UA MUSIC LIBRARY READING ROOM NOTES
No. 6 (2004)
Compiled by the Music Library Staff
Mark Germer, Music Librarian; Lars Halle & Aaron Meicht, Circulation Supervisors
(To contact the editor see the end of this page.)
Mark Germer: Philadelphia and
the Essence of Light
Mary Hallock Greenewalt: "A Nomenclature to Underlie the use of
Light as a Fine Art"
Aaron Meicht: "A Secularized
Theology" Adorno on Steuermann
Aaron Meicht: Experimentelle Musik 2003: The AB
Duo in Munich
Lars Halle: “Speaking of Apropos”:
An Analysis
Mark Germer:
A
curious and unexplored affiliation in the University's past has to do with the
early 20th-century keyboardist Mary Hallock Greenewalt. Now a
nearly forgotten resident of
Greenewalt had earned a
reputation as a concert pianist by the early 1900s, having graduated from the
"Color-hearing" is one of various, presumably related sensory experiences subsumed under the term synaesthesia. Despite wide general interest dating back to the 18th century, and a rapidly accumulating clinical bibliography, the phenomenon remains incompletely understood. Much recent literature has addressed literary synaesthesia, in which subjects report unevoked color associations with the sounds of letters or syllables; writers such as Baudelaire and Nabokov have left well-known descriptions of such experience (Cytowic 2003, chap. 15). But documentation of musical sound-color synaesthesia has also boasted famous adherents. It is difficult, in fact, to find discussions of the music of Skryabin or Messiaen that do not contain references to these composers' attempts to incorporate synaesthetic experience into their music scores. In the 1920s, the Hungarian composer Alexander László promoted the idea of a generic innovation he called "color-light-music" (Farblichtmusik). Many artists and composers who did not claim to be "synaesthetes" themselves -- Bartók, Schoenberg, Kandinsky, among others -- nevertheless found themselves intrigued with simultaneous sensory stimulation and incorporated versions of it into some of their most experimental works. Greenewalt's early embrace of the subject, however, as evidenced in the 1918 lecture excerpted below, was reasonably sophisticated by comparison with that of Skryabin, for instance, whose prescription for a "tastiera per luce" (in the score of Prometei [1911]), would have provided unmodulated projections. It was always a part of Greenewalt's vision that nuances of fluctuating, diminishing, intensifying, and merging colors could be calibrated to comparable nuances of musical modulation and expressive articulation.
As a neurological phenomenon, synaesthesia has been approached through two principal avenues of inquiry: as a pathological behavior involving perceptual confusion, owing to the collateral experience of sensitivity in a modality that has not been stimulated during the perception of one that has; and as a universal physiological potential for simultaneous processing in all sensory modalities, hyperexpressed in some individuals (Ternaux 2003). One tentative supposition holds that the process of neurophysiological maturation may include a kind of "sorting out" of the modalities of perception, so that "retention" of sympathetic sensation by certain individuals may be in some way vestigial. However, a long road lies ahead before neurobiologists will have sufficiently accounted for the myriad variables involving brain pathways and receptors, the neural mechanisms of attention and memory, to say nothing of the internal and external environmental stimuli that have bearing on sensory perception, in order to advance a comprehensive theory.
The
revelations of brain research unfolding today, owing to image scanning and
other technologies, could not, of course, have been imagined several decades
ago, to say nothing of Greenewalt's time. That multisensory
stimulation had an uplifting or cleansing, even a spiritual dimension, however,
did seem borne out by experiential evidence, if her considerable written legacy
is any testimony. Late in life she
published a monograph entitled Nourathar (
Cytowic,
Richard. The Man who Tasted Shapes.
Revised ed.
Greenewalt,
Mary Hallock. Nourathar: The Fine
Art of Color Playing.
Music and Musicians of
Ternaux, Jean-Pierre. "Synesthesia: A Multimodal Combination of the Senses," Leonardo 56 (2003), 321-322.
Mary Hallock Greenewalt: "A Nomenclature to Underlie
the use of Light as a Fine Art"
A hieroglyphic, a symbolism, a denotation designed for the orientation of artists is [a] necessary adjunct to any art of succession.
