tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75176919851163162002024-03-13T03:06:48.553-07:00Erling WoldErling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.comBlogger348125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-60188516869741776632023-11-14T13:43:00.000-08:002023-11-14T13:44:11.046-08:00Daphnes Garten Oberwart<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoaYKc0d5DE3KBXHGj8ySPd-25MxF_PCV1VOflqCw_6ab3-L4P_FREgQLwoJ8mdReVepMdNmsg6xREYqIarFgeJcvPvWPu-u_UJY31DacgWNwxzOcSn4exQtpLuyJgBb2qR0o3OyDUzy5yrliIOD60BzbTtzu9-hc3Bcv7jo4PyKEhV29yqk0l1cCsr50/s1000/DaphnesGarten_Set-71_web.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoaYKc0d5DE3KBXHGj8ySPd-25MxF_PCV1VOflqCw_6ab3-L4P_FREgQLwoJ8mdReVepMdNmsg6xREYqIarFgeJcvPvWPu-u_UJY31DacgWNwxzOcSn4exQtpLuyJgBb2qR0o3OyDUzy5yrliIOD60BzbTtzu9-hc3Bcv7jo4PyKEhV29yqk0l1cCsr50/s320/DaphnesGarten_Set-71_web.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><div class="xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="xt0psk2" color="var(--accent)" style="border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation;"><b>Part 1: tschüß</b></span></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="xt0psk2" color="var(--accent)" style="border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; touch-action: manipulation;"><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1qq9wsj xo1l8bm" href="https://www.facebook.com/lynne.rutter?__cft__[0]=AZXsCZWBIhBtRuoUD3W_BUlkcaHpmirWt3C9h_HNabqY3LTpUSANxR9GJQx_0Zo_57gqzhX7Zp6UIFfn7ZH5la4Pe1fmmETe_QV8Bo8m4KbLEIF5xbMY9zTlZHW_hwi55mEVknC4rqy3UoR3D1NAC2Mq6JGPiACtUNonia0HpKWWML0gU_TnAj1Npb6XPi0wHo8&__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" style="border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0">Lynne</a></span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and I said goodbye to the first run of this beautiful, tragic and true production by </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1qq9wsj xo1l8bm" href="https://www.facebook.com/peterwagner.literatur.regie.film.musik?__cft__[0]=AZXsCZWBIhBtRuoUD3W_BUlkcaHpmirWt3C9h_HNabqY3LTpUSANxR9GJQx_0Zo_57gqzhX7Zp6UIFfn7ZH5la4Pe1fmmETe_QV8Bo8m4KbLEIF5xbMY9zTlZHW_hwi55mEVknC4rqy3UoR3D1NAC2Mq6JGPiACtUNonia0HpKWWML0gU_TnAj1Npb6XPi0wHo8&__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" style="border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">Peter Wagner</span></a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">. Martin Ganthaler, who played the bass in the attending choir, said it was the first performance where he felt he was taking a bow for someone else, in this case of course the subject of the opera: Daphne Caruana Galizia. The ovations were for her bravery and her strength, and when the piece ends with </span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1qq9wsj xo1l8bm" href="https://www.facebook.com/katie.wald.581?__cft__[0]=AZXsCZWBIhBtRuoUD3W_BUlkcaHpmirWt3C9h_HNabqY3LTpUSANxR9GJQx_0Zo_57gqzhX7Zp6UIFfn7ZH5la4Pe1fmmETe_QV8Bo8m4KbLEIF5xbMY9zTlZHW_hwi55mEVknC4rqy3UoR3D1NAC2Mq6JGPiACtUNonia0HpKWWML0gU_TnAj1Npb6XPi0wHo8&__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" style="border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">Katharina Tiwald</span></a></span><span style="font-family: inherit;">'s reworking of Mark Antony's "Here we are to speak of what we know, the good that women do lives after them" the tears that are shed are for her as well, and for her fellow martyred journalists. </span></div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">But I must applaud all the performers: <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1qq9wsj xo1l8bm" href="https://www.facebook.com/janina.plantsch?__cft__[0]=AZXsCZWBIhBtRuoUD3W_BUlkcaHpmirWt3C9h_HNabqY3LTpUSANxR9GJQx_0Zo_57gqzhX7Zp6UIFfn7ZH5la4Pe1fmmETe_QV8Bo8m4KbLEIF5xbMY9zTlZHW_hwi55mEVknC4rqy3UoR3D1NAC2Mq6JGPiACtUNonia0HpKWWML0gU_TnAj1Npb6XPi0wHo8&__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" style="border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">Janina</span></a></span>'s gorgeous Daphne, <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1qq9wsj xo1l8bm" href="https://www.facebook.com/michaelakhomsky?__cft__[0]=AZXsCZWBIhBtRuoUD3W_BUlkcaHpmirWt3C9h_HNabqY3LTpUSANxR9GJQx_0Zo_57gqzhX7Zp6UIFfn7ZH5la4Pe1fmmETe_QV8Bo8m4KbLEIF5xbMY9zTlZHW_hwi55mEVknC4rqy3UoR3D1NAC2Mq6JGPiACtUNonia0HpKWWML0gU_TnAj1Npb6XPi0wHo8&__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" style="border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">Michaela</span></a></span>'s wry portrayal of the voice, Marika and <span style="font-family: inherit;"><a class="x1i10hfl xjbqb8w x6umtig x1b1mbwd xaqea5y xav7gou x9f619 x1ypdohk xt0psk2 xe8uvvx xdj266r x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r xexx8yu x4uap5 x18d9i69 xkhd6sd x16tdsg8 x1hl2dhg xggy1nq x1a2a7pz xt0b8zv x1qq9wsj xo1l8bm" href="https://www.facebook.com/johanna.stacher?__cft__[0]=AZXsCZWBIhBtRuoUD3W_BUlkcaHpmirWt3C9h_HNabqY3LTpUSANxR9GJQx_0Zo_57gqzhX7Zp6UIFfn7ZH5la4Pe1fmmETe_QV8Bo8m4KbLEIF5xbMY9zTlZHW_hwi55mEVknC4rqy3UoR3D1NAC2Mq6JGPiACtUNonia0HpKWWML0gU_TnAj1Npb6XPi0wHo8&__tn__=-]K-R" role="link" style="border-color: currentcolor; border-style: none; border-width: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: var(--accent); cursor: pointer; display: inline; font-family: inherit; list-style: none; margin: 0px; outline: currentcolor; padding: 0px; text-align: inherit; text-decoration: none; touch-action: manipulation;" tabindex="0"><span class="xt0psk2" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;">Johanna</span></a></span>'s beautiful blending, and Martin and Fernando's power and comedy. The comedy is so important in this piece. I couldn't think of another way to set the ridiculousness of the corruption and the denials of corruption, and the ineptitude of Daphne's killers. </div></div><div class="x11i5rnm xat24cr x1mh8g0r x1vvkbs xtlvy1s x126k92a" style="caret-color: rgb(5, 5, 5); color: #050505; font-family: system-ui, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ".SFNSText-Regular", sans-serif; font-size: 15px; margin: 0.5em 0px 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;"><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">I was so happy when Peter pulled the whole band out of the "pit" and forced them onto the stage to accept their due - thank you Davorin for navigating the score so adeptly. Too bad we had to bring down the fortissimi to not deafen all in attendance. Maybe next time, in Klagenfurt / Eisenstadt / Vienna. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Part 2: writing fast</b></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">As with <i>Rattensturm</i>, this piece had a short schedule, three-ish months from talking it over with Peter and Katherina before it needed to be in Davorin and the singers' dropboxes, along with all the attendant synthetic recordings, click tracks, parts and partiturs, and my own german-bing-crosby-mixed-with-teen-boy rendition of all the singing and speaking for Peter to use. Someday I should really learn some German. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">But speed means once again theft, or at least accepting whatever first comes to mind, which sometimes turns out to be a chat-gpt-like interpolation between all one has heard before in one's own musical latent space. And I may have done a little more than usual<i> in memoriam </i>of my friend Mark Alburger, who died just recently after a mercifully short illness, whose style was based on troping the works of others, e.g. his </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Variations on Variations of Brahms on a Theme of Haydn</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">. So, s</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">ome examples in no particular order:</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">1. Scene 10 <i>Übergriffig</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">'s opening, when I wrote it, seemed so familiar, and I puzzled over it until I realized it was in fact the opening notes of the </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">I Spy</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> TV series theme song.</span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">2. Szene 09 <i>Vom Meer: </i>the opening is obviously taken from the opening of <i>La Mer </i>because of course. