Wanna know what you want (to read)

A question for readers ...



What would you like to read in this blog?


Two kinds of writing come to mind:


1) sentimental writing about art and inspiration and so forth;

2) writing about the nuts-and-bolts process of how I am composing what I am composing at the moment.


At one time I would have looked down my nose at option (1) because it wasn't intellectual enough. As I get older, though, I get more mellow on that point. So here's a bit of sentimental writing about art; you can tell me whether or not you like it.


One of my favorite summer jobs ever was teaching for the high school program at Tanglewood (BUTI, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute). I did that for three summers in the early 90s. In 1991, Phyllis Curtin (great American soprano and advocate of new music) gave a lecture to the students. They listened attentively while she pointed out that the inspiration for art doesn't come from practicing 6 hours a day in a soundproof practice cubicle, or from imitating great musicians' performances. Inspiration comes from the world around you, she said, from beauty you can see all over the place if you just bother to look. She finished by giving everyone an assignment: the Perseid meteor shower was due to happen that night and the next, and everyone in the room was to go look at it.


So that night I grabbed four or five of my favorite BUTI students and jammed them into the VW Rabbit I was driving at the time. We drove down to the Tanglewood grounds because there was no concert that night, so the parking lots would be empty and dark. We parked all alone in the middle of the biggest lot and spread blankets on the car and the ground and lay there and watched. The sky was completely clear, and meteors tore across it once every second or two, burning trails across the darkness. We were used to seeing shooting stars that looked like straight white lines, quick and demure, but many of these seemed larger and irregular and jagged. We could have sworn we saw flames. And the sky looked closer than I can remember seeing it before or since; we could imagine being able to touch it if we jumped high enough. The shower went on and on and on, and we would have been happy to stay there all night ...


That was the first time I saw the Perseids, and I have been trying to see a comparably brilliant shower ever since. Unfortunately, you can never recreate something like that. This year I was singing opera upstate at Bard College on the 12th and 13th of August; the first night was partly cloudy, so I saw Jupiter (and its moons, thanks to a friend's binoculars), a bat or two, many mosquitoes, and one lone meteor; the next night brought nothing but rain. On the plus side, I did get to blow fire at one afterparty (using corn starch and a lot of matches), and several times I got to see a woodchuck/groundhog that liked to hang out near the dining hall. There was also the skunk we dubbed Whitey for its incredibly broad white stripe; it walked right past the dining hall window one day, so close that I could have touched it if the glass had not been there. Whitey had charisma, the sort that made me smile every time I saw him (or perhaps her).


You're probably curious what that has to do with composing. It's not the 19th century any more, so I am unlikely to write program music, i.e., something that's supposed to represent a story about skunks and woodchucks (or planets or fire breathing). Berlioz and Liszt and Strauss (Richard) did enough with the Symphonie Fantastique and tone poems (I admit I did once write a chamber music piece called Charmonium, about subatomic particles, with movement names such as "Baryons" and "Xi Cascade", but I never claimed the music could be representational). I think what's important is the memory of the images and the satisfying sensations that I got from watching Whitey snuffle along, foraging, or even the frustration of only seeing one meteor this year. It's good to remind oneself that music should make people feel something, whether it's warmth, grief, frustration, or joy. Personally, I can get a little too wrapped up in intellectual constructs (such as writing the perfect 12-tone row and then creating music based on it); that can be satisfying, just as working out a Sudoku puzzle can be, but ultimately, what does it do for its listeners?


We'll see if I can get the awe of Jupiter and the buzz of the cicadas and the coolness of the summer thunderstorms to resonate in this winter set of carols for the MCE.


More on option (2), the nuts and bolts, in my next entry. Meanwhile, a couple more texts for you to enjoy (don't worry, I won't be setting them all):


What cheer? Good cheer! Good cheer! Good Cheer!
Be merry and glad this good New Year.


1. Lift up your heartës and be glad!
In Christës birth the angel bade;
Say each to other, if any be sad:
What cheer? Good cheer! Good cheer! Good Cheer!
Be merry and glad this good New Year.


2. Now the King of heaven His birth hath take,
Joy and mirth we ought to make.
Say each to other, for his sake:
What cheer? Good cheer! Good cheer! Good Cheer!
Be merry and glad this good New Year.


3. I tell you all with heart so free,
Right welcome ye be (all) to me.
Be glad and merry for charity!
What cheer? Good cheer! Good cheer! Good Cheer!
Be merry and glad this good New Year.


4. The goodman of this place in fere
You to be merry he prayeth you here;
And with good heart he doth to you say:
What cheer? Good cheer! Good cheer! Good Cheer!
Be merry and glad this good New Year.


Make We Merry, Both More And Less
For Now Is The Time Of Christmas


1. Let no man come into this hall,
Groom, page nor yet marshall,
But that some sport he bring withall,
For now is the time of Christëmas.


2. If that he say he cannot sing,
Some other sport then let him bring,
That it may please at this feasting,
For now is the time of Christëmas.


3. If he say he can naught do,
Then for my love ask him no mo,
But to the stocks then let him go,
For now is the time of Christëmas.



Blessed Be That Maid Mary


Eia Jesus Hodie
Natus est de virgine!


1. Blessed be that maid Mary,
Born He was of her body,
Godës Son that sitteth on high,
Non ex virili semine.


2. In a manger of an ass,
Jesu lay and lullëd was,
Hardë painës for to pass,
Pro peccante homine.


3. Kingës came fro divers land,
With great giftës in their hand,
In Bethlehem the Child they found,1
Stelle ducti lumine.


4. Man and child, both old and ying,
Now in His blissful coming,2
To that Child may we sing,
Gloria Tibi, Domine!


5. Nowell, nowell, in this hall,
Make merry, I pray you all
Unto the Child may we call,
Ullo sine crimine.