A nomenclature underlying the use of light as a fine art similar to that used on the music page for recording music is necessary to this art’s perpetuation and growth.
Compactness, care of the line space, the width space, is necessary. These marks may be called upon to wedge between the staves on the music page as an accompaniment to the music or they may underlie the dramatic line for similar reasons.
To begin then: the main attributes of an art made up of light alone are: brightness, hue, saturation, time—as time must be a speaking part of any art of succession—and space, as light is a thing for sight.
Since hue and saturation lie, as it were, in the lap of brightness, such a nomenclature must take care of the dynamics of light: the bright, the dark, first.
[INTENSITY]
A table of brightness, from the threshold of vision to a high light yields twelve space numerals. From one hundred lamberts or one hundred thousand millilamberts to the one ten thousandth of a millilambert we get the unit and eleven ciphers—100,000,000,000. Such an array of spaces may well be made use of to hold much that may be needed by the occasion. It makes a base carrying within itself a certain amount of definite fact regarding the medium to be used.
Decimal places and their figures can, in conjunction with a calibrated and similarly marked resistance slide placed conveniently at the manipulator’s disposal, give any intensity desired. But as a nomenclature for the art, symbols that represent hue and saturation must be added not to mention still more cunning marks of expression.
We will therefore turn the ciphers into squares to give them four-cornered room, as well as [to] be easier on the following eye, and mark the decimal commas and periods in such a way as, without dropping beneath the line, they will allow the elision of those ciphers or squares, not at that point needed, for giving either the quantity of light or its color.
We then get the following:
So sensitive must this use of intensities be that though the increment of least perceptible brightness has been measured at even varying intensities of white light and the spectrum of colors, expressing with light, like expressing with time in music, will come with nuances which can be felt, but scarcely measured.
Whilst colors, like notes, are of distinct and definite demarcations from one another, the attribute inseparable from light’s power for emotional speech lies in its capacity for an insensible increase and decrease in brightness. It is so that the day comes and goes; it is so connected with our capacity for a suggested feeling induced by it.
The use of the numeral and its similarly marked slide will denote for repeated use and uses just where the play of different increases and decreases of light shall begin and end.
Other marks will be needed to show how these “crescendos” and “decrescendos” of light intensities shall grow or ebb; the time such change shall take; how a uniform light shall remain for a given span; how the sudden accent of dark shall be asked for in a symbolism put on paper to represent such [a] desired result.
There is no single word in the English language which takes the place for a gradual increase of light, like the word “crescendo”, as used for a gradual increase in loudness in music.
There is the word “brightening”, to be sure, but this answers for silver polish, too. The word “darkling” exists for a gradual decrease of light intensity and to give it its complemental mate, we cannot do better than coin the word “brightling” for its reverse meaning.
No line symbols could be better for these two words than the forked lines used to resemble the “crescendo” and “decrescendo” in music:
An even light held at the height of an increase and ebb could be logically expressed as follows: by horizontal lines from the point of its high to the point of its ebb.
A sudden bright accent thus: and a sudden dark accent thus:
[These symbols are missing in the typescript]
It may be that the light will be wanted brightening in waves or billows when curves in the forked lines would mark on paper the desired effect:
[This symbol is also missing in the typescript]
The play of loud and soft is a secondary attribute of the art of music. The play of increase and decrease in light is the indispensable attribute of an art made up of light. For this reason, there will be many variations of the forked lines, which are all considered sufficient for the crescendo and decrescendo of music.
HUE
The primary colors are three. It is well known that any hue may be matched by combining the three primary colors [in the field of optics]: red, green and blue in proper proportions. But let us take the six chief spectral colors: violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, and red so doubling this primal quantity and build up our color indicators on them. Our marks governing the intensities of light became of use through their conjunction with a controlled and similarly marked resistance slide.