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">3. Szene 06 <i>I am from Austria: </i>It's a short scene, and Peter said seems like it should be a scherzo. Always happy to have a starting point, and although maybe he was just indicating the literal meaning, I thought of the glorious 9th, and so in the pot she went. Curiously Martin was the only one who noticed, and he, being a bass, I prompted to sing the 4th movement of the aforesaid glorious 9th and I joined in until Michaela or maybe Martin looked at me like why do you know all the words and, strangely enough, when I went to meet Katherina's 8th grade class and she said, let's listen to some classical music so we know where we are with this composer guy, she played the European National Anthem and, when she saw me singing along, she mouthed toward me do you know all the words by heart, and I sheepishly said yes, which reminded me of: </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC-_NGCbPOM5Lwmx0rFI8TlJp4LAGVPFpe9HWwHGqtJ6pW60PhKihFZfIxqdjhAO-Gaq69vo2um2aRvwJwmK-Z2abL-4cMOwPEaIhIKr139PRpRxXdKvwdNdb1mfic3ThAIItiT3RkgB4IivpPrty22NgKSomJVjAdQ73EQT1MmPNiGxYkzoiOi_AiPhW1/s775/70.gif" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="167" data-original-width="775" height="123" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC-_NGCbPOM5Lwmx0rFI8TlJp4LAGVPFpe9HWwHGqtJ6pW60PhKihFZfIxqdjhAO-Gaq69vo2um2aRvwJwmK-Z2abL-4cMOwPEaIhIKr139PRpRxXdKvwdNdb1mfic3ThAIItiT3RkgB4IivpPrty22NgKSomJVjAdQ73EQT1MmPNiGxYkzoiOi_AiPhW1/w572-h123/70.gif" width="572" /></a></div><br /><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">4. When I first met Katherina, I told her I planned to set some of her words comically, and she said something about working in something Baroque. I think she said <i>Baroque</i>, although maybe it was <i>baroque</i>. Anyway, I loved my first composition teacher <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Arthur_Gross" target="_blank">Robert Gross</a>, who was a fine violinist and whose recording of the Biber <i>Passacaglia </i>I have also always loved, so in the pot she goes as well. It turns out that simple descending line is the basis of a lot of passacaglia tunes and chord progressions, including my own from <i>Queer</i>, and Philip Glass's I think <i>Satyagraha</i>, and some others, so I tossed in a bit of each.</div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;">5. The libretto starts with Daphne's death, so I wanted the piece to start with the explosion of the car, and I found a recording online of someone blowing up a car in the countryside - I believe for a sound effect - and it was preceded by bird noises, which I loved, as the birds brought to mind the garden of the title, and were such a beautiful and awful contrast to the <i>Hackfleisch</i> that follows. The birds reminded me of <i>Messiaen</i>, and two of the most beautiful pieces of all time are the two string solos in <i>Quatuor pour la fin du temps</i>, which consist almost entirely of major chords s l o w l y intoned on the piano while the string plays a chromatic melody above, sometimes resolving, sometimes straining against. I had been imitating this piece for some months in my not-often-enough piano improvisations, ever since Nikola Printz had talked about recording a vocalise of the cello movement, and recently I had a found a beautiful melody of my own, so into the pot it went as well. </div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div><div dir="auto" style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></div></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-89868839037068979262023-09-21T19:47:00.002-07:002023-09-21T19:47:14.213-07:00The latest on She Who Is Alive<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2cJ6vFVVvj2-sGY2IXCcR76I9p2s508HjF4FZFWMRycTio0o2A4aFTEU7XoFufUYRT6xlvg4EO0ykv5U9TNcExkksw8o9cZ9d7JVX2bTJNRMqcMRdXC-WXFQs7ddwENZtm30E595P-KLSu4TodKU09xUp2eiXxIchhIUABBQ1WUQDTTGaMGauX-vEU5ux" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh2cJ6vFVVvj2-sGY2IXCcR76I9p2s508HjF4FZFWMRycTio0o2A4aFTEU7XoFufUYRT6xlvg4EO0ykv5U9TNcExkksw8o9cZ9d7JVX2bTJNRMqcMRdXC-WXFQs7ddwENZtm30E595P-KLSu4TodKU09xUp2eiXxIchhIUABBQ1WUQDTTGaMGauX-vEU5ux" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial;">We have finished filming about a third of the <i>She Who Is Alive</i><sup>†</sup> opera film so far, the last scene filmed being the end of the movie, a behind-the-scenes shot with me as wannabe director seen here. The wonderful <a href="https://www.laurabohn.com" target="_blank">Laura Bohn</a>, an actor so utterly fantastic in the piece, bravely agreed to go up in a plane that the pilot <a href="http://www.vintageaircraft.com" target="_blank">Chris Prevost</a> has been flying for forty years and which has coughed and sputtered reliably into life since the nineteen forties. </span><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;">The light was surprisingly favorable, and we were able to do many film-y things: night-for-night, evening-for-dawn, day-for-night, etc. And those wonderful shots of flying in a plane when it is not actually flying at all, the wind whipping the hair of the actors as they sing amiably to each other over a deafening roar. Actually, I should point out that Laura hadn't quite decided to go, but the sun was setting (aka rising) and Pilot Prevost suddenly took off with her in the front passenger seat, almost blowing to the ground <a href="https://heathorcharddp.com" target="_blank">Heath Orchard</a> and his very fancy 6K Sony Venice love-of-his-life camera in the surprisingly powerful prop wash. <br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEguZ7sNU8RwwM34W9YhJuMiG0eD1QEhE9LPIAXB46A19idni1ghb2LnhvKn1LDOdVYKVtYyU1OsE6YARxEroOgIppDeREq-UqUC66g6pbG_jGpu94tYTOcO59vYzn1nDsgTjEtUkaEzE_nC154vU0jcW37MN84AG8fSsplvX38HSaUEtqNxvMUXoeYQcWKr" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEguZ7sNU8RwwM34W9YhJuMiG0eD1QEhE9LPIAXB46A19idni1ghb2LnhvKn1LDOdVYKVtYyU1OsE6YARxEroOgIppDeREq-UqUC66g6pbG_jGpu94tYTOcO59vYzn1nDsgTjEtUkaEzE_nC154vU0jcW37MN84AG8fSsplvX38HSaUEtqNxvMUXoeYQcWKr" width="320" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: arial;">When filming, one is able to see the scenes again and again, and one soon notices that the adorable <a href="https://bradleykynard.com" target="_blank">Bradley Kynard</a> is really pretty creepy, and his character is the perfect spy/aggressor/victim, a foil against which Laura could be both seducer and stone-cold dealer of death. </span><p></p><p><i style="font-family: arial; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 13.333333px;"><sup>†</sup></span>Dimmi pur, prego, s' tu se' morta or viva!" / "Viva son io e tu se' morto ancora</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: arial; font-size: 12.8px;"> - Petrarch</span></p></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-25658253374940904112023-09-21T15:22:00.003-07:002023-09-21T15:53:20.916-07:00Daphnes Garten performances coming up <p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghCH0lZ4Wmrmzcvr7dj724ZBfaCAguuMwz0RglwcYgXRMQbzfEiFjoF8kiIXMYEQC-NYQHBSB3MRFRJKGMestkI3yCZ_uwv3stKN3IF1DlgkqpizTvrwVMLHt7MLa1ZjAekOeaOKmLk6rlsAB5H-SBmaZNTo38_8k-BTMgfojfmzeuVGpl3t1e2F-qPQSF" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="373" data-original-width="620" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEghCH0lZ4Wmrmzcvr7dj724ZBfaCAguuMwz0RglwcYgXRMQbzfEiFjoF8kiIXMYEQC-NYQHBSB3MRFRJKGMestkI3yCZ_uwv3stKN3IF1DlgkqpizTvrwVMLHt7MLa1ZjAekOeaOKmLk6rlsAB5H-SBmaZNTo38_8k-BTMgfojfmzeuVGpl3t1e2F-qPQSF" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Premiere is at the OHO in Oberwart, link for tickets etc here: <a href="https://www.oho.at/programm/daphnes-garten">https://www.oho.at/programm/daphnes-garten</a></span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">Travels next to Klagenfurt: <a href="http://klagenfurterensemble.at/produktion/daphnes-garten/">http://klagenfurterensemble.at/produktion/daphnes-garten/</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: medium;">And some others early in 2024. </span></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-38712872387162342252023-09-02T20:55:00.002-07:002023-09-02T20:59:58.579-07:00Daphnes Garten<div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy8-vyyluCA1ZeOQDukLgNLwku5-q5CP-f8Z4NT6IU1xT4InFuVMStNIYhAKyK0bH1Rvinaxbzmq6adNdYzAUI6RV3WhpFy_nEonTv1pQvn08aCjuUcFPHXZFj62djDepPlwCx1mjKutJl0-4mAg6DcXuon8AvBPwuoUdFCNIaT_222UotQpHH_JHNsArg/s359/Daphne_caruana_galizia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="276" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy8-vyyluCA1ZeOQDukLgNLwku5-q5CP-f8Z4NT6IU1xT4InFuVMStNIYhAKyK0bH1Rvinaxbzmq6adNdYzAUI6RV3WhpFy_nEonTv1pQvn08aCjuUcFPHXZFj62djDepPlwCx1mjKutJl0-4mAg6DcXuon8AvBPwuoUdFCNIaT_222UotQpHH_JHNsArg/s320/Daphne_caruana_galizia.jpg" width="246" /></a></div>I agreed to a request from Austria for another opera: <i>Daphnes Garten, </i>a co-commission from Gerhard Lehner of the Klagenfurter Ensemble and Peter Wagner of the Offenes Haus Oberwart, which will tour in November through December. While it is now almost done, and it is beautiful, the composition of it has been a stress-inducing sleep-depriving nightmare, as it was intermingled with my ongoing day job as an Executive Scientist® and the continuing filming of <i>She Who Is Alive.