About the Composer

When in doubt, haul out the juvenilia…

In the course of sorting and packing for a move (more on that another time), I’ve come across a recording of my first-ever public performance. Four Sidestreets (1986) for flute and piano was the result of a set of freshman-year composition assignments.

The movements are short and undeveloped, the longest being about a minute and a half. The titles are taken from the street grid in the Northwest Washington, D.C. neighborhoods where I’d spent my high school years. I remember making the point in the program notes that there was no programmatic connection between the titles and the streets themselves. (I also remember that I was so obnoxious as to write my program notes in the future tense. Freshman composition majors will be freshman composition majors.)

And so I take you now to a mildewy recital hall at 313 South Broad Street in Philadelphia. It is April, 1986…

I. Fessenden Street

The assignment here was to write an “air” for flute and piano.  I remember being oh so chuffed with myself for coming up with the 13/8 rhythm in the accompaniment pattern, but this piece predates my fascination with Bulgarian folk music by about 12 years.

II. Jenifer Street

Here the assignment was to write a piece that is “through composed”, in other words without any particular formal plan (no problem for me in those days).  I came up with this basic little gymnopédie.  Here we see that I had absolutely no clue how to end a piece.

III. Macomb Street

I’m rather proud of this one.  It’s probably the most well crafted of the four, and it reveals my inner Bernstein.  I ended up cannibalizing this piece a year later for a ballet score written for a Philadelphia Area Repertory Theater production of Miss Julie, adapted for a small chamber ensemble.

IV. Van Ness Street

In the final movement I made a slight attempt to do something “different”, resulting in a not particularly successful work.  I don’t know; what do you think?

I’ve just come across an old recording from my undergraduate Senior Recital, which took place in 1989. Having also just recently spent a lot of time dealing with art songs (other people’s), I was particularly interested in listening to my setting for baritone of a passage from Romeo and Juliet.

Turns out to be a pleasant surprise. It’s certainly not flawless, but I’m as pleased with it as I was back in the day. Really, not bad for a 20-year-old with an attention span problem.

This is taken from Act 3, Scene 3, where Romeo learns that he is to be banished from Verona:

There is no world without Verona walls,
But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

                                        — heaven is here,
Where Juliet lives; and every cat and dog
And little mouse, every unworthy thing,
Live here in heaven and may look on her;
But Romeo may not. More validity,
More honourable state, more courtship lives
In carrion-flies than Romeo: they my seize
On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand
And steal immortal blessing from her lips.
But Romeo may not; he is banished:
Flies may do this, but I from this must fly:
They are free men, but I am banished.

There is a companion piece for soprano taken from Juliet’s famous “Come, night” speech. The two were performed together as Two Songs from Romeo and Juliet. I’m still proud of the Juliet song, but from a dramatic point of view it’s completely wrong, so I’m not as eager to crow about it here.