Colors complementary to each other, do not make a new color when mixed. Not only this, but the spectral color available in artificial illumination is not unlimited. The tungsten nitrogen-filled lamp has comparatively speaking much red and very little violet. The ratios are as follows: 751 of red to 233 of yellow, 103 of green, 68 of blue and 39 of violet or circa: one of violet, to two of blue, to three of green, to seven of yellow, to 21 of red. The violet of even a very strong light is only just perceptible. A variety of proportioned symbols for violet, for example, need give but little trouble.
Let us now go back to our squares and conceive of them as divided, if necessary subdivided, each division colored to denote a hue. Three of the squares could give all manner of four combinations to the three colors and twelve squares, not to mention the forked lines, would thus certainly give the necessary symbol space for getting at the twenty-two hues which the eye can recognize irrespective of brightness and saturation change.
It is also to be remembered that it is not a question of painting forms, but of tinting brightness.
Since color printing is expensive, let us use arbitrary symbols in black and white as a possible substitute in place of actual color.
We will also keep the graceful names of these colors; symbols and names as follows:
Supposing now a change of color were wanted in the midst of a growing light intensity, the forked lines can carry the same symbols as follows:
meaning that as the intensity changes one color is to gradually displace the other.
It is right here that stress must be laid on the fact that color sensations do not reach their full value immediately on application of the stimulus. It is for this reason that a rotating disc made up of several colors will give the impression of one color. It is only for this reason that the notes of music meant to act on the dot of time can never suffice for a stimulus of leisurely growth. Our forked lines give ampleness of time for color change.
SATURATION
The least trouble need be experienced from the need for lessening the saturation made by the addition of white. White will turn red into pink, dark blue into paler blue, etc.
It will be difficult to isolate absolutely a spectral monochrome so as to be devoid of white. The filter cannot be prevented from fading.
It will be difficult to keep all vagrant light from filtering into the auditorium by some means or other.
We know that red will show about 90 shades of saturation. This represents results in accurate and minute scientific research on a restricted circular surface of red paper. A difference in color was noted every 4 degrees of the 360 degrees or about one percent.
We know that color systems of notation have taken account of but 10 shades and that increase of brightness will bring a lessening of saturation automatically with it.
In addition to all these ways by which saturation will be lessened, little pilot lights of white added to the powerful lights can furnish measured units of white to pale the color as needed.
ENSEMBLE
IN LIGHT PLAY
It goes without saying that where one or more light effects are to be used as a foil one to the other, that two or more complete symbols will be placed one over the other, as the scores of music for different instruments playing simultaneously are tiered.
SPACE LIT
It is quite within the realm of conception that patches of variously colored lights will be wanted, as, let us say, purple over the cellos, while blue plays over the violins. In this case, the written word must give this direction. A colored light falling on a background of a different and supporting light suffusion would also need a special noting and will refer, naturally, to a resistance slide operating independently.
The beginning [and] the cessation of a given color must, of course, always be carried on the intensity mark.
Such directions as “gently”, “violently”, must, as in music, be given in words.
In all this, it is to be understood that every nomenclature underlying an art is but a skeleton around which the artist must build his creation. It is so with the notes of music. It is so with the dramatic line. Not the finest of computed brightnesses will be all sufficient for the artist. Only his instinct, his practice, his taste, will bring him where the light of his soul leads.
Mary Hallock Greenewalt
Wildwood Crest
“[Greenewalt] at one of her Light Color Play Consoles that
were produced in number” (Greenewalt 1946)
Aaron Meicht: "A Secularized Theology" Adorno on Steuermann
The pianist and composer Edward Steuermann,
who taught at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music from 1948 to 1962, has the
distinction of being remembered as the actual manifestation of an almost mythic
archetype: the exceptional artist of great intellectual and personal integrity. Many portray themselves so, but few would
have earned the regard of so sharp an observer as the German social theorist
and writer on music Theodor Adorno,
who offered his recollections of Steuermann in the Süddeutsche Zeitung after
the latter's death in November 1964. The
sketch here leans heavily on this memorial, in a translation by the fellow
pianist Konrad Wolff found in typescript in the Music
Library. (The cited passages do not
necessarily appear in the order of the original.) A different translation, following an
apparently revised German text in the collected edition of Adorno's writings, is available in The Not Quite
Innocent Bystander, ed. Clara Steuermann (
Having
emigrated from
In
Edward Steuermann’s makeup, Art as such, and
seriousness about aesthetics, came before the special media of talent, but this
seriousness, in turn, forced him to apply extreme concentration on these media.
