La roue

Michael and I spent a few evenings watching the 2008 reconstruction of Abel Gance's La roue (1923) with music by Robert Israel, and it was a remarkable experience. The idea of watching a four-hour-long silent movie put us off for several weeks, but once we started watching I knew those four hours would pass quickly. The film is so visually compelling, has such superb acting, and has such engaging music, some of the time did pass quickly, and some of the time didn't. In this "modern day" Sisyphus story the weight of the moment or the full emotional exploration of a situation at hand is part of the quality of the experience.

The film was first shown with Arthur Honegger supplying the music (I happily noticed the influence of Honegger's "Pacific 231,").



Robert Israel (who shares my birthday, though he is four years my junior), did a fantastic job writing music for the film. He incorporates all kinds of techniques that were around during the time of the film like Poulenc-ish harmonies, and nods to Honegger and his colleagues in "Les Six." There are also tone rows here and there, and a striking fugue during a train-platform fight. One of the characters is a violin maker, so there is a lovely violin-rich musical subtext which provides a late-19th-century contrast to the "modern" steam engine music that surrounds it. We do get some film-music memes, like nods to Hermann's "Vertigo" here and there. Israel also incorporates a familiar pavane, a verse of Josquin's "El Grillo," a momentary homage to Sarasate, and a modified 1812 Overture.

A thrilling moment for me came during the first hour of the film. The violin maker imagines what it would have been like to live as a violin maker in days of yore (with costumes that looked like they could be used in a Shakespeare play), and on his bench he happened to have a seven-string viola d'amore, which he picked up and played. The instrument looked very similar to my viola d'amore!

The viola d'amore was making the first of its "comebacks" during the early part of the 20th century, and was considered to be an ancient instrument. We now know, of course, that the seven-string instrument wasn't around during Shakespeare's time, but Gance probably loved the way the instrument looked and the name it had (another set of obsessions that the characters of the film "enjoy"), so he used it in the scene.

[Just as an aside, the viola d'amore has a flat back like a viol, and it can fit really well in a Renaissance-era consort.]

You can see the unrestored silent film (without music) on YouTube:





And you can watched a few clips there of the restored film with the Robert Israel score:

Here's one:

Birthday Piece Number 10

Today is my fifty-ninth birthday, so here is the tenth in a series of "birthday pieces" for viola d'amore and piano that I began when I turned fifty. My first "birthday piece" had fifty measures, and each year I add one more. This year's piece has fifty-nine measures for fifty-nine years. My viola d'amore is in the shop getting some repairs done, so this year's birthday piece can be played on either viola or viola d'amore. You can listen to a computer-generated recording here, and you can get the music on this page of the IMSLP.

You can find the rest of my birthday pieces in the IMSLP too.

It's That Time of Year Again!

Here's a link to my yearly addition to the viola d'amore repertoire, which is now in the IMSLP. You can also just listen to a computer-generated version here. I started this project around my 50th birthday by writing a 50-measure-long piece. Number 7 has 56 measures, because today is my 56th birthday. The tempo indication is "Vivace, but comfortable," which I guess is where I am in the grand arc of life.

Four Pieces from Doktor Faustus

Karlīna Īvāne played my "Four Pieces from Doktor Faustus" a couple of days ago, and put the performance on YouTube. I am happy to share it here. If you know the Thomas Mann novel, you should recognize the references. If you haven't read the novel, I recommend reading it!

The first movement is based (loosly) on the song "Oh How Lovely is the Evening," which is discussed at length as one of the pieces that Leverhuhn and the narrator sang together. The second movement is based on the Hetaere esmeralda row and incorporates the Tristan chord. The third movement represents the encounter with whatever it is that the narrator (who is a viola d'amore player), says that Leverkuhn (the composer and main character) encounters, be it a daemon or a hallucination of one, and the last movement is a "portrait" the little boy called Echo.

"Being" a Composer, and Birthday Piece #6

When I turned 50 I decided to celebrate by writing a "Birthday Piece" for viola d'amore and piano to mark every birthday to come. This year's Birthday Piece came a bit early, partly because I needed an escape from a self-imposed opera project that I have been struggling with on and off for more than ten years. I somehow got the idea in my head a couple of months ago that since I had ample time I was now capable of making the opera work, but my constant need to escape from working on it gives me a clear sign that it's time to go onto other things. I have, after all, already written three operas, and none of them has ever been performed.

