About the Composer

In today’s San Francisco Chronicle there’s a little profile of Hollywood film composer Hans Zimmer. It looks like I’ve never seen any of the film he’s scored so far: “Gladiator”, “Batman Begins”, “The Last Samurai”, “The Thin Red Line”…. shrug.

So, I have no opinion of him one way or the other as a composer, but apparently he came to a wise conclusion around using computer-generated melodies based on the Fibonacci Sequence as a basis for the score of “The Da Vinci Code”

“… I realized I can’t get away with a mathematical game because I’ll be found out. So I stopped writing the superficial riddle stuff… on the surface, ‘Da Vinci Code’ is a thriller — no more no less — “

Way to go, Hans! Nothing against the Fibonacci Sequence as a basis for musical composition. Debussy, Bartók and many others used it, and I wouldn’t pick a fight with those guys, but they didn’t do it with computers.

Also, it would strike me as a little weird to use computer-generated Fibonacci fodder in a dramatic work, such as a film score, where you already have an inherent basis for musical composition: the drama!

For some reason, I don’t know why, I’ve been on a bit of a 60’s rock kick lately. Generally, I’ve always preferred music from that era over more recent stuff.

In the course of one of those I-haven’t-heard-that-song- in-a-while iTunes purchases, indeed I discovered something new the other day. (New for me, anyway � it’s probably over 30 years old.) I’m talking about the song “Guinnevere” by Crosby, Stills and Nash, which I idly sampled recently while downloading “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”, previously the only song of theirs I’d really known.

What a gorgeous song! It seems designed to appeal to me directly. It opens with an almost Sondheim-like chromatic vamp, which turns into a beautiful repeating Dorian-mode figure before the vocals come in. This use of modality is something in common with other music that I like, particularly Reich and early Adams. Do you think David Crosby was sitting around with the score to Ravel’s Mallarmé Songs, turning pages between bong hits?

Then there’s the vocal writing. It’s your standard CSN three-part homophonic harmony at first, which is lovely as usual. But there’s a nifty mixing trick at the end of each verse. The two higher voices are faded in (muted trumpets if I were orchestrating it), holding D and F# (we’re in E dorian, by the way), and they step down in thirds, crossing the remaining voice who has the melody. Some wonderful dissonances result naturally from this, and it’s a terrific effect.

The melody is particularly expressive. It’s rhythmically complex in that it often avoids landing on the beat, which is something I find myself doing a lot in my own music. This is easy for a solo vocalist to pull off — Sinatra is most famous for it — but hats off to these guys for accomplishing it in three parts.

Here’s an excerpt that illustrates everything I’ve described. Stick with it until the end to hear those descending parallel thirds.

So, Alex Ross wonders whether Kansas Governer Kathleen Sebelius is related to composer Jean Sibelius.

I haven’t had time this week for my planned “real” post, so ok, I’ll bite. Being a bit of a genealogy nerd, I have access to some resources, and here’s the answer:

I don’t know.

But, I do know these things:

1. Jean Sibelius, although known as a Finnish composer, was ethnically Swedish (as many Finns are today; Finland is a bilingual Finnish/Swedish-speaking country).
2. Governor Sebelius’ husband Gary is the great grandson of a Christian Sebelius, who identifies Sweden as his birthplace in the 1900 Census
3. Gary Sebelius’ grandfather, Carl, was a dentist. No real value here, but isn’t it kind of creepy that I can find that out?

No luck figuring out where in Sweden Christian came from. But, he was a contemporary of Jean Sibelius (whose real name, interestingly, was Johan Julius Christian Sibelius). Jean Sibelius was born in H�meenlinna, which was part of Russia at the time, not Sweden.

Still, dollars to doughnuts, they are related, if distantly. That’s my educated hunch. Regardless, I agree with Mr. Ross that it would be lovely to have a president named Sebelius.

I do loves me some Sibelius.

Just another Philo quote. While you’re here, I should also mention….

