The second movement in the Divine Office work comes from the same place that the first movement did: a flute and organ work reworked for an evening prayer service around 2008. These first two pieces were originally titled Vespers and Benediction. Their use at the beginning of the Divine Office led me to the idea that they could be the beginning of something bigger. And bigger for the organ more specifically.
Later on, when the movement arrives, there is one work written far earlier than the rest. In the meantime though, this is the second of two works originally conceived as a specific set for a specific reason. As a “prelude” and “postlude,” I like them quite a bit together even without the flute.
The Divine Office is one of the strangest works I have written. By that I mean it has an odd history of being a conglomerate of several different points of composition. I should begin with my brief opinion about the Liturgy of the Hours.
As I have often mentioned in previous posts, I work at a Monastery as the Director of Music in the Church of the Monastery (compared to the Retreat Center, which is part of the Passionist charism). At some point, we had explored the idea of holding specific hours in the Church. It never really caught on, but this piece was compiled and composed in the Fall of 2009 with a specific afternoon prayer in mind.
The first two movements, this being Matins (or Midnight in the Liturgy of the Hours), were originally written for flute and organ manuals. The pedal part takes the place of the flute and this is the result. Originally, as these things happen to be conceived, Matins, was a part of a service at the Monastery. I did not record the original version of the work but rather reworked it into an organ piece and this is the result.
Under almost every circumstance, I would not post another composer’s work here unless I had a specific reason. That happened once before when I used another composition as direct inspiration for a work that I wrote. In this specific post, I post as a performer as much as a composer. My 5-year old, Malachi, walked up to me recently, handed me some sheets of paper and asked if I could play what he wrote. I was so surprised!
I have performed (and occasionally recorded) a lot of music but this was an absolute honor. Malachi wanted the music to be the CRAZIEST thing I have ever played. I have performed some crazy music, besides the improvisations I like to do, and this was so fun. So much fun. I played for him Stockhausen, Cage, Ligeti, among things I may not remember exposing in his five years of life.
How does one realize an abstract score such as the one given? Well, it starts with many of the elements involved in creating an improvisation – arc, form, continuity. Malachi wanted crazy, so I interpreted that as very un-pitched material, in the tonal sense of pitch material. I think if you follow the video, the rhythms make sense, or at least have logic in my particular interpretation.
Lastly, as a parent, which is something I do not talk about on this blog, this makes me SO FREAKIN’ HAPPY. And when I played my rendition of his notes, he had a HUGE grin. SO EXCITED. SMILEY FACE HAPPY. 🙂 Enjoy!
This is the final improvisation for the “Evening Improvisation” series. It is loud, a bit obnoxious, and was totally fun to play. It has some elements similar to the earlier cluster-percussion improvisation, but from a different angle. Specifically, there is a nearly continuous tremolo cluster in the pedals. The feet are usually playing a chord that is accentuated by the hands. I actually found this to be quite technically challenging. And I will be honest, it has got me thinking that I might write a series of etudes for organ!
Happy Thanksgiving! Almost that is. And if you’re in the US (hi Canadian and non-US friends!). I have sat on a few improvisations that I was not too crazy about from a recording session at Duquesne’s Chapel with the new organ. I decided this week that I would head back in and try again. To explain: my goal with the Evening Improvisations was twelve total recordings. Six from the Monastery, and six elsewhere, Rice and Duquesne. That plan was built as I was making recordings and in my mind, make a nice cycle. It happens though, that I become unhappy with a product and feel the need to go back and start over.
In this case, over the weekend, I played for the Retreat Center side of the Monastery as my counterpart was out ill. Part of their format includes two evening prayers where I get to improvise a long prelude to the service. This improvisation was born out of one of those evenings. It starts, as I often like to do, with a collection of harmonic inspired pitches and builds from there. Unlike the electronic Rogers, the chapel organ has much more timbre to explore. And unlike the service, I let it get a bit more dissonant.
Oof. That is how I will being today. I have never thought of myself as much of a pianist and the technical ability on a high performing level feels much out of reach. I hosted a recital where the fantastic Ching-Wen Hsiao played some Debussy and reminded me how much I am not a pianist. (This is a backward compliment to say that she is FANTASTIC). That being said, I do try to keep my fundamental skills and technique together by doing my scales and other exercises. Combine this with a renewed interest in piano repertoire (I have been playing through Beethoven and Gershwin for fun) and I have decided to tackle and create some etudes.
The etude, study, is usually used to enhance one’s technique. That means the piece needs to offer some technical challenge while being artistically pleasing as a piece of music. Ideally, of course. My favorite set of etudes are Ligeti’s. So good. There are others, perhaps most famously Chopin’s Etudes.
What can add to this genre? I’ve thought about it and I think there are things that I may be able to offer. This is the second of the Etudes that I plan to write and the first one that I have completed and performed. And as stated at the very beginning: oof. It was hard! The goal of the piece is to stretch your wrist motion and it certainly does that. I’m generally happy with my performance here and I hope to have a few more etude recordings posted over the next several months.
Since Easter, one of the local parishes on the South Side of Pittsburgh unfortunately closed. While this situation is certainly an unhappy one, the Monastery, located up on the South Side Slopes, has become a new home for many of those church-goers. We have enjoyed being as welcoming as we can even though we are not a parish and I must say, those who have joined us seem to be quite happy. On the smaller scale, it has often meant longer processions in the liturgies.
For example, I was afforded more time to explore the chant proper. I have lamented before that I felt there was a sameness to some of the improvisations I was posting so I opted not to post liturgical improvisations for a while. Now that life since DMA comps has returned to some normalcy, I decided that it was time to post.
Tournemire. I have had him on my mind quite a bit lately. I gave a lecture on his music about a year ago and my fascination with his music and his potential manipulation of harmonic spectre. That means I have spent a lot of time with his music and it has certainly had a great effect on my approach to liturgical improvisation. I often feel quite blessed that the Monastery and its people are so welcoming of these kinds of improvisations. Perhaps, this sort of meditation is what I feel being monastic is.
I am pleased to present the second set of Chorale Preludes. This being November (or as conceived, October), I figured a set of Advent Prelude and Postludes would be most appropriate. As mentioned in a previous post, I really haven’t tackled many chorales as an organist/composer because it has never really interested me. Not that I dislike them by any means, because I improvise on them all the time. Composition and improvisation are such different things to me that I feel it’s worth mentioning and exploring.
This particular set of Chorales includes three very well known Advent hymn tunes. The first is perhaps the most connected to how I look at improvising a set of chorale variations: chorale, bicinium, celeste, and toccata. The only missing improvisational element is a trio, which is what happens in the next chorale prelude. I love BESANÇON as a hymn and it is a treat to share these brief variations on them. Click the following link for a copy of the score:
Comprehensive exams are over, most things that fell behind are caught up, and things are looking pretty good moving forward. I have some recordings nearly ready for the blog, but time is always an issue. That being said, Luca Massaglia recently was in touch with me expressing interest in the Ostinato from the Organbook. After he received the music, he promptly posted the following video. And it is great! I really love how the same work can offer two different interpretations, even when there are slight differences. It is of course, an honor when performers are interested in one’s own compositions.
As of this coming Monday, I begin the first part of my DMA comprehensive exams. That being said, I will be taking a short hiatus. Do enjoy this small update that I will get around to recording: three chorale preludes. I never have been particularly interested in writing chorale preludes until recently. You can look at my oeuvre and other than the What Wondrous Love variations, I haven’t done it. And then recently I got a piece in the AGO Bayoubuchlein and thought that I should explore it further. Click on the link or head over to the free works and enjoy!
