STUDIED WORKS

Here I will keep a list of works I have listened to/scores I have studied which have some relevance to my thesis. I will post a reflection on each once I have had a chance to look at/listen to them.

- Stravinsky: Histoire du Soldat
- Saariaho: Lichtbogen
- Schoenberg: Survivor from Warsaw
- William Walton: Facades
- Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (overture)
- Prokofiev: Peter and the Wolf
- Copland: Lincoln Portrait
- Tobias Picker: The Encantadas
- Sibelius: The Lonely Ski Trail
- Sibelius: Snofrid



http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Scores_featuring_a_narrator

TIMELINE

This is the basic (and flexible) timeline for the composition and completion of my thesis:

March-May: Study/review/listen/look at scores in preparation for the aural comprehension exam
Late May: Aural comprehension exam

June:
- Official thesis proposal
- Score order
- Seating plan
- Text chosen
- Text separated into sections
- Instrumentation for each section chosen
- Interludes or no interludes?
- Beginning of piece- spoken or instrumental first?
- Duration of each section
- Overall form diagram
- Create rough draft of instrumental score for 1 part 1 interlude/prelude/postlude
- Blog posts for progress

July:
- Form diagram of each Part
- 2 parts, 2 interludes
- Prologue or Epilogue
- blog posts for progress

August:
- 2 parts, 2 interludes
- Prologue or Epilogue
- begin work on extracting instrumental parts for completed sections.
- blog posts for progress

September:
- Intermezzo
- Prelude/Postlude
- continue working on instrumental parts
- blog posts for process

October:
- extract and edit score and parts
- blog posts for process
- Begin writing supplementary document about piece
- compile bibliography

November:
- rehearsals
- continue/finish supplementary document about piece
- prepare for oral defense


MUSIC
- Instrumental prelude (Do I want this or not?)
- Prologue
- Interlude 1
- Part 1
- Interlude 2
- Part 2
- Intermezzo/interlude
- Part 3
- Interlude 3
- Part 4
- Interlude 4
- Epilogue
- Postlude (Again, not sure if I want this.)

So there are in total:

Prelude/Postlude (possibly)
Prologue/Epilogue
4 parts
4 interludes (possibly)
1 intermezzo

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

This is the forest primeval.

The murmuring pines and hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced ocean speaks,

And in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

Waste are those peasant farms, and the farmer forever departed!

Scattered like dust and leaves, when mighty blasts of October seize them,

And whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far over the ocean.

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.

Yet ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,

Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,

List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;

List to a tale of love in Acadie, home of the happy.

OBJECTIVES

• Introduce leitmotivs
• create atmosphere
  

INSTRUMENTS

• marimba
• piano
• violin
• viola
• flute
• clarinet
• horn
  

DURATION

• 2:30

LEITMOTIVS:

• Grand-Pre
  - Tremolo motif in piano, oscillating like the ocean, pan-diatonic harmonies, small range (within a 7^th), alternation between consonant and dissonant, slow movement from one sonority to the next.

• Clarinet melody, counterpoint with horn
• Descending 4^th motif

• Acadie
  • Drones in background (harmonics?),
  • violin melody
  • grace notes  
    

• Evangeline
  • Violin melody
  • ascending fifth, then M6
  • embellishments in flute, trills, etc.
  • Horn, cello for harmony
    

• Gabriel
  • Viola melody
  • descending 4^th, ascending 2^nd.
  • Clarinet embellishments with repeated note rhythms
  • horn, cello for harmony
    

• Ocean
  • horn melody, clarinet counterpoint
  • harmony in cello, piano

• South
  • violin melody, similar to Evangeline, more use of diminished 5^th and minor 6^th
  • very little harmonic accompaniment
  • drones and slides

• Searching/time passing
  • tone passed from instrument to instrument- timbral modulation
  • tremolo in strings
  • rhythmic ambiguity, metric modulation and/or added values
  • atonal, only fleeting use of recognizable chords and sonorities
  • quiet, but with constant fluctuation in dynamics

ATMOSPHERE

• quiet, steady, misty
• all melodic voices alternate in speaking leitmotivs, little counterpoint
• harmonic voices steady in rhythm, but harmonic progression should speed and slow like waves

OTHER

• Does the ensemble play first, or does the narrator speak first?