</i></div><div><div><div><br />This opera, by my count my sixth in German, is a dreamy telling of the story of Daphne Caruana Galizia, the Maltese journalist who brought to light corruption throughout Europe. Receiving hundreds of thousands of emails, she was the nexus, the go-to contact for all things corrupt, and what she found was later all supported - and more - by the Panama Papers leak, until one morning when she was shredded in a car bomb explosion. The two assassins - two brothers - one who watched and one who sat on his boat texting the bomb's code sequence <i>REL1=on.</i>, have been imprisoned, and some up the chain have faced some consequences, but at the top, not so much. </div><div><br /></div><div>After her death, her husband said "The more frustrated Daphne grew at the state of our country, the more beautiful our garden became," and the garden throughout is a touchstone of the beauty that still is to be found even when the honorable men do their best to destroy everything.</div><div><br /></div><div>The libretto, by the Austrian playwright Katharina Tiwald, is by turns high-comedy and heart-wrenching. I can't read the end of it, where we hear a roll call of the dead, without crying, and especially the line "The good that women do lives after them. I have done my best to write music that is manipulative and shredding in its own way. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm polishing it up now, sending it off to the Austrians along with the usual Erling-as-German-Bing-Crosby singing all the parts so the director can plan it out before the instruments and singers arrive in a few weeks. To my fans it may be of interest that one of these recordings exists for every one of my operas - all quite horrifying, but charming. <br /><br /><p></p></div></div></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-10608267151925943802023-09-02T10:56:00.002-07:002023-09-02T10:56:39.593-07:00From the thesis of Ilaria Pezone<p><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;"><b></b></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBPFpkHlUABLfvbXynTbniZNYLY2BB_Dk1bFBo_eap4Qa1inIr2FljD8u7EnTHd_Ar4VUizjP20ucawdgVm2hn3jRIkKxNWrpUeZvaVYAhLZw7juqS-pyLQRDK_kBj6sGZbQ1fzAHxXz8KKiablkBEORNKuQNUQIt5dHyQRv5uJwBCe4tyVl5aYhNUFUav/s726/Screenshot%202023-09-02%20at%2010.55.24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="361" data-original-width="726" height="159" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBPFpkHlUABLfvbXynTbniZNYLY2BB_Dk1bFBo_eap4Qa1inIr2FljD8u7EnTHd_Ar4VUizjP20ucawdgVm2hn3jRIkKxNWrpUeZvaVYAhLZw7juqS-pyLQRDK_kBj6sGZbQ1fzAHxXz8KKiablkBEORNKuQNUQIt5dHyQRv5uJwBCe4tyVl5aYhNUFUav/s320/Screenshot%202023-09-02%20at%2010.55.24.jpg" width="320" /></a></b></div><b>Erling Wold, compositore</b><p></p><div class="page" title="Page 115"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">Comporre musica è una strana ed effimera forma d'arte, poiché costruisce qualcosa a partire dal nulla per arrivare al suono, onda vibrante nell'aria. Ma questa cosa effimera e sconosciuta può in qualche modo toccare nel profondo l'ascoltatore, facendo emergere le emozioni, reazioni piacevoli o sgradevoli ma impossibili da ignorare. Nei film di Hollywood, il potere emozionale della musica e la sua capacità di attraversare le difese dello spettatore sono spesso usati per manipolarlo e trasmettergli a livello inconscio i sentimenti che dovrebbe provare. Ma la musica nei film di Jon è differente. Anche se in essa si concentra gran parte dell'emozione dei suoi film, non si insinua in maniera sottile nell'animo dello spettatore. Infatti, non compare nelle scene più narrative ma prende corpo nel corso delle lunghe scene di “riposo visivo” che sono così care a Jon. La musica, con la narrazione, il paesaggio ed i personaggi, prende parte a un insieme di percorsi paralleli, ciascuno dei quali guida lo spettatore attraverso i vari aspetti della storia.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">Ho conosciuto Jon ad una proiezione di Tutti i Vermeer a New York al Pacific Film Archive di Berkeley, in California. Il produttore, Henry Rosenthal, che ho incontrato attraverso il Just Intonation Network anni prima, mi chiamò e mi disse che sarei dovuto venire, che si trattava di un lavoro bellissimo, del quale andava molto orgoglioso. Quando vidi il lavoro, fui come rapito. Amavo il suo aspetto, il suo ritmo, il suo sentire e in particolar modo la musica di Jon English. Era una sorta di film musicale, sia indirettamente, con un sentimento per i ritmi brevi e lunghi, e per l'architettura della scala musicale, sia direttamente, lasciando spazio allo sviluppo musicale che Jon English ha riempito cosi meravigliosamente, specialmente nella ripresa lunga dove la cinepresa si muove tra le colonne di qualche zona di Wall Street.</span></p><div class="page" title="Page 116"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">Alcuni anni dopo, dato che Sure Fire aveva bisogno di essere terminato per il suo debutto al Sundance, Henry mi chiamò mentre ero in una stanza di un hotel per uomini d’affari in Giappone, che aveva le dimensioni di una minuscola scatola per le scarpe, e mi disse che Jon English era troppo ammalato per finire la musica; infatti aveva scritto solamente una corta melodia per </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">pedal steel</span><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">; che doveva essere in uno stile country e che sarebbe dovuta diventare della giusta intonazione. Ho colto l'occasione al volo. Quando tornai dal Giappone, ebbi una videocassetta del film quasi finito e scrissi la musica molto velocemente, abbozzando una prima sintesi, a partire dalla melodia che Jon English aveva scritto e portando il suo </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">pedal steel </span><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">a improvvisare con me. Ci furono alcuni brevi incontri con Henry e Jon Jost, nei quali trovarono delle grandi sezioni problematiche e mi chiesero di ripararle, ma principalmente fui lasciato solo per fare ciò che volevo all'interno di costrizioni di tempo e budget. Jon mi disse che c’erano alcune caratteristiche numerologiche importanti del film, attorno al numero 13, che ho adottato nei vari ritmi e nei vari rapporti tonali.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">Dato che </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">Sure Fire </span><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">era completato e dato che Jon ed io passammo più tempo insieme, abbiamo avuto opportunità di lavorare in maniera più rilassata. Ha cominciato a dirmi dei suoi programmi per il film seguente, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic;">The bed you sleep in</span><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">. Jon aveva scritto pezzi del copione e disse che desiderava della musica pronta prima della produzione, in modo che potesse rappresentarla agli attori mentre stavano lavorando. Inoltre mi raccontò una delle sue idee ricorrenti: aveva sempre desiderato della musica che veniva in natural modo dal suono del posto, a volte in maniera impercettibile. Ma voleva inoltre musica reale, non solo suono, così gli suggerii un insieme di strumenti e stili classici popolari ed elettronici.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">Durante la produzione del film, John Murphy, che stava registrando sul posto, mi portò nella segheria descritta nel film. Camminando attraverso il laminatoio era come ascoltare una grande composizione futurista/industriale: il suono meravigliosamente denso e riccamente spazializzato. Il suono e l'odore dei </span><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">laminatoi locali, specialmente l'impianto della Georgia Pacific, erano presenti per tutta la città di Toledo. Il suono dello stabilimento della GP era percepibile in tutte le registrazioni locali, sia interne che esterne.</span></p><div class="page" title="Page 117"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">La fabbrica era situata sulle rive di un tremendo lago chimico, una pozza d'acqua marrone e sporca con fontane che spruzzavano liquido tossico in larghi pennacchi sulla superficie.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: ArialMT; font-size: 12pt;">La sua presenza mi sopraffece a tal punto che, a un certo punto, decisi di comporre tutta la musica utilizzando i suoni del laminatoio. Alla fine, ho usato una varietà di sorgenti sonore. Qualche musica, soprattutto quella che fa da sfondo alla scena della lettera, è composta quasi interamente da registrazioni campionate e processate del laminatoio fatte da John Murphy durante la produzione. Alcuni di questi campioni sono usati come strumenti in altri pezzi e sono mescolati all’ensemble acustico strumentale.</span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-63798066479988837512023-03-19T14:30:00.003-07:002023-03-19T16:05:44.066-07:00An alternate history of my chamber operas <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZHywlV2I9XPuYha43gdtUBnkfVr85PzRtqJTLxnc1nY6m-d6rWZZ59p1mHAonCphJRGzbNUSybCFdhUttvvXU0Hu1Vw3SCDZyMilzh2SX52uJ6Pr0zoz1jqXFuKYGvUA7uNmcnyEchb3Bb7Q4PWV0Ha7VzkmjmaxZJaBu0aB_cuLQdwzrq2TnsVwFPQ/s937/FJFJasKXEAI80H9.