castles in the air
Now I want to either be a professional clarinetist or a high school physics teacher. That's what I tell my friends, parents, and academic advisers. But that's not the whole truth. One day I might--just might--like to compose as well.
Over the years I've toyed with the idea in my head. Lately I've given more serious thought to acutally what I would compose. I have a melody for a clarinet concerto, but the other details such as number of movements and their characteristics are still fuzzy, but I have ideas. There would be a movement with dance rhythms, perhaps with clapping?, and a slow trance-like movement with lots of pedal bass that would explore very consonant intervals and chords. And I'd also spin my melody into a Broadway-style love ballad, with lots of espressivo markings and momentum-building modulations that would make you in the audience put your hand to your heart and bask in warmth and beauty. Or something like that. As a model would be the slow variation from Maw's American Games.
My only planned idea of a piece for orchestra would be a symphony in one movement, of about 20 minutes in length. It would be designed to evoke the feelings of a particular place and time. Two late (read: so late it's twentieth century) romantic works would be my model: Sibelius's Symphony no. 7 and Barber's Symphony no. 1. The two pieces are similar in many respects, including length, blurred divisions between sections, and relative obscurity when compared to other works by their respective composers (In the case of the Barber, even Barber wasn't a fan of it). Yet both are, to my mind, masterpieces. Furthermore, I would swear on any Bible that Barber intended the middle section of his work to evoke the impression of the Chicago skyline at night specifically and nothing else. I have tested this hypothesis by listening to the piece in my cd player while staring at the Chicago skyline at night, and I'm convinced no other association works. As for the Sibelius symphony, the image would have to be natural, not man-made, and it would have to be awe-inspiring: a mammoth waterfall, a sunrise viewed from a mountian peak, or even better, from space. My piece would pay tribute to these two works. I'm not quite sure of the image I would use. Some possiblities are Northwestern's campus as it transforms with the seasons, or my own version of Chicago's skyline. Gotta think about it some more.
I am also keenly interested in exploring brass music. Brass ensembles can achieve a sound that is at once powerful, homogenized, and brilliant. In other words, they can do everything I as a puny woodwind cannot. (This works both ways, meaning I can do lots of stuff brass can't, so don't accuse me of being a traitor.) I am a huge fan of the works of Gabrielli--the canzonas and whatnot that are today played by brass ensembles. There is also some great medival-sounding brass lines in de Meij's Symphony no. 1, which most band dorks recognize as 'that Hobbits piece we played in honor band.'
My most ambitious proposed project would thus be called Music for Kings, and it would be a tribute to the lost, dignified music of the distant past. Its inspiration is a syncopated brass fanfare opening--it's been stored in my head for a couple of years now--that would tie the huge work together. It would have many, many small movements, perhaps a dozen, which would probably make the whole thing be called suite. And each would have some variation on or instance of the fanfare theme, a la Berlioz's idee fixe concept. The work would not be a brass-only piece however. It would be an opus for full winds and percussion alternating with smaller chamber ensembles contained therein. This idea for alternating instrumental forces comes from Gordon Jacob's Music for a Festival for alternating brass ensemble and full band. Note also the resemblences in the proposed titles.
Although I don't have any particular piece in mind for this, I would be remiss if I didn't pay tribute to John Williams somehow, particularly his music for the Star Wars series. Now I know his originality is questionable, make that nonexistant, but as Stravinsky once said, a good composer imitates; a great composer steals. Come to think of it, that's probably how I would compose too. My music would give a voice to my very obscure and highly sporadic knowledge of the repertoire.
These ideas may seem highly developed to you, but please hold off on the 'Go for it!'. Like a castle in the air, these works lack foundation, lack framework. They are like those whimsical building plans drawn up as proposals to rebuild the World Trade Center site, with the really-freakin'-tall-just-for-the-heck-of-it translucent skyscraper in the middle and the little green computerized blobs for trees, and the little airbrushed stick people on the ground shopping in the fake waterfront avenue or getting into their toy racecars. Before I can develop my ideas further, I need to do a hell of a lot of reasearch first, and I need to learn more music theory, and I need to learn to orchestrate and to make all the notes go in the right place and for them to sound good. And I need to actually compose something. I need to start off small and learn from experience.
For now, though, I'm just going to worry about improving my health and getting through these last two weeks of school. Two more lessons, one concert, one sonata quiz, one 3-page paper on a Mozart seranade, one skills test, one aural skills final, one math final, one lab, and one physics final to go.