FOR FURTHER DISSECTION:

This is the forest primeval.

The murmuring pines and hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced ocean speaks,

And in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

Seating chart

This could be fun.

 

I think this would be a fairly typical setup, with the voice where a singer would be if they were singing with an orchestra- alternatively, the voice could go on the right side, with the woodwinds. Right now, this diagram looks very left-heavy...I mean, the piano, strings and trumpet are on the left side...So there's also this:

 

I'm on the fence as to the tpt/hn and cl/fl, who should sit on the right and who should sit on the left. I like having the brass in the middle, but if I do that, the trumpet's bell is going to be pointing straight toward the audience. And with the strings and woodwinds sharing roles and themes, I think that this setting might actually be more appropriate:

 

 





There's a lot of dialogue happening between strings and brass, which relates to the Acadie vs British theme. This puts my flute and clarinet in the middle and keeps the trumpet from pointing straight out to the audience. It also has my horn across from the cello, which I like since I like having the two of them play together, same with violin and trumpet. Viola's just kind of...There, as are the woodwinds. Another alternative that I kind of like is this:

 

 

So the cello is in the middle, with flute on one side and clarinet on the other. This pairs violin with trumpet, viola with horn, flute with clarinet and has cello on its own. 

 

...I think my seating plan will probably be in the works for a while; since I'm using the ensemble in so many different ways, the final seating plan will have to take these into consideration so that there's no moving around throughout the piece, but the players are all able to see and work with each other. 

 

Score Order

This will likely be under development throughout my entire thesis-writing process.

I don't know why, but for some reason, I absolutely want to have the Narrator at the top of the staff, always. If there is a conductor (and I still have a feeling I'll need one), I'd think it'd be easier to see. Because while the instruments will be changing throughout the piece, the Narrator will almost always be present, except for during the interludes. For this reason, it is my belief that whenever the narrator is being used, it should be at the top of the score, to facilitate things for both the conductor and the narrator.

I've got a few possible score orders, and will post my comments on them below.

fl
cl
hn
tpt
perc
pno
voice
vln
vla
vlc

...First of all, I don't like that the voice is below the piano. This is probably because I'm a violinist and I like to see my line at the top. Yeh yeh, violin-diva-mentality, whatever. But it's just easier for my eyes to pick out the focal line if it's either above the piano, or at the top of the page. Thus why there's also this possibility:

fl
cl
hn
tpt
perc
voice
pno
vln
vla
clv

...But my brain still doesn't like seeing the voice in the middle. I also don't like seeing it below percussion, because sometimes the percussion used will need a treble and bass clef, so the voice will be sandwiched between, say, piano and marimba. And it just doesn't look nice, in my mind. So let's try throwing it up at the top.

voice
fl
cl
hn
tpt
perc
pno
vln
vla
vcl

So there's that, and I like that one better. It does separate the voice from the piano, which some people might not like, and yes, the piano player might read from a score- depending on how many instruments are playing- but the piano isn't going to be the most predominant instrument; I'm using it mostly to add to the bass, and occasionally to flesh out the colours and add to the texture. It's not going to be very soloistic in this. (Sorry pianists!) SO with this being the case, I've wrangled things around again:

voice
fl
cl
hn
tpt
vln
vla
vlc
perc
pno

So the voice is at the top, and the piano is at the bottom- this, for some reason, makes the mose sense in my head. The piano is being used for an accompaniment purpose in this piece, so I want it at the bottom- because it's accompanying the ensemble, not the voice in particular. The voice is somehat separate from the ensemble, hence why it is at the top, followed by the melodic instruments, leading down to percussion and piano. This is my favourite score order, but I'm going to have to look at other pieces for narrator/voice and chamber ensemble to see what other people do, and why they do it.

Text

One of the first parts to composing my thesis is definitely choosing which excerpts from the text I want to use. "Evangeline" is HUGE, which means I've had to read through it a few times in order to get a general sense of the story so I can pick and choose the text I want to use. Right now, I know I've got more text than I'll likely use- but I can cut out bits as I work away, rather than having to go back and add some in...If it comes to that, then fine, but for right now, I think I've got more than enough.

I've chosen excerpts which help to best portray the story, excluding some sections here and there since the general gist of the plot can be gathered from what I've chosen. There are some parts I've left about- actually, there's a lot that I've left out- but the frame of the story is there. We get the setting, a bit of detail about the two main characters, the plot and the inevitable arrival of the British who make everything go crazy, and then Evangeline's search for Gabriel which emcompasses the vast majority of the poem...So I've narrowed that down quite a bit. I've also separated it into sections, so that I can have a tone for each of them represented in the music. Again, these are flexible and will change/have already changed as I've worked on them.

The text I've chosen is as follows:

PROLOGUE

This is the forest primeval.

The murmuring pines and hemlocks,

Bearded with moss, stand like druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic.

Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced ocean speaks,

And in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.

Waste are those peasant farms, and the farmer forever departed!

Scattered like dust and leaves, when mighty blasts of October seize them,

And whirl them aloft, and sprinkle them far over the ocean.

Naught but tradition remains of the beautiful village of Grand-Pre.

Yet ye who believe in affection that hopes, and endures, and is patient,

Ye who believe in the beauty and strength of woman's devotion,

List to the mournful tradition still sung by the pines of the forest;

List to a tale of love in Acadie, home of the happy.

PART I

In the Acadian land, on the shores of the Basin of Minas,

Distant, secluded, still, the little village of Grand-Pre lay in the fruitful valley.

Somewhat apart from the village, Benedict Bellefontaine, the wealthiest farmer of Grand-Pre

dwelt on his goodly acres;

and with him, directing his household, gentle Evangeline lived,

His child, and the pride of the village.

Fair was she to behold, that maid of seventeen summers.

Many a youth fixed his eyes upon her, as the saint of his deepest devotion.

Many a suitor came to her door, by the darkness befriended,

and knew not which beat louder, his heart or the knocker of iron,

But among all who came, young Gabriel was only welcome;

Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the Blacksmith.

He was a valiant youth, and his face, like the face of morning,

Gladdened the earth with its light.

Evangeline was a woman now, with the heart and hopes of a woman.

Under the open sky, in the odorous air of the orchard,

Bending with golden fruit, was spread the feast of betrothal.

There in the shade of the porch were the priest and notary seated;

there good Benedict sat, and sturdy Basil the blacksmith.

Fairest of all the maids was Evangeline, Benedict's daughter!

Noblest of all the youths was Gabriel, son of the blacksmith!

PART II

And Lo! With a summons sonorous sounded the bell from its tower,

and over the meadows a drum beat.

Then came the guard from the ships, and marching proudly among them

entered the sacred portal.

Then uprose their commander, and spake from the altar,

holding aloft in his hands, with its seals, the royal commission.

“You are convened this day by his majesty's orders.

All your lands, and dwellings, and cattle of all kinds

forfeited be to the crown; and that you yourselves from this province

be transported to other lands.

God grant you dwell there ever as faithful as subjects,

a happy and peaceable people.

Prisoners I now declare you; for such is his Majesty's pleasure!”

There disorder prevailed, and the tumult and stir of embarking,

Busy piled the freighted boats,

and in the confusion wives were torn from husbands,

and mothers, too late, saw their children left on the land, extending their arms, with wildest entreaties.

So unto separate ships were Basil and Gabriel carried,

while in despair on the shore Evangeline stood.

Lo! With a mournful sound, like the voice of a vast congregation,

Solemnly answered the sea, and mingled its roar with the dirges.

And with the ebb of that tide the ships sailed our of the harbour,

Leaving behind them the dead on the shore, and the village in ruins.

PART III

Many a weary year had passed since the burning of Grand-Pre

when on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed,

bearing a nation into exile,

exile without an end.

Scattered were they, like flakes of snow.

From the cold lakes of the North to the sultry Southern savannas.

Long among them was seen a maiden who waited and wandered,

lowly and meek in spirit and patiently suffering all things.