I
met Steuermann in 1925 through Berg and took piano
lessons from him. The friendship then
born has continued ever since. No words
can describe how much I owe him. Once,
when I played the B-minor Capriccio of Brahms for him, he drew my attention to
a motivic connection which I had not perceived and
therefore not made clear [in my playing]. At that moment I was made to realize fully that correct rendering of
music in performance depends on the articulate knowledge of the score by the
performer, so that he is able to analyze it.
His education as a pianist began with Vilém Kurz in Lemberg (Polish Lwów, now Ukrainian Lviv). After
moving to
By the time he reached
Busoni introduced him to Schoenberg. He became Schoenberg’s pupil, and much more,
for his own spiritual and musical identity crystallized itself as a result of
the relationship with Schoenberg.
His exceptional pianistic quality made him appear predestined for the role of authentic interpreter of
the
In
1912 Steuermann took part in the first performance of
Schoenberg's famous cycle Pierrot lunaire, and premiered many works of the early
twentieth century. He was the pianist for the Verein für Musikalische Privataufführungen (Society for Private Performances),
founded in 1918 by Schoenberg and as such introduced works by Scryabin and much new French music to
It is tempting to compare Steuermann’s role in the music of the second
In his article on Steuermann for the second edition of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London 2001),
Michael Steinberg writes that Steuermann’s “Beethoven recitals in
The concrete individuality of the very
piece which is being analyzed, though it may be extremely anchored in the more
general musical idiom, is what matters. Steuermann’s use of analysis in interpretation is connected with modern composing, inasmuch
as here, too, the identifying features of each piece obtain against the
outdated generalities of tonality. This experience of modern art also
penetrated the approach to tradition. For a long time already, the music of the
past had indeed been a battlefield for the war between the here-and-now of
composing on the one hand, and [stylistic] generalities on the other. This new
direction in score analysis has incalculable consequences for the
interpretation of music. [...] It is, however, true that the discipline and
control that this kind of performance exacts from the performing musician, is
more than unusual and approaches the unbearable. Steuermann increased this ability to the point of a magnificent defeatism of Kafka[esque] proportions.
[H]is expressionist impulse was equally
strong: as a pianist, Steuermann freed musical
expression in agitated eruptions from its taboos. Both these manifestations of
his personality—analytic penetration and forceful expression—were grounded in
his inexhaustible and constantly self-generating imagination that was equally
dedicated to expressing the musical meaning and to discovering its traces and
traces of the relationship of each detail to the whole, in the dry symbols of
musical notation. [...] The mechanism of
his playing was strong and very virtuosic, yet he never indulged in virtuosity.
In the interest of expression and structure, he renounced the kind of
smoothness that would have been very easy for him to produce, and never made
concessions for the sake of a possible effect.
Maintaining a relentless teaching schedule, including
decades of summer seminars in
Steuermann was not to be distracted from composing
by anything, and it was his principal concern during
his late years. [...] [His works] are
not conveniently classifiable. Much of what he wrote decades ago anticipates
the future, through a predominance of a very meticulous mosaic of structure—as
complex as a handwriting in which successive lines run together—over the
so-called melodic inspiration, but also through their dark and nocturnal tone,
like the foundation block in a piece of graphic art. His works are objective, but they attain this
quality not by borrowing external forms and rules, but by transcending their
subjectivity, in a process of continuous, productive self-criticism. Steuermann had the
primal strength, the faculty of hearing a thing through to its logical end, of
disappearing as a subject in the consistency of the carrying-out of the
original conception. This music was a secularized theology. [...] His hidden nature was to be one of the just
men of music.
Some works by Steuermann available for examination in the Music Library include: Vier Lieder für eine hohe Frauenstimme (1943); Brecht-Lieder (1945); Seven
Waltzes for String Quartet (1946); Piano Trio (1954); Variations
for Orchestra (1958); String Quartet
no.2, “Diary” (1961); Dialogues for violin solo (1963); Suite
for Chamber Orchestra (1964); and Auf der Galerie, cantata for chorus and orchestra (with a text
by Kafka, 1964).