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="937" data-original-width="749" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgZHywlV2I9XPuYha43gdtUBnkfVr85PzRtqJTLxnc1nY6m-d6rWZZ59p1mHAonCphJRGzbNUSybCFdhUttvvXU0Hu1Vw3SCDZyMilzh2SX52uJ6Pr0zoz1jqXFuKYGvUA7uNmcnyEchb3Bb7Q4PWV0Ha7VzkmjmaxZJaBu0aB_cuLQdwzrq2TnsVwFPQ/s320/FJFJasKXEAI80H9.jpeg" width="256" /></a></div>Last night while babysitting GiGi, I was wasting time chatting with ChatGPT in its current incarnation, asking it to write some limericks on relativity, along the lines of <i>There was a young lady named Bright</i>, which is very clever and which my chat-partner described in its typical dry over-explaining fashion: "It's a fun way to illustrate some of the mind-bending concepts of modern physics in a humorous way." It came up with one on Feynman <i>There was a young physicist named Feynman / Whose theories were too much to try and cram in</i>... and I told it that I knew Dr Feynman back in the day and we played tabla together. I asked monsieur chat if it knew any tabla rhythms and it mentioned Teentaal, and the syllables as well: <i>Dha Dhin Dhin Dha</i>, etc. <p></p><p>Hey, I said, I’ve always wondered if there are any that are a prime number of beats, and it told me of Sooltaal, a 10-beat cycle, and Dhamaar, a 14-beat cycle. OK, well, almost, I mean those at least have big prime factors, and octave errors are often made even by humans when it comes to rhythms so whatever. </p><p>Then we went on to limericks on algebraic topology and it came up with a pretty good one, if a little stilted at the end: <i>In algebraic topology we see / The study of shapes that can be / Transformed and shifted / But still not quite lifted / From a place that we cannot quite see, </i>and, in the ensuing discussion ranging over Jill Clayburgh's explanation of the snake lemma, and my crush on her, and Bertolucci's <i>La Luna, </i>where she plays an opera singer, I casually dropped into the conversation that I write operas myself, as I often do in casual conversations with actual people. And, just out of narcissistic curiosity, I asked if it knew of the opera <i>A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil </i>based on the Max Ernst collage novel, to which it confidently responded: </p><blockquote><p>Yes, there is an opera based on Max Ernst's collage novel "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil." The opera is called "The Making of Americans" and it was composed by David Lang, with a libretto by the composer and writer Mac Wellman. The opera premiered in 2014 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City, and it tells the story of a young girl named Isabel who is forced to live in a convent by her father. The opera explores themes of gender identity, sexuality, and the struggle for self-discovery.</p></blockquote><p>I realized I was onto something, so I then asked it about the opera <i>Queer</i>, based on the William Burroughs novel: </p><blockquote><p>Yes, there is an opera based on William Burroughs' novel "Queer." The opera is called "Queer: A Chamber Opera," and it was composed by the American composer and conductor David Del Tredici, with a libretto by the poet and librettist Arnold Weinstein. The opera premiered in 2016 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York City, and it tells the story of William Lee, a gay American writer who travels to Mexico in search of inspiration and encounters a young Mexican man named Allerton. The opera explores themes of identity, desire, and the challenges faced by LGBT individuals in a conservative society.</p></blockquote><p>Now this is really quite wonderful! I asked if it had heard of me, a poor little self scribbling off in its parents' neighborhood: </p><blockquote><p>Yes, Erling Wold is an American composer based in San Francisco, California. He is known for his work in a variety of genres, including opera, musical theater, and electronic music. Some of his most notable works include the operas "A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil" (based on the Max Ernst collage novel) and "Mordake" (based on the real-life story of Edward Mordake), as well as the chamber opera "Sub Pontio Pilato" and the electronic album "I Weep." </p></blockquote><p>It knows, and yet it does not know, just like us. </p>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-34881625991552567662023-01-21T16:07:00.006-08:002023-01-21T16:07:51.906-08:00She Who Is Alive update - Chapter 6: The Third Degree<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfkWbrd09qcVN0xcp3eoIK0z9GXAApIJ3ZKrXnRX97brJ3z3eQ0uuB47JCbSSPeP6h_mRJS5zvrz1kcLJCmTVoip315So6EvsiiSrmTVpA5kyVZ2iuwL9T8wFKKcRDo76wYWzCyXIUGunm_oU2GrimL-cNgU-vRmRiRXLWpWWcj_hBFY9KnhEdCdH2og/s1920/IMG_2422.JPEG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="817" data-original-width="1920" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfkWbrd09qcVN0xcp3eoIK0z9GXAApIJ3ZKrXnRX97brJ3z3eQ0uuB47JCbSSPeP6h_mRJS5zvrz1kcLJCmTVoip315So6EvsiiSrmTVpA5kyVZ2iuwL9T8wFKKcRDo76wYWzCyXIUGunm_oU2GrimL-cNgU-vRmRiRXLWpWWcj_hBFY9KnhEdCdH2og/w640-h272/IMG_2422.JPEG" width="576" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">The Third Degree</div><p>I asked my co-producer Lindsay if one still says <i>in the can </i>when there is no can and she said <i>yes</i>, so I may say now that we have three chapters <i>in the can</i>. The first two, filmed back in August, told the story before and after Dr Maria Stryker, played by Laura Bohn - who turns out to be a Movie Star of no mean talent - is interrogated by the Polemarch Rorman, and during which she meets Peter Sesley (Bradley Kynard!) who is actually not Peter Sesley, but she and we know that, and the plans are laid for her defection. So this section - pictured above - is the interrogation itself, with the impressively buff and deep-voiced Hadleigh Adams as the Polemarch Rorman. Off to the left is Talya Patrick as his maybe-more-than-secretary-could-be-mistress (in the Mistress as Master meaning) and it was so lovely to work with her again after so many years. </p><p>It's always the case that, in the lead-up to filming, I am plagued with anxious dreams, covid worries, fretting forgetfulness, financial panic, and the not-unusual wonder as to why I am doing this at all. But then there is the delightful frenzy of the shoot itself, the joy of working with people of talent who take my gigantic† weird project so seriously, and, once it is <i>in the can</i>, and all the props are back in storage, and one is editing and color correcting and berating one's neighborhood so-called <i>artificial intelligence </i>into doing what it is told, one can feel a slowly beating desire forming to please do it all again, which we shall, although not soon enough, as there are nine more chapters to go. One gets out ones colored pencils to mark up the text with notes of where to get the horse and the ski-plane and the castle on the frozen lake for the next bit, and how to shoot this and that, and one inches toward the kids' piggy banks and the penny jar and thinks well, it's OK to take a little loan on the future once again, right? The future may never come anyway, and we'll just worry about that all later. </p><p>The beauty of the image above is almost entirely due to the subtlety of the light that <a href="https://heathorchard.com" target="_blank">Heath</a> set in the deconsecrated cathedral of St Joseph's. As a wannabe cinematographer (and everything else associated with any art form), I long to grab the camera and do this and that, but he is possessive of his creations - as serious artists unlike myself are - and anyway, I was forced by circumstance to conduct. Since the delightful Fame's Orchestra of North Macedonia had recorded the backing tracks, I conducted from the vocal part, a fragment of which is seen below. The whole section is in 4/4 but with beats that aren't always the same size and, as in the rock 'n' roll that I grew up with, sometimes dropped off the end. But the really nice rhythmic thing that happens is when it switches from the 12/8-style 4 beats to the 4/4-style beats and back, the latter building tension and the former falling back into a relaxed groove, following the ebb and flow of the cat-playing-with-mouse dynamic.</p><p></p><center><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCbYhwx2_j-r2JETVjZu3bQlWan3BJPqE7UNnys7ZURQppAkac4xG9tX2cIiFA8Z4C0TxeOve4_6qiqDYJJ2vnpPX949NAGUK_siHlAbHG7oJRpCUMR5SWu0fM5cXds9kuafBZSEacBBrZFKK4PxGFo9VA3RrnYcjPYtjFdpZgO08jtek_kjOHzudQsQ/s13200/conductor%20score.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="13200" data-original-width="10192" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCbYhwx2_j-r2JETVjZu3bQlWan3BJPqE7UNnys7ZURQppAkac4xG9tX2cIiFA8Z4C0TxeOve4_6qiqDYJJ2vnpPX949NAGUK_siHlAbHG7oJRpCUMR5SWu0fM5cXds9kuafBZSEacBBrZFKK4PxGFo9VA3RrnYcjPYtjFdpZgO08jtek_kjOHzudQsQ/w494-h640/conductor%20score.jpg" width="494" /></a></center><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">A bit of the vocal part</div><p>†[Editor: In once again courting Timur for this project, as the oily Colonel Hippolite Reverdy, he said "you had me from gigantic."] </p><p><br /></p>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-62159952917025462282022-10-16T17:34:00.002-07:002022-10-16T17:34:28.825-07:00My little epic film<p> <i>She Who Is Alive</i> is in production! <a href="https://www.laurabohn.com">Laura Bohn</a> jetted in from Amsterdam last month to shoot two of her scenes, one alone with Beethoven and one with the inimitable <a href="http://bradleykynard.com">Bradley Kynard</a>. There's a teaser which, as teaser's do, teases what is to come: </p>
<iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="251" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/750805309?h=2ef32e7704&badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479" title="Teaser.mov" width="600"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-85788736186767235112022-10-16T17:26:00.002-07:002022-10-17T14:21:43.387-07:00Three Romances with Nikola Printz<p style="text-align: center;"> <iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/735029241?h=917fc94216&badge=0&autopause=0&player_id=0&app_id=58479" title="Three Romances with Nikola Printz" width="600"></iframe></p><p style="text-align: left;">The film that <a href="http://www.nikolaprintz.com">Nika</a> and I fabricated during the pandemic was accepted into Opera Philadelphia's <a href="https://www.operaphila.org/festival/festival-o22/">Festival O22</a>, a select few from 600 or so submissions, and we were tickled by that. The venue - The Philadelphia Film Society - is a big old beautiful theater, and Nikola's profile against the moonlight SF Skyline was ever-present. Our film was placed along with Alexa Deja's gorgeous <i>Be A Doll </i>and some other crazy and lovely pieces in the weirdo section of shorts aka <a href="https://filmadelphia.org/events/opera-on-film-shorts-opera-boldly-goes/">Opera Boldy Goes</a>. I believe our entry might have been the lowest budget and smallest crew of all. I remember when someone at Sundance asked Henry Rosenthal what the budget was for <i>Sure Fire </i>and his response was "including the trip here?" </p><p style="text-align: left;">Philadelphia is a very intriguing city, a mix of old and new, where classes and races mix much more than in wanna-be-progressive but highly segregated San Francisco. And people dressed for the opera, so nice to see, no comparison between the the decked-out crowd at Rossini's <i>Otello </i>at the festival and the dressed-down audience at the SF Opera's recent <i>Tony & Cleo</i>. </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh18WnHXkkD_z0Z0tkFkJO6RtFc9uEh33F4G1iXA6sZ2oTLh9evl75aKI8Gn-uMYPwqJS1VKjn5h6RTYbUPImYWSeOpthR9CqRRYXgmYhrXUDRbcKCR98xGlzmhqXvlPKtgZQRbhauIP_2XjjWKalreu1b52hYL-tx1M1GOWVXx9xD6QWW6dxnYwUTWg/s1920/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1079" data-original-width="1920" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjh18WnHXkkD_z0Z0tkFkJO6RtFc9uEh33F4G1iXA6sZ2oTLh9evl75aKI8Gn-uMYPwqJS1VKjn5h6RTYbUPImYWSeOpthR9CqRRYXgmYhrXUDRbcKCR98xGlzmhqXvlPKtgZQRbhauIP_2XjjWKalreu1b52hYL-tx1M1GOWVXx9xD6QWW6dxnYwUTWg/w400-h225/1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: left;"><br /></p><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-3003604544819313962022-01-10T12:31:00.001-08:002022-01-10T12:31:09.026-08:00Those X-lets <p>Anyone who has played one of my little insouciances has experienced my fetishistic fascination with triplets and quintuplets and, to a smaller extent, septuplets and 21-lets and all the other n-lets. Although the notations are the same no matter what the underlying intent, my enchantment with them comes from a variety of sources. The first is just the usual old-modernist fascination with the joys of complication, combined with the constructed textural landscapes of the Impressionists, then to the Ligetis as well as the totalist post-modernists, who all love to break up rhythmic lockstep by floating the notes by each other on parallel tracks, waving at each other through the windows as they pass. And there is the simple mathematical interest, where many composers have thought that maybe bigger integer ratios ratios in rhythms lend a spiciness like those same ratios in pitches. </p><p>The second is the way I was taught to <a href="https://blog.erlingwold.com/2009/12/text-setting.html">set text</a>, which has stuck with me, probably more literally than intended, calculated to capture something of natural speech rhythms, as no one speaks in quarters and eighths when not rapping. It's still a musical approximation, allowing the vocal line to connect with the rhythm while still flowing a bit, and also notating something beyond just notation, something like performance, e.g. the way a crooner delays the entrance of every new phrase. </p><p>But finally, and maybe this is the most important, it is that I grew up with those rhythms. When I was studying tabla, I would while away the time on walks to and from campus tapping out polyrhythms over and over, 3 against 4, 4 against 3, 5 against 3, 4 against 5, etc. I was pretty facile up through the 9s, and proud of myself, but shamed when my teacher could so easily play 11s over 7s and beyond, and not just straight rhythms, but tabla patterns with all the details included. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHy2DG1SwrAhNtsRl3ogL4NjDKGMmzvb4xdZjqfx53bPPYBrA204i3GeXn-cfZn-tVwvlTbqkbHO7ZbhofzB804IgL_f9bkvdPK-MnGvQk4Ywp8YPbj9I4-tDPAg8DKgaO85kHCYr6voQthkvKG5CFm0eYC5jQjzpqFYyULkdLnkTOZ3GWrnxDIGK3Qw=s1402" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="338" data-original-width="1402" height="110" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHy2DG1SwrAhNtsRl3ogL4NjDKGMmzvb4xdZjqfx53bPPYBrA204i3GeXn-cfZn-tVwvlTbqkbHO7ZbhofzB804IgL_f9bkvdPK-MnGvQk4Ywp8YPbj9I4-tDPAg8DKgaO85kHCYr6voQthkvKG5CFm0eYC5jQjzpqFYyULkdLnkTOZ3GWrnxDIGK3Qw=w459-h110" width="459" /></a></div>This is all to lead up to my curious experiences when other musicians confront my scored demands. One, I've had singers exclaim WTF is it with all those triplets, not to mention the 9:8s, where I simply shrug my shoulders, meaning well, that's what's there and that's what it is. <p></p><p>But even more exciting is how these little landmines are interpreted by instrumentalists. Some cause immediate freakout, especially if across the bar lines or shifted by a little something, which is understandable - they freak me out as well - although nothing gives me greater pleasure listening nor playing than a beautifully performed series of triplet or dotted quarters running over a set of every-changing 5/4s, 7/8s, 4/4s - what delight! However, problems arise even when an X-let stretches simply over a prevailing metric unit. Consistently the beginnings are stretched and the endings compressed. Triplet halves move toward two dotted quarters followed by a regular quarter, quintuplet eights are almost a triplet followed by a duplet. I have decided that, if I ever start a music conservatory, I will walk with the students to and from school and do what I did, with the additions of skips and hops, all in three-quarter time. <br /></p><p>Cold early morning here in San Francisco while over the link to the orchestra, it is late in Skopje, snowing. </p><p><br /></p>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-54648454595989947652022-01-02T16:50:00.002-08:002022-10-16T15:33:41.553-07:00Albrechts Flügel<iframe width="480" height="270" src="https://youtube.com/embed/_aLhusN1EoY" frameborder="0"></iframe>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-17398666661463123342021-12-24T17:36:00.002-08:002021-12-24T17:50:34.533-08:00The Globalization of She Who Is Alive <div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-ayH-jM7JdEYq4hwUzdrMeCOGEpWcdei4hhINusdxhoMLCE62WsvRLrewz7hwGyzgDQ46e7J19sm8JbsDls0OeBen1Pq5AgOJF_jBwFNtLpbpycdLFuTDwBNgqEY8THAPgCEux7DCZA45E1-M35Ho8F3XQ3i7nZd7RUX7a-VOU4ejwzMl2h14Zgq7vg=s8728" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="fames orchestra" border="0" data-original-height="5048" data-original-width="8728" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj-ayH-jM7JdEYq4hwUzdrMeCOGEpWcdei4hhINusdxhoMLCE62WsvRLrewz7hwGyzgDQ46e7J19sm8JbsDls0OeBen1Pq5AgOJF_jBwFNtLpbpycdLFuTDwBNgqEY8THAPgCEux7DCZA45E1-M35Ho8F3XQ3i7nZd7RUX7a-VOU4ejwzMl2h14Zgq7vg=w478-h277" width="478" /></a></div></div><div>I've been recording the orchestral parts to <i>She Who Is Alive </i>with the North Macedonian <a href="https://www.fames-project.com">fames orchestra</a> the last few months. Many covid delays but so delightful to hear the music come to life. </div><div><br /></div><div>They are fabulous and fearless musicians, although not without complaints about the unending <b>velocity</b> of some of the parts or the <i>Zeitmaße</i>-like