Sometimes I wonder what it means to "be" a composer. Am I a composer when I'm not writing? Am I a lousy composer when someone politely doesn't respond to a work I have written for him or her (even a commissioned piece)? Money is an easy exchange, but human contact is not. Who is to judge the quality of a piece anyway? The people playing it? The audience? A critic? If I were to stop writing today, would I still be a composer?

I get great pleasure from making things, and that includes writing music when it comes from a deep creative place. That deep creative place used to be like a lake of musical experience. For years and years all I needed to do was "go" to it, and I every time I would draw up something unique. But things seem to have changed of late, and I fear that I have gotten everything from my figurative lake that is available to me. Every time I try something new these days it seems that it is a restatement of something that I have already written. Perhaps it's time to hang up my composing hat for a while and make other things, like hat bands.

This one matches the dress I made the other day.

Der Fluyten Lust (and amore) hof

In 1980 I came across a reprint of a volume of Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof in the Joseph Patelson Music House in New York. I was preparing to leave town (and country) with my modern flute and piccolo, and had really no idea where I was going after the six weeks I was planning to spend in an orchestra in Graz, Austria and an international flute competition I was attending in Budapest. I had only recently been introduced to the idea of jazz improvisation, and I thought that this little book might be a good way to learn to improvise in an idiom other than the Jazz idiom (which seemed terribly complicated to me at the time). I had no idea that there was a centuries-long tradition of "dividing" popular melodies, so I though that this book, which was actually something quite old, was something quite new.

(You would think that a Juilliard graduate would know something about music history, but this was not the case for me.)

Wouldn't you know it. I got a teaching position in a music school in the little town of Schladming, Austria where a large part of my job was to teach recorder. I hadn't played recorder since I was five or six, so I had to start from scratch with the little soprano Moeck that I found in the drawer of the desk in my studio. I spent the week before the beginning of the school year going through Der Fluyten Lust-hof, and I fell in love with the instrument and the music.

These are five of my favorite melodies from the collection. When I first got my viola d'amore, I tried these pieces out on the instrument. The divisions (all the melodies are divided) are rough, but the melodies are as rewarding to play on the viola d'amore as they are on the recorder.

Here's a link to a PDF of the above piece, and here's a link to the original set of publications from 1644-1656.

Birthday Piece No. 5

I'm a little ahead of schedule on my yearly birthday pieces for viola d'amore and piano, but this one serves two purposes: to mark my upcoming birthday at the end of the month, and to celebrate Bernard Zaslav's 87th birthday today. Notice that the meter is 5/4 and the piece has 54 measures (I'll be 54 on April 30), and the tempo is 87 to the quarter.

I finished writing the piece in time for Bernie's birthday, but it will take ma a while to learn to play it, so a computer-generated version will have to do for the time being.

Here's a link to the music.

Computer-generated Piece for Viola d'amore and Harpsichord

Of all places to encounter a piece for viola d'amore: I found this on Andrew Sullivan's blog. It is a computer-generated piece for harpsichord and viola d'amore "written" by the Iamus computer.



Upon first hearing I was rather impressed that a computer, given certain bits of information about the instrument, could generate a piece that could be played on the viola d'amore. I imagine that if you feed in information about the more resonant pitches, the better double stops, and possible harmonics, and pepper it with a few textural techniques (like trilling, tremolo, harmonics), and you introduce ideas of imitation and a sense of form (probably pre-programmed into the Iamus machine), it would not be rocket science (or maybe it would be) to randomly generate a piece like this.

What makes the piece seem successful is Sviatoslav Belonogov's excellent viola d'amore playing and Gustavo Dias Jerez's excellent harpsichord playing (and obvious love of the medium). If this "test" proves anything, it is that it is the musicians who "make" the music out of what composers write. Lesser musicians, or musicians less vested in the uniqueness of the experiment, wouldn't do squat for this assortment of musical patterns.

A second hearing (without watching) revealed a few accidental instances of interesting tone color interplay between the harpsichord and the viola d'amore (I attribute them, however, to the musicians doing the playing), but for me it revealed that there isn't much that I would consider "musical" in the piece itself.

Listen twice, and see what you think.

New Year's Greeting for Viola d'amore and Guitar

This year's New Year's Greeting is for viola d'amore and guitar (with an alternate part for viola). I have always loved the guitar (and I love the guitarists in my family), but I never considered writing for the instrument until I was asked to write a piece for multiple guitars to celebrate the 10th anniversary of LARGE, the LARamie Guitar Ensemble, in Laramie, Wyoming.

Writing for guitar is a lot like writing for viola d'amore, so I had to see what it would be like to pair the two instruments together. The playing here is certainly imperfect: the guitar is computer generated, and my viola d'amore has been fighting a huge winter wolf, so its bridge is bound in leather to avoid a huge low A from sounding no matter where you play on the instrument (also, it's me trying to play the viola d'amore part).

But have a listen anyway, and consider it a greeting to you (oh reader, known or unknown) for the new year, and ignore the little foibles.

The score and parts are available in the Petrucci Library. The audio file will also be there, if the above link doesn't work.

53 years, 53 measures

Another year, another viola d'amore and piano piece . . .

Birthday Piece No. 4 for Viola d'amore and Piano

My ultimate plan is to make this series of pieces come to a hour of music, one year at a time. This one has 53 measures.

Viola d'amore Sul Palco in the Humming Chorus

The Humming Chorus of Puccini's Madame Butterfly could be considered three of the most beautiful wordless minutes in all of opera (particularly when you hear it in context). I just found out, from a glance at the score . . .



that the viola d'amore part (which is hardly ever performed with an actual viola d'amore) is supposed to be played from the stage. That really changes everything. The chorus of humming sopranos and tenors is off stage, Butterfly, Suzuki, and baby Dolore are in silhouette behind the screen of their Japanese house waiting motionlessly for Pinkerton to return, and the only movement you see (in Puccini's inner eye and score) is a viola d'amore player, with a scroll that reminds us that love is blind.



There is a visual echo of a viola d'amore scroll a few measures from the end of the second act when Butterfly blindfolds her son.

[No spoilers here for those who have not yet experienced the opera.]

Learning by Watching and Listening

Now that my mind has started to calm down after an intense four days of listening, watching, playing, rehearsing, and talking about music with my new-found soul-mates at the viola d'amore congress, I can begin to process the experience.

The congress began for me with a rehearsal of the trio for recorder, viola d'amore, and viola by George Hunter, that began as soon as I arrived in Evanston, Illinois on Monday, and the first concert of the week began at 8:00 that evening. It was two hours of violin sonatas and triosonatas with viola d'amore expertly performed by the Trio Settecento. Part of the fascination of this concert was that, except for the Corelli Sonata, Opus 5, No. 6, everything on the program was new to me.

I had a rehearsal at 8:00 for the first daytime concert of the congress, which began at 9:15 the next morning. There were concerts and lectures (mostly concerts) running daily from 9:15 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. with a two hour break for lunch and rehearsals, and then another concert every night at 8:00. We're talking about 6 to 8 hours of viola d'amore music a day!

My father warned me that I would begin to tire of D major: the instrument is usually tuned with a low A on the bottom, a D above that, another A, a D-major or D-minor triad above that, and a final high D. D major was the favored key of the later 18th-century music, and D minor was often used during the earlier 18th century. Luckily many people played in baroque pitch, which is a half step lower than modern pitch, making a lot of the music fall into the sounding key of C-sharp major or minor, and there were a surprising number of pieces that used other tunings, including music from the 19th and century and not necessarily tonal music from 20th century (and 21st if you include mine--but I used the D-minor tuning). I managed to keep my total attention on the music and the playing for the entire congress: there were very few moments that I wasn't in full emotional and musical "vacuum mode."

There was a whole evening of Vivaldi and Graupner concertos with the Baroque Band, and members of the viola d'amore society from all over the world showed just how clever and flexible Vivaldi was as a composer for the viola d'amore. I was also thrilled with the many Graupner pieces I heard this week, especially his Concerto for Viola d'amore and Viola that shared this Vivaldi program.

