That's What She Said: Unaccompanied Cello Music Written by Women

What an honor it is to have my work included in The Cello Museum's recent post by Erica Lessie in her series about music for solo cello by women with the great title "That's What She Said."

Antiphonal Vocal Duet!

As a request from a singer who reads this blog, I have written a couple of vocal duets (without accompaniment) for people to sing together over the internet. Through a search for antiphonal poetry, I found my way to Christopher Smart (1722-1771), and his Jubilate Agno, which you can read in (fragemented) full here.

What a life he had!

I chose two sections of the poem to set as a musical dialog for two voices. They sound best if sung by a soprano or mezzo voice on top, and a tenor or baritone voice on the bottom, but they could just as easily be sung with voices in the same octave. The main thing is that they can be used as a way to connect musically for friends who are otherwise unable to do so.

For a person with rudimentary video-editing skills (and rudimentary video-editing software), it is not hard at all to make a split-screen video "performance" when you have a antiphonal piece, because you don't need to do anything elaborate to synchronize the parts. Starting both parts at the same time is really enough.

You can find the music on this page of the IMSLP.

I am, of course, not the first person to set parts of this poem as music. After I finished my work, I looked around, and found that Benjamin Britten had set one of the fragements I chose. It's an obvious musical choice, I suppose, since it is the passage about instrumental sounds. I was happy to see that Britten also adjusted the lines of poetry to fit his needs, and he eliminated the lines that I used as a "refrain." Interesting.

A Fantastic Performance of my Trio for Violin, Viola, and Piano

Thank you to pianist Sarah Wang, violist Martina Weidner, and violinist Nora Markowski-Block!

I love everything about this performance, including the video production. You make it sound even better than in did in my wildest inner-ear dreams!

"In an Old House in Paris" from my house in Charleston

In an Old House in Paris: a piece for two musicians to play together over the internet

This is an antiphonal piece that follows the rhythms found in the text of Madeline, a children’s book written in 1939 by Ludwig Bemelmans. The words that correspond to the musical phrases can be found in the book, which can be found in many libraries and bookstores.

During this time of social distancing, musicians have been looking for ways to play together by way of video communication. Truly synchronous two-way communication is not yet possible, so this piece explores the horizontal musical communication that is operative in antiphonal music.

I have found that the piece works better on a direct communication platform like FaceTime than it does on a conference-based platform like Zoom.

I have made modular settings so that this piece can be played by two violins, two clarinets, violin and clarinet, two violas, viola and guitar, oboe and guitar, flute and guitar, violin and guitar, violin and viola, viola and cello, oboe and viola, flute and viola, bassoon and cello, bassoon and viola, two cellos, and two bassoons.

I wrote this piece so that musicians can have the pleasure of communicating with one another in real time, which is a necessity in times of social isolation. In the time that follows the Covid-19 pandemic (whenever that may be), this piece could be performed in a way that injects freedom in the sections marked “allow for random cacophony.”.

This music is on this page of the IMSLP.

A story about music you may not have read

This brilliant short story by Julio Ramón Ribeyro may be fiction, but it rings true. So I'm sharing a link to it here.

Singing Together Over Zoom

This past weekend I had had the pleasure of singing "happy birthday" to our one-year-old granddaughter in California along with her other grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins elsewhere in Illinois as well as in Boston. I believe there were two choruses. Michael and I followed someone somewhere, and eventually each chorus came to an end.

It was a glorious birthday party!

We also had Friday night and Saturday morning services for the High Holy Days via Zoom, where Michael and I, being the instrumentalists, are the ones responsible for leading the congregational singing. When doing this we have to be careful NOT to follow anyone who is singing, even if they seem to be ahead of us (yes, there are people who sing ahead even under non-Zoom circumstances).

I came to the realization that if we, as the instrumentalists, pause at the end of every phrase in order to let all the phrases of all the congregants finish (thus ending phrases at the same time), we can all begin the next phrase with a feeling of togetherness. During the pauses between phrases, I started imagining the great cathedrals of Europe, with their vaulted ceilings and thunderous echoes. The musicians who worked in those vaunted establishments during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance also needed to manage physical time lags.

The antiphonal part of the Rosh Hashanah morning service is the Shofar service. Hearing the "Takia" caller and the resulting Shofar blasts was a remarkable experience through Zoom. That such an ancient exchange could be accomplished across several states and time zones boggles the mind.

I wonder if it might be possible to write a piece of antiphonal music that could intentionally be played together over Zoom. Allowances would need to be made for a wide variety of time lags, and there would have to be a way to set each microphone to allow for different dynamics. A great amount of indeterminacy would have to be written into the piece.

I don't know if it is something I could do, but I would certainly be interested to see what kinds of new chamber music emerge from this time of social distancing.

Louis Lewandowski's Tzadik Katamar arranged for two violins or two violas

Kinderscenen: the completion of a project

The thirteen short movements that make up Robert Schumann’s Kinderscenen were a musical response to a comment Clara Schumann made in 1838 about her husband being like a child.

His original title, Leichte Stücke, suggests that the pieces are easy, though when played at the metronome markings indicated in the Breitkopf and Härtel edition, they are very challenging.  I would venture that the title of the collection is a comment on the gentle and melodic nature of the music and the straightforward way that the pieces are organized rather than the technical abilities of their intended audience of pianists. 

This transcription for violin and cello is also not easy, and these pieces would be impossible to play on bowed string instruments at the tempo indications in the original edition. 

Clara Schumann’s 1880 edition of her husband’s complete works omits metronome markings entirely. I imagine that she did not approve of the fast tempos in the 1845 edition, so I have left the tempo choices in this transcription to the musicians who are playing. There are places marked ritardando that do not have corresponding a tempo markings. I imagine that Robert Schumann wanted to allow for freedom with tempo.

