Hi Cass,
You're unfailingly my most enthusiastic supporter, Cass.Originally Posted by Cass Hansen
Thank you!
It's a union thing.Always look forward to another prodigious gem that’s meticulously crafted from your pen. There’s so much to like here, I don’t know where to start except that most of it’s been mentioned already in posts so I won’t repeat. That said, I have to expound a bit. My nature.
What great use of the minor 2nd interval—strings, winds, brass—all over the place—giving nice harmonic support to the your first, simple but effective, motif of a rising 7th to octave phrase. Great offset intertwining/crossfading of that theme by the way. Then the snare/cymbal fanfare introducing the 2nd motif of--- lacking of a better description---the cascading 4th motif supported by lush string chords (with minor seconds in them, of course!)
Particularly effective is the variation of that motif played by the violas and cellos around measure 41. That was the perfect touch there and made the whole piece for me. Then a recap and a shorten snare/cym fanfare to the last mesmerizing note.
Also love how you sparingly used several of the instruments like the tuba, bass trombone, bassoon, etc. with only a handful of notes in the whole piece, much the same way as you used the percussion.
An interesting observation, Cass, and largely on the mark.I think you mentioned to Steve that you were heading in a direction of fashioning your percussion to sound more like the other orchestral members. But I kind of see it 180, as mentioned above, fashioning other instruments to sound more like a percussion instrument with just the right note and colour at the absolutely precise placement for the piece involved. At any rate, every placement of these notes was perfect to convey the mood and texture you were going for.
As you know, I do not write professionally... in which there
is a kind of freedom -- the freedom to just sit and think
about a piece, and spend whatever time it takes to arrive
at exactly what I want. If it takes me a month or two to
write a small piece like this -- so what?
Some of it, too, is my life-long love of Webern emerging more.
Though I'm far from a strict serialist, I've always admired
another element of his writing: his abilitiy to put exactly the
right note in exactly the right place at exactly the right time
-- and not one single note more nor less.
That's a good point, Cass. Too many writers focus far tooAnd I wasn’t going to say anything, well, you know me. Hard to keep my trap shut when it’s gaping wide open already from excitement.
I do think you’re selling yourself short here David when you say these last couple pieces are just studies and not really formal works. How do most people classify formal works anyway, what criteria is essential. Beats me. I guess the most popular would be length and complexity, both of which are at the bottom of my list. This piece, as simple as it might seem, has so much going on in it you can’t help to classify it as a formal mature work, at least in my humble subjective opinion.
much on producing as much music as possible -- both in
terms of the length of their pieces and the number of pieces
they churn out.
That's all well and good if you're a Mozart or a Bach. But
for us lesser mortals, the result is usually a great deal of
music that's neither memorable nor enduring.
For myself, if I write even one or two pieces that survive
the test of time, I'll count my compositional efforts a success.
Again, thank you, my friend, for your unfailing support!Great motifs, form and structure throughout. Fantastic orchestration with minimal resources but sounding like a weighty orchestral endeavor. And on and on, but really what is so darn fascinating and important about this piece (and your last POV) is that it’s just plain musical and full of wonder. It’s hard enough to get cognitive modern music combined with an emotive element. But to go one step further and combine it with that spiritual, intangible, magical-something more- element is a real feat. For me, you have managed to combine all three of these elements into these pieces. They say a lot more than the whole—a Gestalt!
Bravo seams lacking here somehow, but here goes anyway. BRAVO, BRAVO, BRAVO
CASS
All the best,
David
-----
David Sosnowski
www.DavidSosnowski.com
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks