KV 370b+371

I'm learning some Mozart I've never learned before, for my end-of-year exam. What's this, you say? How can a horn player get this far and not have learned all the Mozart solo repertoire there is?

Well, simply put, when I started learning the horn there were fewer known fragments of the work. Even now it can be difficult to get hold of. Some recordings I have seem to mis-label the first movement as being KV 307b instead of 370b. I've been able to find two published editions, reconstructed by two different people. The manuscript for 371, the Concert Rondo, was only completed in 1989 and previous editions are missing bits.

This morning I have been looking at the score of 370b in the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe Digital Mozart Edition, and comparing that to my Brietkopf edition, completed and edited by Robert D. Levin, which arrived in the post yesterday. In bar 67 I don't know that I agree with the scoring of the piano reduction; I would put a concert E in the bass and in the second half of the bar the horn plays a concert B-flat which is lower than any of the piano notes. This is easy enough to change, but it will have to be the piano part that changes. And in bar 128 there is a quaver-and-two-semi-quavers figure which is written as a triplet in the score. Not sure which I'll do there.

I'm still waiting for the Sikorski edition and the Birdalone edition to arrive. It will be interesting to compare them. I'd love a facsimile of the manuscript but I don't quite want to spend $125 on it.