Robert Schumann added the titles for the individual pieces after all the pieces in the set were finished. The titles are indications of character, rendering usual Italian tempo indications unnecessary.

You can find the score and parts under the "transcription" tab on this page of the IMSLP.

Träumerei for Violin and Cello (the beginning of a project)

A friend asked me to make this arrangement to play at a memorial service. I enjoyed working on it so much that I plan to arrange all thirteen pieces of Robert Schumann's Kinderscenen for violin and cello. I will put the whole set in the IMSLP when I'm finished, but I thought I'd share Träumerei now.

Unforgettable Banana Bread

 I'm sharing this recipe here so that I don't forget what I did yesterday while making (up) a recipe for banana bread!

WET

6 over-ripe bananas
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
3/4 cup cane sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

DRY

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon instant expresso
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. In one large bowl mash the bananas, and then add the rest of the wet ingredients. In another bowl combine the dry ingredients. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and mix well.

Pour into two greased loaf pans, and bake for an hour.

April Fool played by the Duo Mycorrihizae

This is part of a set of Spring Dances for two violins.

Mainly Two World Tour: United States

What an honor it is to have one of my pieces, Sweet Gum, which is part of Autumn Leaves included in Mainly Two's virtual world tour!

Here's the program:

Dusty Miller (Bluegrass), arr. Edward Huws Jones

Take The A Train by Billy Strayhorn, arr. unknown

Yaquis Deer Dance (Native American traditional), trans. Clint Goss, arr. Mainly Two

Billie’s Song by Valerie Capers, arr. Mainly Two

Sweet Gum by Elaine Fine

Little Maggie (Old-time), arr. Edward Huws Jones



(Note to Michael: we need to play Billie's Song.)

Masks for Oboists and Clarinetists!

Just spreading the love here. This oboist is making and selling masks for wind players:



You can find her Etsy store here.

More Confessions of a Former CD Reviewer

During the past decade or so I have written the occasional post about my relationship to recordings. I cut many of my musical teeth on a few dozen, and spent my young adult life exploring more music by way of recordings. I was an avid radio listener, and then became a "classical music director" of a college radio station, where I got to expand my horizons far and wide. Then I started writing CD reviews, and was charged with explaining the virtues and faults I found in them. After thirteen years of writing at least fifty reviews a year, and acquiring more recordings than I could hold in both my office and house, I stopped writing for the magazine. My relationship to the CD as an "object" became a less-than-loving one, and I took a good long break.

I have seriously only purcased half a dozen CDs in the past six years (I stopped writing reviews in 2014). I rarely listen to CDs for pleasure, unless I'm driving in the car (our car is old enough to have a CD player built in) and sharing the experience with Michael.

After a diet of listening mostly to live music for a year or two, I eventually was able to find some enjoyment in listening to recordings I found on YouTube. The pleasure of listening without having to "report" on what you hear is highly underrated.

A few weeks ago Michael ordered a copy of Augustin Hadelich's new "Bohemian Tales" recording. It has a lot of Dvorak: the Violin Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony conducted by Jakub Hruša, Songs My Mother Taught Me, in an arragement by Hadelich and Charles Owen (the pianist on this recording), Fritz Kreisler's arrangement of the Humoresque, and the fourth Romantic Piece from the Opus 75 set. They also play the Janáček Violin Sonata, and Josef Suk's Four Pieces, Opus 17.

Michael and I listened to the Dvorak Concerto in the car, and I was excited to spend some of the trip back and forth to New Jersey that we took Thursday and Friday (bringing Michael's mother to Illinois to live) listening to more of the CD with him, but, alas, the minivan we rented did not have a CD player.

Since Michael bought the CD for me, I feel guilty about keeping the pleasure that it affords all to myself. But I have dipped in. A few times. And I intend to listen to it again and again, because the music-making is so honest and so beautifully thought out. The phrases are always tasteful, but always brought to their musical extreme: how rhythmic a hemiola can be, how agitated a "whisper" can be, how long and sustained a phrase can be, and how thoughtful and personal. And everything is about the music: what it can express, and how it can meet the emotional needs of the person listening.

My friend Danny Morganstern told me long ago that when you listen to a recording, you are listening to a person's best playing. But this CD goes beyond merely someone's best playing. This CD is satisfying on more levels than (just) the music making.

Augustin wrote the notes himself. They are brilliant notes that get right to the functional and emotional core of the music. And the notes are in both German and English. I imagine that he wrote them in both languages. The recording quality is extraordinary. It allows us to hear all the voices of his fantastic violin (the one that Szeryng used to make many of his great recordings), and to experience the Concerto differently from the usual soloist vs. orchestra approach. Here Augustin interacts with all the voices in the orchestra, weaving in and around, dancing with one instrument, and then another. When listening to this recording I feel like I am hearing the music exactly the way Dvorak heard it in his head while writing.

Dvorak certainly knew some great violinists, but I think that if Augustin Hadelich were alive during his lifetime, Augustin would have been his favorite violinist.

As I have said before, I am grateful to live in the same lifetime as Augustin Hadelich.

This morning I thought that it would be handy to use iTunes to sync this CD to my phone. I used to do that sort of thing when I had an ipod (but that was back when I was writing reviews, more than six years ago).

I loaded the CD into iTunes, and was pleased and impressed that all the tracks on the CD were appropriately named and numbered, but I could not figure out how to sync the music to my phone. I followed all the procedures, but no phone icon ever popped up to allows some sort of sync. I tried using every possible connector, but no soap.

I finally loaded the music on the CD into Dropbox, so I now can listen to it anytime and anywhere.