15-1/2 years ago I braved the early days of video streaming and its constant buffering to watch the transit of Venus in the middle of the night. Athens Greece was providing the video and the Exploratorium in San Francisco the science-y narration. I had first heard about the transit from, of all places, Thomas Pynchon’s book Mason & Dixon.
Continue reading The Great Conjunction of Jupiter and SaturnStar Pilot (1966)
Symphony No. 1 – From finish to start
Finishing up the last movement in the next day or so and knowing that the first movement is the final music that will be written is… confusing. Songs for the rock operas were always dramatically out-of-order, and endings could come before beginnings, but having done it before doesn’t diminish the creative uncertainty. The order of music-to-paper dictates which themes will become themes and so the first melodies written will seed the subsequent sections. My compositions are always dramatically structured–and built off of a general blueprint of sonic techniques–but the musically thematic ground gets laid when the first notes get written.
And yet writing the first movement last means that I can hint at what I know is to come. It can’t be a camp, musical overture type of collage, rather a reverse echo of the future.
Continue reading Symphony No. 1 – From finish to startSymphony No. 1 – Finished the interlude, started the 4th movement
I’m worried I have strayed from the tonality of last year’s studies (which is what I’ve wanted to do) but have made it all process and not art (which is what I didn’t). The 2nd movement was very deep into process much like what I’d read of Ferneyhough’s technique in Lemma (or any serialists really) and I’ve continued a bit with that approach with the 4th. Is it too much? I am very happy with the mood so far though.
The Terror of Rome Against the Son of Hercules (1964)