Back in
After Theodor W. Adorno, "Nachruf auf einen Pianisten"
(Recollections of a Pianist), Süddeutsche Zeitung 28-29 Nov. 1964
Aaron Meicht: Experimentelle Musik 2003: The AB Duo in
In
the Fall of 2003 the drummer (and UArts alumnus) Brendan Dougherty and I performed in a series of concerts in
The lights came up on the first group, Das PHREN-Ensemble—a group from
Next came a series of pieces by three eminent
masters of the German avant-garde, Heinz-Klaus Metzger, Rainer Riehn, and Hans Rudolf Zeller. Metzger and Riehn have been editors of the
monograph series Musik-Konzepte since it began in
1978. Metzger was involved in the famous Darmstadt Ferienkurse in the late 1950s and early 1960s and his associates included the
Our Duo followed, presenting completely acoustic improvisations with me
on trumpet, fluegelhorn, and mutes, and Brendan on
drum set. One of the motivations behind the music of the AB Duo is the
exploration of noise in its technical definition of unwanted sounds.
“Unavoidable” sounds of the instruments have led us to become more careful with
the sounds that are presented. The early drum set, for example, was an
assortment of small and large percussion instruments that were clamped, lashed
and screwed together in an often-haphazard manner. This naturally created many
smaller sounds each time a part was struck. Also, the trumpet or fluegelhorn can be utilized unconventionally in a variety
of ways to accentuate the noises created by the clanging of brass against
brass, the clicking of mutes, or the pinching of the embouchure. These small
sounds are of supreme interest to our duo because, for one reason, these are
sounds that helped to differentiate jazz from other music.
After our performance came another icon of modern music, Michael von Biel, who was one of the first Europeans to make contact with
Morton Feldman in America in the late 1950s. He presented “On the Impossibility
of Understanding Sound”—a difficult performance in which
After
The Italians were next with Luca Miti from
The night concluded with two works by the host, Stephan Wunderlich and his partner Edith Rom. Duo was a multi-media work for film and slide projectors, lamps,
sine-tone generator, guitar, snare drum and spoken text. The piece is a sonic
and visual tug of war between the two performers. For Lichtspiel, Miti and Mayr joined Wunderlich and Rom in a twenty-minute silent light show produced on a huge screen with
four flashlights. The performers had a series of rules to follow which
determined when and how to shine their light on the screen. The serialized
patterns eventually created an exciting mood among the audience—the silence
being as powerful as any sound heard earlier. Applause shattered the silence
and our evening was complete. The event was a true meeting of different musical
philosophies collected under the umbrella of Stephan Wunderlich’s rare vigilance and support of experimental aural culture.
Reproduction of the
placard designed by Stephan Wunderlich for Experimentelle Musik 2003. The design of the image
shows the relative placement of each participant for the evening.
Lars Halle: “Speaking of Apropos”: An Analysis
Upon analyzing one of my own compositions for big band I felt a mix of
curiosity and terror, as I have not consciously composed music with theoretical
categories in mind. My writing has a
stream-of-consciousness approach, even with respect to melody and harmony, and
I have not been trained in, or taken particular interest in theoretical
explanations. Therefore this project has
presented me with the opportunity to seek out, to the best of my ability, any
“subconscious method” (or the complete lack thereof) that I may be employing.
When composing “Speaking of Apropos”
I initially wrote the melody and harmonic structure as an independent body,
keeping in mind my intent to keep the melody accessible and the underlying
harmonies more complex. As far as the
“head” is concerned, I have consciously disregarded traditional harmony and
focused on two pedal-points which undermine independent chordal movement. It is fair to say that the
core composition is largely rooted in two tonalities, C minor and F minor. It bears an AAB form, each A-section
containing 16 measures and the B-section (which in this context does not
constitute a “bridge” since it does not tie two sections together in the
overall form) filling 12 measures, making the tune 44 measures.
