The idea is to write from a place of riches -- if I'm not reading widely enough, my own writing bores me. Conversely, if I'm reading widely and producing responses, a steady trickle of those responses make it onto this platform.
Since the skill of memorization has been an ominous little clockwork dragon sputtering across my kitchen floor (thanks NLD), I decided to put together a memorized solo recital for an upcoming show in San Angelo, TX. Pulled out some old competition rep -- Paganini's fifth caprice, Piazzolla's Tango Etudes, Muczynski's solo flute preludes -- but it felt odd to program without some high-minded "thetical recital" objective. Is it sufficient to put together a show called "What's On my Stand Today?"
Luckily, NLD also gave me an audience when I recited Neil Gaiman's "In Relig Odhráin" on the car ride home from a climbing trip, and that was enough of a jumping-off point to restudy that poem and realize what a shambolic hash I'd been making of it. Trochaic octameter (poets, please correct me here) makes the poem musical enough to get stuck in my head, and its "act structure" feels more natural.
So...a recital structure inspired by Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, where you don’t get the whole poem unless you stick around to the end. Working title, "In Relig Odhráin: A Musical Exegesis."
Muczynski Prelude 1
IRO Stanza 1
Muczynski Prelude 2
IRO Stanzas 1-4
Muczynski Prelude 3
IRO Stanzas 5-6
Berio Sequenza
IRO Stanzas 1-8
Excerpt from Holliger "(T)aire"
IRO Stanzas 1-12
Encore: Bozza "Image"
Of course, calling the recital an "exegesis" is a little spicy. A violent, heretical little ghost story like "In Relig Odhráin" isn't for the faint of heart -- I'll have to attach a mild content warning to the recital if I go through with this idea.
15 Feb
Adding Debussy’s Syrinx to the list, so now we gotta talk about canonical thinking. I’ve got three meanings for the word canon, how about y’all?
CANON (n.)
(ecclesiastical) a high churchman
(almost as ecclesiastical) the established facts of the story, e.g. headcanon
(classical music) a historically standardized body of pieces written for a specific instrument/ensemble
In class with CS, we’d sometimes study mediocre 18th-century compositions. If you’re answering the question, “How do I read music from 1740?” you’d be shooting yourself in the foot by only reading J.S. Bach, who elevated the German High Baroque. You’d get a more balanced perspective on the a priori’s of an 18th-century court musician by reading John Stanley, who wrote a couple of bangers and many more perfectly respectable, average pieces for soloist and continuo. Those never made it into the canon, but they’re still so useful to me.
So if I frame “In Relig Odhráin” against a canonical favorite that every professional flutist knows, Debussy’s little ballet interlude about a nymph and a predatory satyr — thank you, Ovid — is that a productive use of that old saw? Or am I missing an opportunity to present something more recherché but also more apropos (and, heaven forbid, written in the 2020’s)?
19 Feb
Program took shape today after I recited the poem on a hiking trip yesterday — an audience always helps crystallize ideas. I wrote some original material today, too, for Oran’s icy message from beyond the grave.
Let the memorization continue…
