Izzo: Disturbing The Surface

Hmmm.. I worry about the "tone" of a bit of music that I've been working on this week. Well, that's not entirely true. I'm self conscious because it's a little too sweet and simple, yet it also has some features that resonate with me.

The truth is that this snippet of music represents the "problem" that I'd like to explore in this piece. How do I transform a naive sound world into something deeper? This is what makes Cornell's (see first post) art tick; the tension between sentimentality and more disturbing/provocative sub layers.

Sternfeld-Dunn: Color and Orchestration

So, as I begin to rework my piece for English Horn and Cello, I have decided that I have some rather interesting music in the middle section of the work. Specifically it's the moment where the Cello and English Horn are in unison. I actually think it's a rather striking moment, and it was conceived to be the climax of the piece. I think that material is interesting and beautiful enough that it would make a great opening.

Here is my dilemma. Should I present it in it's unison state? I want it to occur where it already does in the piece acting like the climax, but will it loose its weight by being up front as well. I'm probably not explaining myself well so let me explain it in another way.

As a composer I would not say I fall into the timbrel type of composer (i.e. early Penderecki, or Early Ligeti), however orchestrational color has become very important to me in the last five years or so. I tend to find colors and orchestrations that I find really interesting and captivating and then save them for dramatic moments. So the question becomes will this unison section be dramatic if that color is presented at the beginning. The follow up question is of course is what makes this material interesting, the color or the pitches?

Izzo: Variations Of Variations

I jotted down some of the features and themes that I find in Joseph Cornell's work that I believe can give me a little guidance as I write this piece: nostalgia, exotica, ephemera, dilapidated finery, irrational juxtaposition, memory and whimsy.

An idea that came to mind was that each variation could illustrate one of these themes. So, for now I'm working with this game plan though as often is the case,I'll probably need to make Frankenstein-like adjustments.

Sternfeld-Dunn: Admitting your music is boring!

As an active composer I find I spend a lot of time going to hear contemporary music concerts either put on by new music ensembles or composer conferences. Today I will say what many will not...the majority of these concerts are boring. They just are, it's a fact of life. I would say at a typical conference with three days of music with 8 or more concerts there may be one piece (if you are lucky) that is truly memorable. There are certainly quite a few pieces that are good (maybe competent is a better description) but that you won't remember the next week, and then there are a handful of truly bad pieces.

So why am I bringing this up? Because one of the pieces I am working on for this project is a piece for English Horn and Cello and right now it is boring. That's right I said it. I feel comfortable saying that it is a competent piece, perhaps even a good piece, but it is certainly not memorable.

The impetus for the piece was taken from a line of poetry by Edna St. Vincent Sinclair titled Savage Beauty. The line is "...and I will love the silence...", this is also the title of the work. To me this line was simply stunning and lent itself to some beautiful musical ideas. So I set to work trying to write a piece that explored movement from moment to moment, silence (of course), beauty and timbre.

The piece was premiered by two wonderful  musicians Keri McCarthy on English Horn and Ruth Boden on Cello. I think the performance was fantastic and they lent a ton of musicality to the piece, and I was still left a little...well...bored. I know it was not them, it was me.

Ultimately I think the piece is just not beautiful enough, specifically the opening. It's a good opening but not great. It's a pretty opening but not beautiful! It explores color but not as deeply as it could. Perhaps this is the problem I see with much of the new music out there it does what it needs to but only half way, it doesn't go far enough.

I know I haven't sold the piece to you yet, but give it a listen and see what you think. My thoughts are that as it stands it's a good piece but not a great piece. I think the world has enough good pieces.

Izzo: The Aesthetic of Uncertainty

I began thinking about and sketching ideas for this project in Feb. 09.  I just counted and I have 121 files from Feb.09 through Nov. 09, and here's where it becomes a little sick; these are all false starts.

Now, I know composers who are clear about the form, length and proportions of the piece they're writing before they even put a note on the page.  I admire this immensely, in large part because I can't do it!  Like Cornell, (see my first post) I need to wander the "streets" and collect bits of ephemera that I think might come in handy somewhere down the road. 

With that in mind, it was only a week ago that I came upon an idea that I think might kickstart this piece.  Why do I think this idea has promise?  I'm not entirely certain, but here are a few thoughts:

The musical language, an old fashioned and quasi romantic sound world, is not one that I live in and this creates a creative tension in my mind.  What does this music represent to me and why did I come up with it in the first place?  How does it fit into what I think I'm trying to say?  Is this idea meant to be a foil of some sort for other musical ideas within the piece?

I have no idea, and with about a month left to compose the piece I've decided to commit to pursuing these questions.  That said, I've chosen to write a theme and variations for clarinet, cello and piano based on this music.  We'll see where it leads..

Izzo: Nostalgia For The Unknown

The work of artist Joseph Cornell has long been a fascination of mine. Cornell was famous for his boxed assemblages in which he would create haunting, surreal pieces by arranging disparate objects, such as Victorian dolls, coins, sheet music, etc. into incredible works of art.

He lived all of his life in NYC. Other than a three year stint in MA. he never left NY, yet his art deals with the faraway and impossible. What speaks to me about this is the sense of nostalgia for things, people and places that he never directly experienced; a nostalgia for the unknown.

I feel a certain kinship toward Cornell's aesthetic.  I have a tendency to use small unpromising bits of ideas that I juxtapose into what I hope becomes an interesting musical statement, much like the bric-a-brac that he collected for his work.

Also, I realize that I've been addressing the themes of nostalgia, melancholy and escapism in my music. It's taken time to formulate these connections in relation to Joseph Cornell's work, but I feel that I now have a way to address these themes head on in the piece that I'll be writing.

Learn more about Joseph Cornell here: http://josephcornell.org/