The original chordal content of the A-section
is largely dependent on the particular voicings,
which I have specified in notation. In
fact, the chords were notated first, and their emergent qualities established
later. The melody of the A-section
chiefly employs the dorian mode. The addition of some chromaticism gives the impression that we are straying from
the C dorian tonality for a
moment but the conclusion of the A-section melody implies an altered-dominant sonority,
gravitating back to the tonal center. The contrasting tonality of the B-section suggests F minor, but the
melodic structure is largely chromatic, and somewhat serial in nature. This concludes the form of the “stand-alone”
core composition.
I chose tenor saxophone and harmon-muted
trumpet to carry the melody as well as serve as the locus of
improvisation. Adding the mute alters
the timbre of the trumpet to an extent where, combined in unison with the tenor
saxophone, its sound becomes starkly alien from that of the saxophone and
therefore becomes more distinguishable, especially since the melody is written
within the range of both instruments such that neither voice has to be
displaced to another octave.
The section beginning at rehearsal letter D serves as a transitional
section. At the finish of the B-section,
immediate development, or an intensified pace would feel overwhelming, or
harried, and so I’ve allowed for some breathing room, both literally and
figuratively.
The tenor saxophone solo follows at the section marked E, which is
initially played through “clean” with no
background figures, and then revisited three more times. With each pass, a new background layer is
added. I find that building the
underscoring in this way provides added energy for the soloist from which to
“feed,” and the build-up becomes mutual between the ensemble and the
soloist. For the climax of the section,
and the solo, the layered backgrounds compound until the major release of
energy at letter F, the beginning of the trumpet solo.
The section marked by rehearsal letter I introduces a long, Gb pedal-point and abandons the
form of the initial composition altogether. What follows are independent, chromatic sequences by the three horn
sections, coming together in measure 201, forming a dense altered dominant voicing.
Moving to the new tonality, and introducing
these seemingly unrelated chromatic ideas sets up the freely improvised section
at rehearsal letter J. The featured
tenor saxophone and trumpet improvise without pre-direction, the pedal-point
being the only constant. This section is
repeated openly until the soloists begin to draw to a climactic close. The following section is then cued, bringing
in different combinations of instruments, providing different colors for the
backgrounds. The pedal-point continues,
as does the improvisation. After an implied continuation of the sectional
independency at letter I, the pedal shifts up a half step to the dominant degree,
implying that we are returning to the original tonality.
The climax for both the soloists and the remainder of the band is now
brewing. A series of independent
entrances between the sections lead into the climactic diminished whole-tone
scale climb and soaring trumpets. The
soloists then fizzle out and the ensemble returns to the pivotal riff. A dal segno brings us back to letter A and the original form until just before C where we jump to the coda.
I believe that it is very important, in order for an arrangement to work,
to consider the general balance of the arrangement. Some old LP recordings of big band music used
to feature a graphic chart which illustrated the different textures and
densities throughout the chart, and though that idea may have seemed gratuitous
for the general listener, it is not a bad visual to keep in mind. In the case of “Speaking of Apropos,” the
introduction starts out moderately reserved but half-way through we are jolted
by a tutti shout that is harmonically dense and
expressively engaging. We are subtly introduced to the general spirit of the
music and then blatantly made aware that this arrangement will embody some
stark dynamic contrast.
So commences the subtle texture of the rhythm section with the melody
simply stated on top. As the end of the
melody becomes apparent, the tutti is repeated from
the introduction, reminding us again that we may expect excitement later
on. The tutti drops down to just the trombone section mimicking, at a lesser harmonic
concentration, the shout-like nature of the tutti. The melody is repeated, and the shape stays
the same, providing a feeling of consistency and familiar ground.
The B-section is a little trickier. It doesn’t exhibit as
distinctive a profile as the A-section, but it is musically much more complex,
so in this sense, the textures of the B-section demand as much of the listener as does
the A-section. The conversation between
the soloists and the low-end instruments contrast with the earlier parts of the
arrangements by foregrounding the bass register of the band as a melodic
entity. The B-section builds
slightly to a climax, immediately dropping down to the subtle pivot-point
riff. This “down-time” allows listeners
to digest what has just happened, as well as realize that the melody has
finished and we are moving ahead to the next development.
The tenor saxophone solo starts in this context, and with each repeat, a
texture is layered on top, bringing the energy level up bit by bit until the
last pass when the ensemble ever so slowly crescendos to a larger climax,
signaling the solo’s finale. The trumpet solo begins immediately, because here
I judge that the listeners, as well as the ensemble, have experienced such an
effective build that dropping the level completely again would inhibit the
momentum. So, the energy level is now
shifted to the rhythm section, which morphs the style into a more driving,
linear kind of playing. The bass plays a
“walking bass” line over the chord progression, which is simplified and
stretched out metrically. The saxophones
enter in the background at letter G, seemingly at the second pass of the form
(which is deceptive, since neither solo is mapped after the original form of
the tune). At the end of the trumpet
solo, layers accumulate again, first trombones, then trumpets and saxophones
respectively, and finally the whole band exploding into a dense, rich
altered-dominant chord which rounds off the trumpet solo and leads into the
next section.
Now that the soloists have shown what they can do, I allow the band to
shine a little. This is where the shout
chorus comes in. Letter H marks the
beginning of a conversation between the saxophones and the brass, based on the
chord progression used for the solos. The energy level is fairly high coming out of the trumpet solo, and it
is sustained through the calls and responses between the sections. The short saxophone soli section acts as a deceptive denouement. When the brass comes back in and the sections are more or less
integrated, we start the real denouement, thwarting expectations of a grand
climax. The sustained chord at letter I sounds mysterious and implies that perhaps something alien
is lurking around the corner.
The development of that chord grows slightly, then sighs back into the collective improvisation between the two soloists. The rhythm section gets involved in this free
improvisation too, without losing the steady pulse or the pedal point. The open improvisation section is designed to
increase in energy somewhat, but not too much. As the energy level has reached an appropriate level, the backgrounds
(letter K) are cued.
The backgrounds are layered, recalling the anticipation of the shout
chorus, and the band swells to another small climax after which the pedal drops
an octave: the pitch remains, but the shift in register is felt. There is another sequence of layered
backgrounds before the modulation which sets up the gradual build to the
ultimate climax with the trumpets soaring. After peaking, the horns “fall off” their notes, perhaps implying the
need for relaxation and digestion.
A brief moment of relaxation follows, but before we forget what has just
happened music of the initial introduction recurs, announcing the original
melody. I have used the device of the dal segno instead of re-writing
the melody and backgrounds, perhaps out of convenience, or perhaps because I
felt that all sources of further development had been exhausted. And in a way, it brings about a feeling of
familiarity, almost like returning home from an adventure.
After the B-section, instead of climaxing again, which would feel
redundant, I opt for a rather opposite effect. I envision a drummer finishing a solo and, rather than finishing with a
crash and boom, just dropping his sticks aimlessly and walking away from the
drum set. That is largely the effect of
the coda. The soloists, saxophones, and
the rhythm section strike the downbeat and fall off while the brass acknowledge
the downbeat and sustain a moderately quiet, ambiguous minor-major tonality,
voiced densely in seconds and thirds, until cut off by the conductor.
In summary, as the piece was composed largely intuitively, and the
arrangement was fleshed out measure by measure as well, I am surprised to find
this much structure and formal cohesion that could just as easily have been
overtly intentional. Perhaps this shows
that, in the context of a controlled vocabulary, the unconscious mind adheres
to principles, even as one consciously explores new approaches.
On a practical note, performing “Speaking of Apropos” brings much more to
the table than I have discussed. Given
the innovative nature of the improvised sections, the composition becomes
temporarily collective and the soloists display a power of energy-control and
musical development, however much this stems from the composed material. The improvisations really make this piece
come alive, and each performance achieves a slightly different finished
product.
For a closer look, Speaking of
Apropos (CD4659) and Collected
Compositions for Large Jazz Ensemble (M1366 .H132 2004) are in the Music
Library collection.
UA Music Library Reading Room Notes No. 6 (2004)
Edited by Mark Germer
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