length of some of the held notes in the wind. And it seems that every time a 7/8 measure appears in the score, at least one member of the orchestra is unable to restrain themselves from playing <i>Blue Rondo A La Turk </i>during a pause. For me, it is unbridled joy, and getting up at three in the morning to meet with them on the other side of the world is part of the excitement, like waking up to catch a plane or head off on a fishing trip with dad. Which I believe I did once. </div><div><br /></div><div>I'm still polishing here and there, but the writing is done, and the conductor's score clocks in at 814 A3 pages, about 3 1/2 hours of music, and 1737 pages of A4 parts. I think I will add some electronic bits, as well as processing and editing and melodic fiddling but this is the bulk of it. I've only just begun to think about casting, and whether the voices on Pro Tools will be those of the actors on screen, or if I should split them like <i>Umbrellas of Cherbourg. </i>Not that one has to be consistent. Filming it all seems daunting now, but somehow each piece will fall into place as it always does, and a castle on an icy lake will appear, as will the planes and tropical islands and the chorus of Young Virgins dressed alike in mustard-colored blouses. </div><div><br /></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-78052194592788472602021-12-23T19:48:00.004-08:002022-10-16T15:34:12.737-07:00The Endless Études<div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOy-_3zlcY7oQGtV3d9uuIXW_GYjDmq547uiaGe8Sy5Gi1QkcNwl5FJuGzF5r8VW0tB1aACkD1kVV67j9jN8lrMMigA7TvHWtMCgARyN9X6PpNpaRJduHqfGjHgc-wSM8B8oQt6M13oxuYQf6z5Kh-qPt-pSyi9H4Rbl4e2ezRe3L-xeduw5EhFgFfJA=s2452" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1583" data-original-width="2452" height="259" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgOy-_3zlcY7oQGtV3d9uuIXW_GYjDmq547uiaGe8Sy5Gi1QkcNwl5FJuGzF5r8VW0tB1aACkD1kVV67j9jN8lrMMigA7TvHWtMCgARyN9X6PpNpaRJduHqfGjHgc-wSM8B8oQt6M13oxuYQf6z5Kh-qPt-pSyi9H4Rbl4e2ezRe3L-xeduw5EhFgFfJA=w400-h259" width="400" /></a></div><div>To the left is the <a href="https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/stravinsky-pulcinella" target="_blank">Pulcinella notebook</a>. Note the rapidity of the creation: dear Monsieur Stravinsky writing in ink, although later some revisions in red ink and blue crayon. Given my fetishistic attraction to such objects, I think how sad it will be for my <i>biographers</i> that I have left so few scribblings behind. </div><div><br /></div><div>Before I was old enough to buy cigarettes at the 7-Eleven, I worked in pencil, sometimes on small sheets (9x12), often on much larger. Those large sheets of unusually-sized paper, spread over the piano and the floor nearby, always made me feel I was creating something special, a large canvas on which I could spill my soul. Those still remain, tucked inside a filing cabinet in our storage unit along with the other detritus of a life well-lived: corsets, costumes, flyers, religious paraphernalia, conspiracy theories. But in the last decades, working primarily on the computer, there is no history. It is gone, bits erased and then erased again.</div><div><br /></div><div>However, there are a few threads that these aforementioned biographers can follow, as my large works steal from my small. In fallow times, when I am not obsessed with the latest objects of textual affection, I will write my ideas in small piano works, études for the composer rather than the performer. And, when I do write the next opera, I liberally mine those little pieces for material. You know it's been proven again and again that all music fits with all dance or all film or all text, but the resultant effect is of course very different depending on the particular combination. </div><div><br /></div><div>Now that I say what I said, I realize that they often are études for the performer as well, and usually too difficult for me to play except in approximation. For example, <a href="http://erlingwold.com/works/Firenze.pdf">the set I wrote in Florence in 2019</a> is scattered through <i>She Who Is Alive</i>, but in January at the Center for New Music, I am playing them, in approximation. </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-16394893215747680202021-03-26T13:55:00.007-07:002021-03-26T13:55:58.497-07:00A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil, on its 25th anniversary<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://erlingwold.bandcamp.com/album/a-little-girl-dreams-of-taking-the-veil-on-its-25th-anniversary" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2000" data-original-width="2000" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7t1RDIJEUWt1Huh0nQRFzg71YaprkHLgMLNwfk_TLvx094Zh4F8A6m2VS4AIVgWlU_EpZnMi2indowQ830mZ4VgU6kX1tjB_Z6nXrp_ZFzwVrkmilgp6UKfnDsaDB1noQKqsPGHiUpwIN/w400-h400/cover+smaller.png" width="400" /></a></div><p></p><p>I had planned quite the coming out party last year: a new performance of <i>A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil</i> for its 25th anniversary, a second production of <i>Certitude and Joy </i>in New York City, and another of which I wasn't quite sure, but boringly now the long SARS-CoV-2 winter descended. However, even in a cold dark winter, there are days when the sun appears and the snow glistens with a crystalline light. This is one of those days.</p><p>Clicking the image above will take you to the bandcamp page for a brand new release of <i>A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil, </i>featuring <a href="http://lauradbohn.com">Laura Bohn</a> and <a href="http://nikolaprintz.com">Nikola Printz</a> as the little girl Marceline-Marie (whose double first name ...) <a href="https://www.rotimionline.com">Rotimi Agbabiaka</a> as the narrator, and <a href="http://www.kynard.com/wp/?page_id=12">Bradley Kynard</a> as the R.F., the Celestial Bridegroom, et al. We worked and recorded remotely, from here to Amsterdam, and through the marvels of this internet age, transported all the recordings to <a href="http://www.jaycloidt.com/Home.html">Jay Cloidt</a>'s capable hands†, who has sculpted them into the wonder which is now placed before you. My favorite bit, of which I at first was skeptical, is his beautiful manipulation of the <a href="https://erlingwold.bandcamp.com/track/first-sleep">first sleep</a>, although maybe you will find more to your liking the <a href="https://erlingwold.bandcamp.com/track/second-sleep-2">second</a> ("Among the highlights are a gorgeous woodwind nocturne as Spontanette settles back into sleep" said Joshua Kosman), or the more frenetic glories of the Hair or the Academy of Science. Something for everyone. </p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">†Jay has mixed everything of mine since the Mass, Laura I've known since she herself was almost a little girl, and Nikola has been appearing recently on this blog in several guises. </span></p>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-9947103102306538742021-03-12T18:56:00.005-08:002021-03-12T18:56:57.611-08:00The Voyeur's Gratitude<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/523010632" width="600"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I bought a long lens for my camera which the Empress refers to as "my penis", placing it in the category of muscle cars, assault weapons and other fashions in which we men in later life make up for a lost youth. But it is a beautiful thing, and it allows me to dwell on the hummingbirds and wild parrots above our garden, and sometimes the moons of Jupiter in near conjunction. But objects and people naturally far away suddenly brought near through the use of carefully shaped glass bring a sudden shiver, a frisson of voyeuristic fear. I tried to calm myself by searching for antidotes to my affliction, but instead came across the poems of <a href="https://www.jeffreybeanpoet.com">Jeffrey Bean</a>, including the one here now presented for your interest and anger and possible titillation. </div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-9798989541351736542021-02-13T16:10:00.001-08:002021-02-13T16:12:14.086-08:00Crash<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/511462339" width="600"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote><i>Crash</i> performance, New Langton Arts, San Francisco, CA, 1986. (camera: Steve Felty)</blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Crash</i> was written in the summer of 1986 as the musical accompaniment for a dance of the same name created by choreographer Gay White. Based in part on the J. G. Ballard novel, the work tells the story of the destruction of a car and the maiming of its occupant. The work is com-prised of three broad sections. The first is a garden scene, where a young woman sleeps. The landscape is cold and damp. She has a dream of surrender, of a woman in mourning and of a funeral. In the second section, the woman accelerates onto a freeway on-ramp, where she is awakened, seduced by speed and exposed to impact. In the third section, a new sense of beauty evolves from the changes to her anatomy. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">"I searched for my scars, those tender lesions that now gave off an exquisite and warming pain."</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Performance of the dance at New Langton Arts, San Francisco, California, 1986, included the display of two videotapes prerecorded by Mark A. Z. Dippe. One provides a documentation of the dance, combining several camera angles. The second deconstructs the dance, illuminating small details that might otherwise be missed by the audience.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiynL-MPLpnPlS9dc7xGpnQmk4KcojLi8Z3tfvz5HwpIg6NzkvrvcJ71_XHU95JVpadwwT_YUDcJ2YECjaNbqv0qXFvyXCt1hqkOc5P1mav5frN9DHDJJ_4tZA_SEEF6gU0zRXcmYUaBHZA/s1600/crash-score-734282.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1222" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiynL-MPLpnPlS9dc7xGpnQmk4KcojLi8Z3tfvz5HwpIg6NzkvrvcJ71_XHU95JVpadwwT_YUDcJ2YECjaNbqv0qXFvyXCt1hqkOc5P1mav5frN9DHDJJ_4tZA_SEEF6gU0zRXcmYUaBHZA/w488-h640/crash-score-734282.jpg" width="488" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The score for the music of the third section is shown above. This recording was realized on an NED Synclavier II synthesizer. Digital con</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">trol over the work allows the tuning of the pitches to be set precisely. Attention to tuning was something that was common to much of my music at the time. In this case, the static pitches are based on the simple scale shown at the top of the score. The moving pitches flirt with the tones of this scale and generate controlled beating effects. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Except for the instrumental (drum and string) samples, all of the component sounds in the last section are modifications of recorded natural sounds. One is an extremely high vocal sound. It appears in the piece replayed both in </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">a very low and a medium register. Sampling can introduce spectral aliases, which</span><span style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> are typically filtered out in digital-to-analog conversion. For the very low sounds, the sampling rate and filter cut off were chosen so that the first spectral alias was not removed. This alias is very interesting, as it is a mirror image in frequency of the original image spectrum. The addition of this alias lends a high, rich timbral edge to the sound. Also, as the original sound moves up and down, the alias mirrors its movement. Another sound source is a small Godzilla toy. I like to think that the semantic content of this source unconsciously contributes to the scariness of the finale.</span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></p></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-5284570244590545112020-11-11T11:02:00.001-08:002020-11-11T11:02:29.977-08:00Verschwinde, Mond!<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/476916431" width="640"></iframe></div><div><br /></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-21971539566432218092020-10-03T13:56:00.001-07:002021-05-08T18:24:32.892-07:00A quiet year<div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="338" src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/455124235" width="600"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I'm still pushing through <i>She Who Is Alive</i> during this year of enforced stillness and isolation, an isolation broken by our visitor above. With it arrives the alien ship, and the following doxology is sung. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div style="text-align: left;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: left;">This message is addressed to no one </div><div style="text-align: left;">Who does not already possess it</div><div style="text-align: left;">As his own life or as a yearning</div><div style="text-align: left;">Of his heart.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Let us hurl ourselves</div><div style="text-align: left;">Into time's dynamic sweep</div><div style="text-align: left;">And hear age-old tales</div><div style="text-align: left;">As if they were new</div><div style="text-align: left;">That they may teach us to speak. </div><div style="text-align: left;">Pharaoh foretold it in his day</div><div style="text-align: left;">And Sibyl the prophetess too</div><div style="text-align: left;">With neither fault nor error</div><div style="text-align: left;">That redemption would come to us </div><div style="text-align: left;">For the greatest guilt.</div><div style="text-align: left;">At night the leaping fountains speak </div><div style="text-align: left;">In a louder tone and make</div><div style="text-align: left;">The heart a leaping flame.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Into the nighttime is expelled</div><div><div style="text-align: left;">What once ruled during the day. </div><div style="text-align: left;">Whence all this?</div><div style="text-align: left;">Not from this world.</div><div style="text-align: left;">From another world.</div></div></blockquote><div><div style="text-align: left;"></div></div></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-77350757276036283742020-10-02T18:03:00.001-07:002020-10-02T18:03:36.574-07:00Showing off <p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcPFB_8Xc-tOvrjWkoh8B00beKRwU1batHYDHdbKqzPR8k6l7FeYtnGbfG80TXwontgKeQOhg5kQ0zqKuxcH9pDIjtegYUxOnUlA21OO3RgPVxavW4E_MJjG4ZzZpvk8hyphenhyphenP0XKd0XnI86J/s1000/gravitation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1000" data-original-width="813" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcPFB_8Xc-tOvrjWkoh8B00beKRwU1batHYDHdbKqzPR8k6l7FeYtnGbfG80TXwontgKeQOhg5kQ0zqKuxcH9pDIjtegYUxOnUlA21OO3RgPVxavW4E_MJjG4ZzZpvk8hyphenhyphenP0XKd0XnI86J/w325-h400/gravitation.jpg" width="325" /></a></div><p>If there's anything one doesn't want to do, it is letting The Empress know one is depressed because they aren't getting enough attention for their art. There is no way to more reliably cause her to roll her eyes and maybe kick one down the stairs just on her say-so. </p><p>So come with me into the little hidey-hole under the kitchen sink, yes, that's right, I know it's really not for two, but let's just squeeze in, and I'll whisper this: I had planned so much this year and nothing much at all is happening. And it's depressing. I miss it all: the audience's adulation of course, the glowing reviews, the hugs, but also the thrill of creative society, the first hearing of the orchestra, the smell of sweat and greasepaint. It's well-known that we are the most productive when we are busy and, when we are not, well, we are not much of anything at all. </p><p>And, to be honest, I am a vain person of great puffery. I remember when I was a little boy I carried around a copy of <i>Ulysses, </i>which I was in fact reading, but about which I also thought it important that people <i>knew</i> that it was a book I was reading. I fed off it: I loved when people said I was the smartest boy there, and I loved the awards and the pettings of the teachers. </p><p>I'm not the only one you know. <i>Gravitation</i> was published in 1973, the year before I arrived at CalTech, and at that time it was what <i>Ulysses</i> had been for me, a book one had on the shelf, or lying casually about one's room, making it clear that you were reading it and, by extension, where you were in the order of things. CalTech had a clear caste system with physicists way up on top (Feynman was there, Gell-Mann, Stephen Hawking for a time, Kip Thorne (on book cover above)). After that I'm not even sure of the pecking order, but I was a math major when I got there, and mathematicians were seen as so far outside of the realms of Science that they were simply ignored. </p><p>[You know the bit in <i>The Hunt For Red October</i> where Seaman Jonesie, teasing his underling who is failing to identify a whale sound or some such, says, "Beaumont, at CalTech we used to do this in our sleep." Right, we didn't do that or anything like that. It's just one of those Hollywood misunderstandings of any actual profession, at best poorly attempting to attend to their teen demographic.]