Sometimes she lingered in towns, sometimes in churchyards strayed,

and gazed upon the crosses and tombstones,

sat by some nameless grave, and thought perhaps in its bosom

he was already at rest, and she longed to slumber beside him.

And the soul of the maiden wandered along, and she cried

“O Gabriel, O my beloved,

art thou so near unto me, yet I cannot behold thee?

Art thou so near unto me, and yet thy voice does not reach me?

When shall these eyes behold, these arms be folded about thee?”

Day after day the maiden followed his flying steps,

sometime she saw, or thought she saw, the smoke of his campfire,

but at nightfall she found only embers and ashes.

PART IV

Slowly, slowly, slowly, the day succeeded each other,

days and weeks and months,

so came the autumn and passed, and the winter yet Gabriel came not.

Blossomed the opening spring, yet Gabriel came not.

Thus did the long, sad years glide on,

Each year stole something away from her beauty,

But Gabriel was not forgotten. Within her heart was his image

into her thoughts of him time had not entered.

Thus, on a sabbath morn she entered the door of the almshouse.

Noiselessly she moved about the assiduous, careful attendants,

moistening the feverish lip, the aching brow, ad in silence,

closing the sightless eyes of the dead.

Many a languid head, upraised as Evangeline entered,

turned on its pillow of pain to gaze while she passed,

For her presence fell on their hearts like a ray of sun on the walls of a prison.

Suddenly, as if arrested by fear or a feeling of wonder,

Still she stood.

On the pallet before her was stretched the form of an old man.

Long and thin, and gray were his locks that shaded his temples,

But as he lay in the morning light, his face for a moment

seemed to assume once more the form of its earlier manhood.

As in the days of her youth, Evangeline rose in his vision

years came into his eyes; and slowly he lifted his eyelids.

Vainly he strove to whisper her name, for the accents unuttered

died on his lips.

Vainly he strove to rise, and Evangeline, kneeling beside him,

kissed his dying lips and laid her head on his bosom.

All was ended now, the hope, the fear, and the sorrow.

All the aching heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing.

All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience.

And, as she pressed once more the lifeless head to her bosom,

Meekly she bowed her own and muttered “Father, I thank thee.”

 

EPILOGUE

Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow

side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.

Under the humble walls of the little churchyard

In the heart of the city they lie, unknown and unnoticed.

Still stands the forest primeval, but under the shade of its branches

dwells another race, with other customs and languages.

Only along the shore of the mournful and misty Atlantic

Linger a few Acadian peasants.

In the fisherman's cot the wheel and loom are still busy;

Maidens by the evening fire repeat Evangeline's story

While from its rocky caverns the deep-voiced ocean

speaks, and in accents disconsolate, answers the wail of the forest. 

 

 

...So there's still lots there to work with.  Honestly, I've already got music written for a few parts of this- I'm behind on my blogging, obviously, and I've got a lot of catching up to do, especially with reference to the instrumentation, score order, seating plan, leitmotivs, influential composers/pieces, etc. etc. etc. But that'll all come soon!

Thesis.

Thesis. It's a monster.

I've been told a few times by different people that the difficult part of doing a thesis isn't the composition process, but the process of writing about it afterwards. I've been told several times that for most composers, this is the hard part- writing about their own work. I don't think I've ever had issues with this in the past, but I figured- that's probably because I tend to keep a fairly good record of what's going through my head while I write. I plan and plan and plan and plan, and then start composing- with reference to the plans I've made, sketches I've drawn, etc. I reflect a lot, so I generally have a decent idea of what's going on when I write music...But just in case this thesis is any different, I've decided to keep track of stuff here. It's not going to be professional, it might not be witty or enlightening, BUT it'll hopefully help me in the long run when I actually have to sit down and defend why I wrote what I dun writ.

SO: What is it?

I am taking certain lines from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem "Evangeline," and set it to music. I'd like it to be narrated, and possibly sometimes sung, when appropriate- but I'm not sure I want it to be sung in an opera-esque style. The ensemble will be a modified chamber ensemble, and will use some Acadian/Maritime folk tunes but I will probably disguise them so they're not blatantly apparent. That's it in a nutshell- I've already begun working on it and will continue to do so and post more details in the future.