Well, I’d promised myself that September 1st would be when I stop sketching and start fleshing out and orchestrating the HCSO piece. I was hoping to have an end-to-end sketch of the whole piece to work from by now. I almost do. Good enough, I guess.
The big outstanding question for me at the moment is whether this is a multi-movement work or just one big movement. I’m leaning toward four movements, some played attacca. The material isn’t quite unified enough to to hold one movement together. I have to come up with names for the movements, though, which is a bit of a drag.
Here’s what I seem to be working with now: (All details described here are subject to change.)
Movement I:
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Muted violins, divisi in 5 parts across both sections play a homophonic chorale-like setting of the opening melody. The melody is original, but it’s use of descending fourths and some ’short-long’ rhythms suggests Hungarian music (to anyone familiar with Hungarian music).
Movement II:
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A playful and slightly macabre theme reminds me a bit of Bernard Herrmann. Plus, an off-beat walking bass that I will be accused of ripping off from Leonard Bernstein. Whatever… it’s effective. The second theme is a slow, meandering melody accompanied by some nervous, stacatto sul ponticello figures, which are a sort of fragmented inversion of the first theme. This theme begins with a rising fourth, as does the melody at the beginning of Movement I. The Madárka, madárka melody, which is introduced more fully later, also opens with a rising fourth, and the idea is to gradually have this theme morph into that folksong. There is a long build-up, culminating in the attacca transition to Movement III.
Movement III:
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Fortissimo violins play the first phrase of Madárka, madárka unambiguously for the first time. They divide and sustain with the descending line, resulting in an effect like the sustain pedal on a piano. This slow movement is a full treatment of the folksong, at first, creepy and unsettling. I have an idea for accompaniment which involves each section playing what is effectively a cluster, but they’re divided in three or four parts, sliding up and down within the range of the cluster at different speeds. I did something like this in Misterium Tremendum using box notation to achieve randomness. In this case I may just spell it out. The movement ends with a straightforward setting of the folksong landing on a D major chord.
Movement IV:
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A relentless fast scherzo incorporating an ersatz Hungarian dance. Moto perpetuo off-the-string sixteenth notes become a background for a final statement of Madárka, madárka starting in the basses and cellos and continuing in the form of a chorale in the violins while cellos and violas continue the sixteenth notes. A festive coda ends the piece on an uplifting note.
Seems like a good plan. Now all I have to do is write the darned thing.
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