</p><p>Eventually I wandered even more afield from the physics seminarians. I took philosophy classes - - which appealed to me. I always loved the philosophical arguments - can it simultaneously be raining and not raining? (don't ask this of a group of smug and too-smart kids at CalTech), the language-musings of Wittgenstein, and Quine and Hume. I loved the foundations of Mathematics, the paradoxes, the models and the axioms and Gödel and whether axioms were even the thing. I loved the foundations of Quantum Mechanics, the interpretations and Bell and Einstein vs. Bohr and Bohm and the squishiness of it all. Even <i>Gravitation </i>had its kookiness,<i> </i>the "it from bit" of Wheeler, who also wandered through campus from time to time. But then I took Art classes - from the now-Chevalier Aimée Brown Price - and soon. with my roommate Robert Erickson, started to attend the composition classes at Occidental College nearby and fell hard in love. When Occidental gave me a composition award, well, that was it, I was betrothed to music for ever and until death. I did finish at CalTech, but in Electrical Engineering, doing electronic music, and seeing some kind of future there, which has all rolled out for me. </p>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-54795143819434137202020-09-05T17:25:00.001-07:002020-09-05T17:25:40.056-07:00She Who Is Alive, as it goes<p></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOySqZJUfbrN2C9I1ZZSv-n7wIYFbSWR33gJbHkeyYFuE0Co4CeHuJuA5Jdw1-Wux3_RomzeE2xTRGMNVGahLZjavTcAAeohN6L1DHhbeHtITRSkivRRbsOvE6cQ4TcdX80OR9u4KmjKF5/s707/emotion-pigeon-thumb.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="457" data-original-width="707" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOySqZJUfbrN2C9I1ZZSv-n7wIYFbSWR33gJbHkeyYFuE0Co4CeHuJuA5Jdw1-Wux3_RomzeE2xTRGMNVGahLZjavTcAAeohN6L1DHhbeHtITRSkivRRbsOvE6cQ4TcdX80OR9u4KmjKF5/s320/emotion-pigeon-thumb.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Pigeon Cooing<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />On nights when I cannot sleep, I think often of puzzles, like this: no matter how large the number, the no closer one is to infinity. When we believed in heaven and hell and the sins that brought us to one or the other, we knew that, no matter how adamantly we strove toward perfection, we never approached it. It is in this light that I see my latest endeavor, to finish the opera on which I have been working these last several years - <i>She Who Is Alive </i>- fast approaching the three-hour mark with no end in sight. <div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/v3kNmDZs6k8" width="480"></iframe></div></div>Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-44324638009060377612020-07-12T20:47:00.000-07:002020-07-12T20:47:23.381-07:00Two prayers from A Little Girl Dreams of Taking the Veil<div style="text-align: left;">
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Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-12698896465144515232019-10-19T21:06:00.003-07:002019-10-19T21:06:57.441-07:00Loss of process<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW9SSBUW8vvYOyifLf2XpG6Y8_aTj18fcLMtKiAxhDeX0t50sOvTYL6m78CvNw-gDRIU420RYsrowI0-swbFkPFkpbOlWv6PQ1Hwiz5761lZ32w7TtqrWPi5Iw_07WhQ2pBH3UAL3w-rzR/s1600/written+score.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="286" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW9SSBUW8vvYOyifLf2XpG6Y8_aTj18fcLMtKiAxhDeX0t50sOvTYL6m78CvNw-gDRIU420RYsrowI0-swbFkPFkpbOlWv6PQ1Hwiz5761lZ32w7TtqrWPi5Iw_07WhQ2pBH3UAL3w-rzR/s640/written+score.jpg" width="640" /></a><br />
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It's a common question: Erling, how do you go about writing music, what's the process, and my standard pat answer has become just that, a well-rehearsed bit about how there is no process, how I do just about everything, sometimes sketching, sometimes improvising, direct-to-score, piano-vocal score thence arranged, on planes and trains and in the basement, hot and humid or cold and dry, oftentimes late at night, tired, during the drugged-out being of oh-so-tired, and oftentimes prodded by an external force, often a deadline, or a feeling to just to be done with it, sometimes a new sound, a new instrument.<br />
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All this is true, but what has become the most common in my golden age, is to improvise a bit, usually at the piano, often with the text - did I mention I write a lot of operas? - and scribble down something until I get tired of having to drag the heavy pencil across the page, and I realize that every mark I make on paper is one that has to be re-made in the computer, so I soon fire up the laptop and just start doing it all there. Which is maybe a little bad, since the music I write depends so much on the tools I use, and the computer feeds my laziness. The above are all the paper scribblings that exist for Chapter 6 of <i>She Who Is Alive</i>, about 15 minutes of music. The final score, in the version that <a href="http://www.earplay.org/www/homepage.php">Earplay</a> and <a href="https://www.westedgeopera.org/">West Edge Opera</a> presented, is about 100 pages.<br />
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Almost always I have to make the requisite piano-vocal score after the fact. It's so tedious to do it, and one that feels so bad when death is rushing toward one so quickly, and which one feels could almost surely be automated once they get the mall robots to stop falling in the central water features and the automated cars to stop killing pedestrians and learning to drive in the snow. Even better would be for them to automate the whole process: the robots composing, playing, listening and then writing the review for us to scan the next morning bleary-eyed, up too late watching <i>Roma Citta Aperta. </i></div>
Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-66604290146473122902019-10-19T20:41:00.001-07:002019-10-19T20:41:13.320-07:00Laura's day<div style="text-align: center;">
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Another voyeuristic dream: Laura Bohn enflamed, sodden of a sad care, too bright, too dark, to the strains of Brett Dean's <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000009Q0Z/sequenza21thecon">One of a Kind</a></i>, </div>
Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-87949316978010377232019-10-11T21:25:00.000-07:002019-10-11T21:25:03.478-07:00Faust, a fist<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Happened across <a href="http://bleakbliss.blogspot.com/2019/02/faust-san-francisco-1994.html">this recording</a> of the Faust concert I played in back in 1994. I had no idea such a recording existed - it's an interesting trip back.<br />
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Jeff Hunt's very hip Table of the Elements label had released my <a href="https://erlingwold.bandcamp.com/album/the-bed-you-sleep-in">soundtrack of <i>The Bed You Sleep In</i></a> the year previous, had given a copy to Faust who for some reason loved it, and when he set up their tour, he pulled me in. They showed me a few luckily-simple keyboard bits and along the way secured a piano. It seems that they asked around for an old piano and one of the locals involved in the show had a roommate out of town who owned such a piano, so they manhandled it out of the apartment and onto the stage at the Great American Music Hall, but not before Jean-Herve cut through most of the important structural bits with a chain saw.<br />
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If I had thought about this in detail at the time, I should have been more concerned about the release of the no-longer-potential energy that the eighteen or so tons of tension had bottled up - had the piano decided, in its weakened state, to so release it. But at the time I was more immediately concerned about him hitting my hands with the sledgehammer he was using on the keys while I played. For many years I kept some of the broken bits: keys, hammers. It's interesting to see the complexity of the piano mechanism as it flies past.<br />
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The next day we recorded <i>Rien. </i>That's me at the piano - not the same piano - and I'm pretty sure nothing I played that day ended up in the final release. Which is somehow appropriate given the title.<br />
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<a href="https://vimeo.com/96118052">Faust – San Francisco, May 1994</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/tylerhubby">Tyler Hubby</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com/">Vimeo</a>.Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7517691985116316200.post-74709843523231567052019-09-28T19:21:00.001-07:002019-09-28T19:21:03.218-07:00New York <div style="text-align: center;">
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We feel a watchful eye attending and protecting us. We place ourselves hopefully in the hands of an unseen yet benevolent power, a power who cares about each road crossed, each passing cloud, the safety of the vessels that carry us.</div>
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But sometimes, during the night, we dream that we lose our way, and that the eye is looking elsewhere, allowing those beings less compassionate to interfere with us unhindered. We awaken troubled, our heart racing, a headache thudding dully. </div>
Erling Woldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18415381218771416011noreply@blogger.com0