Before

And After

My feed is now published at this URL. I’d be very grateful if you’d change your subscription accordingly, because I’m not smart enough to redirect the old one.

Do you know how (WordPress)? I’ll give you a basket of chickens* if you tell me. Heck, even if you don’t, drop me a line. I have a pretty good idea of who the “traditional” readers are, but I’d love to know who’s out there getting the feed.

* - not really

Today was the 10th anniversary of the premiere of my first commissioned work.

Cycle of Friends, for soprano, chorus and chamber orchestra, was premiered on May 3rd, 1996 by the Music Group of Philadelphia. Artistic Director Sean Deibler had been one of my undergraduate teachers, and has been a mentor and all-around guru ever since. I was very lucky to be one of three composers he chose for a three-year commissioning binge he was on at the time, thanks to a special grant. The commission came through as I was finishing my master’s degree here at the S.F. Conservatory. (I was studying with Conrad Susa when I wrote this piece; it doesn’t get better than that for choral music.)

This was a dream come true at the time. I had sung in Sean’s choruses at the University of the Arts as well as his Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, which was then the Philadelphia Orchestra’s chorus of choice. So, thanks to Sean, I was intimately familiar choral music from a cappella gems like the Ravel Trois Chansons, Hindemith’s Six Chansons and Barber’s Reincarnations to massive symphonic masterworks including The Damnation of Faust and John Adams’ Harmonium. (I should post a complete list, just for fun someday. It’s pretty amazing.) So, I was chomping at the bit to write a big choral piece myself.

About Cycle of Friends
No guidelines were given, except that I could use any number of the four soloists who were called for in another piece on the program, and the orchestral forces, which included single winds, one trumpet, harp, percussion and strings. The rest was up to me.

After a period of agonizing over what texts to use, I settled on some things I’d found in a small anthology called Friendship Poems. This little book included a variety of poems from all over the world and from all eras. I liked the idea of taking poetry from very different times and places, and combining them to illustrate a universal theme, in this case, that of friendship.

There were a lot of poems in the book that I wanted to set, but eventually I winnowed it down to five very short ones that I arranged in such a way as to create an emotional narrative.

I. “Tell Everyone” (Sappho)

I chose this very short fragment from Sappho as an opener. The text is simply:

Tell everyone. Now, today I shall sing beautifully for my friends’ pleasure.

Here’s an excerpt:

II. “My Old Friend Prepared a Chicken With Millet”
Meng Hao-Jan (Tang Dynasty era)

This is one of two Chinese poems I used, both in shimmering translation by Innes Herdan. This one is a lilting account of a meeting between two friends.

Wait until the Autumn Festival:
I shall come again,
To enjoy your chrysanthemums.

The musical treatment is bittersweet. Will these two friends really meet again?

Have a listen:

III. “Are Friends Delight Or Pain?” (Emily Dickinson)

This is the one a cappella movement. In fact, here the chorus is divided into two discrete SATB groups for an interesting texture. The entire movement, you may notice, is on an E pedal, which I thought was fun.

Are friends delight or pain?
Could Bounty but remain
Riches were good �

But if they only stay
Ampler to fly away
Riches were sad.

Listen:

IV. “Blue Hills Over the North Wall” Li Po (Tang Era)

This movement is for soprano and orchestra with no chorus. This is a particularly moving poem, again translated by Innes Herdan, and functions as a sort of denouement in my view. It’s the emotional core of the piece. Quite simply, two friends are parting ways. We don’t know why.

Blue hills over the north wall
White water swirling to the east of the city:
This is where you must leave me �

Here’s an excerpt:

V. Friendship Aztec (Traditional)

I used this is a lush folk poem to close the piece.

Our song is bird calling out like a jingle:
how beautiful you make it sound!

The soprano emerges after a choral outburst with an extremely lyrical setting of these lines. The chorus creeps in gradually as the climax of the work approaches.

See what I mean…