Highlights from the 19th century included music by Markus Leo Goldis, and highlights from the 20th century included Sonatas by Paul Hindemith, and Irving Schlein, a Caprice by York Bowen, a 1980 Sonata "Balletto Solenne" by Gordon Tonson (who plays viola under the name of Maxwell Ward), a Serenade for flute, viola d'amore and strings by Richard Lane, some preludes for viola d'amore and harp by Henri Casadesus, a Sonata da chiesa with organ by Frank Martin, the Hunter Trio, a Sonatine for Viola d'amore and Harpsichord by Wolfgang Hofmann, and music by Carl Wunderle.

I returned home, and took out my "normal" viola to play a wedding yesterday (I hadn't practiced a stringed instrument since playing my Birthday Pieces on Tuesday morning). I was surprised that I could play with far more freedom and strength than ever before, and could even play better in tune. I found that I was far more aware of my connection to the other people in my quartet. The act of listening so carefully and intently to so much string music played by such excellent musicians did more for me and my playing than hours and hours of practicing. It also really stimulated my imagination.

I now have a slew of projects lined up to write for the viola d'amore, and feel terribly excited about the future, partly because there is just so much to learn about this instrument and its many musical possibilities.

On Dangerous Ground: the Viola d'amore in the movies

Imagine my surprise last night when the opening credits of this 1951 Ida Lupino-Robert Ryan Film Noir Michael brought home read "Music by Bernard Herrmann--Viola d'Amour played by Virginia Majewski." I have to admit that I spent the first "act" of On Dangerous Ground, because of my own particular musical orientation, waiting to hear what Herrmann did with the viola d'amore, and waiting for the appearance of Ida Lupino. I was intrigued and impressed by both when they finally appeared together. Hermann does not use the viola d'amore as a harmonic or polyphonic instrument, but he takes advantage of the instrument's range and colors in each of its distinct registers. To the unsuspecting ear it sounds like a viola much of the time, with exciting escapes to the high register and surprising forays into the low register.

Majewski (1907-1995), who I know from chamber music recordings that she made with Heifetz and Primrose, and from a 1990 interview by Roland Kato in the newsletter of the Viola d'Amore Society of America (Volume 19/2, 1995) was a very active studio musician in Los Angeles. She came to Los Angeles in 1938 as the principal violist of the MGM Studio Orchestra, and was involved with the viola d'amore in the 1930s, during its first 20th-century "Renaissance." Majewski was never sure why Hermann wrote this music for the viola d'amore. She apparently recorded this score on a borrowed instrument: on the morning that she got the call to do the recording session, she found that when she opened her case, her viola d'amore had split its scroll (one of the dangerous consequences of keeping an 18th-century instrument at modern pitch). That she could play so beautifully on a borrowed instrument without any notice (she was probably sight reading) is quite a feat. Herrmann insisted that Majewski get solo billing in the credits for her performance, sharing his "card" with her.

WWBD

That stands for "what would Bach do."

Because the world of viola d'amore players is relatively small and rather scattered, I would like to share my self-initiation into this brother- and sisterhood here, with anyone who might be interested.

After about three weeks with the instrument, I finally mustered up the courage to try may hand at some Bach cello suites on the viola d'amore. On a lark I decided to try playing the C minor Suite (Number 5), one that really never sounds as good on the viola as I would like it to, in D minor. Then I discovered that the original version of Suite was actually for the lute, BWV 995 in the key of G minor. I have pretty much finished an urtext transcription (without slurs or dynamics) of the whole suite, which lies beautifully on the viola d'amore.

It was a wonderful experience to compare the cello version, BWV 1011, written for an instrument that has the ability to sustain, with the lute version, written for an instrument that does not have the ability to sustain. It is also interesting to compare J.S. Bach's handwriting to the more-familiar hand of his wife Anna Magdalena. I wonder if Bach, who did write music for the viola d'amore (he probably knew how to play the instrument, and may or may not have actually played the lute), might have used the viola d'amore to write this Lute Suite. (A special thanks to Harry Wimmer for putting these manuscripts on line!)

A PDF file of my viola d'amore transcription of the whole Suite is available on this page of the IMSLP.

Listening to a performance of the piece on the lute really helps to understand the tempo that Bach probably had in mind when he wrote the piece. I really admire Andrea Damiani's reading of the Prelude and the two Gavottes.