| Symphonic Voyage - Composing and Recording Music with a Live Orchestra |
| September 2004 |
| return to ARTICLES |
Prologue
The challenges involved with creating an orchestral composition, scoring it, notating it, and having it played by an orchestra is awesome. The time had come for me to put together a collection of orchestral cues and fulfill my dream of having it played by an orchestra through a composer’s workshop. The experience has been absolutely fantastic but I’ve learned so much that I feel will help should this unique opportunity arise for me again. The purpose of this journal is to document the process of taking an idea from composition, to the various technical aspects of notation, part preparations, performance, recording, and revising and to help inform others who are thinking about working with an orchestra.
The composer’s workshop gathers several composers and gives them the opportunity to work with the Philharmonia Bulgerica Symphony Orchestra in Sofia, Bulgaria. In addition, a professional conductor works with the composer on the performance is recorded, edited, and mixed.
My objectives with this project are the following:
- Have three original orchestral cues composed totaling about ten minutes of music
- Prepare the orchestral parts
- Have them performed by a 70 piece orchestra
- Record, mix, and master the performance
It is an amazing thing to see and hear a performance of your own creation played by a professional orchestra.
From Concept to Score
From 2000 to 2003, I was working on a large scale orchestral work called “Ruins”. In 1991, I was in Egypt and saw the colossal ruins of Rameses. This collapsed statue must have stood hundreds of feet when it stood erect and what an imposing site it must have been.
The awesome crumbled Ruins of Rameses that inspired any artists including
Percy Shelley and myself.
In my work, Ruins, I reflect on the experience I had at feeling the presence of a now depleted strength and the grandeur that is now decomposed. Often we are reminded that power and strength are balanced with humility and frailty. This work tries to capture the balance between strength of the past and desolation now lying in ruins.
I began composing Ruins in summer of 2000 and completed it in summer of 2002 followed by orchestrations and general thematic reworking until July, 2002. The first part of the work was the theme of movement II, III.
I then added the prelude because I felt the work began too abruptly. I expanded on parts I liked and contrasting sections I felt the piece needed. While editing the work, the climax of movement VII really suggested to me needing an organ for a cathedral like solemn choral.
Though the impracticalities of employing such an instrument did not prevent me from adding the organ part, it is optional and used sparingly though to dramatic effect.
The overall feel of Ruin is both militaristic containing march like rhythms and agitated. Even when the music is quiet, it remains uneasy. This general uneasiness is produced by four techniques employed liberally.
A. Brass playing dominant chords (tonic, sub-dominant, dominant, octave) to create a brass band effect.
B. The use of the minor second interval in dominant chords.
C. Rapid note pulsing in the harmony
D. Use triplets creating a march-like resonance
Ruins is a single long movement though it can be broken down into distinct sections played without pause. Not unlike the sonata form of many large scale orchestral works, the various themes and sections of this music represents contrast and thematic development. Many of the themes are heard in the form of cells that are later expanded into themes.
The Prelude begins with a mezzo-forte low rumble of brass and drums. Horns, followed by trumpets play a staccato march-like rhythm while strings and winds pulsate rapidly – the rapid pulsating of the strings and winds play prominently in the entire work suggesting both vigor and decay.
The purpose of the prelude is not so much to introduce themes as much to set the two conflicting key signatures of c minor and f minor that play such a dominate role in the piece. Theme I is characterized by a forceful march by trumpets and trombones. It is heard in various guises throughout the work and also contains both cells and musical intervals that will work there way into melodies as the piece progresses. The minor third interval between the first and third notes in this melody characterizes much of music heard in Ruins. This gives the music a dramatic and somewhat sinister quality. The theme is mostly heard on the brass. Theme 1B is directly based on theme 1 though with altered rhythms and intervals. This is a variation of theme 1 transposed a fourth (tritone) with slight variants added to the rhythm (slower in some respects) and usually played with less boldness than theme 1. This march is an excerpt from the full score that I wanted to edit and record for this project.
In early August, 2004, Santa Cruz is host to a magnificent new music festival called the Cabrillo Festival of Music. This two week series of concerts showcases bright young talent having their music performed by an outstanding festival orchestra. One thing I especially love about the festival is how fresh and innovative the music is. The audience is just as passionate as the musicians and conductor, Marin Aslop, who does a wonderful service conducting these spirited performances.
In 2004, the festival featured such distinguised composers as Aaron Jay Kernis and John Adams plus other wonderful composers – Jennifer Hidgen, Kevin Puts, Thomas Ades, Christopher Rouse, among others. It is also great to have the opportunity to meet with the composers and discuss their music (composers attending the festival usually introduce their music prior to the performance).
Last year, I met Kevin Puts – an outstanding, vibrant, and talented young composer whose music is full of immediacy, drama, texture, and wonderful imagination. His Symphony No. 2 (Island of Innocence) written immediately following the events of September 11, 2001, was an amazing experience and quite frankly left the audience stunned.
Kevin is currently a professor of composition at my former school - the University of Texas at Austin. It was nice chatting with him about the music program and teachers I remember. I know Kevin has a long and distinguished career ahead of him and I strongly suggest looking into his music.
Kevin Puts answers questions from the audience during the Cabrillo Festival’s Lunch with the Composers.
During the 2004 Cabrillo Festival, I attended the “Lunch with the Composers” event in hopes of hearing the distinguished panel discuss the creative process and to hopefully get some opionions on the drafts of my score. Kevin graciously reviewed my scores and seemed genuinely interested.
While he was looking at the score, he called over Aaron Jay Kernis and both of them offered me suggestions. I was both humbled and honored to have such talented composers reviewing my score. The collected feedback they gave me was the following:
- Kevin felt my string writing was too difficult at the tempo I indicated of half note=80 beats per minute (very fast) putting it at about a presto speed. In addition, the strings get almost no time to rest during this 3 minute cue.
- Aaron felt a solo instrument could pull it off, but an ensemble would have difficulty.
- Kevin felt some adjustments were needed on the string notation to make it more lyrical and idiomatic.
I am grateful that Kevin Puts and Aaron Jay Kernis took time out to give me feedback and I will happily send them a recording of the music once it is completed.
I integrated Kevin and Aaron’s opinions into the score and felt it was time to solicit further opinions from friends of mine who were performers. Since I felt strings were tricky to write for, I asked Peter McConnel, who is a violinist/composer, and Sarah Fiene, who is a professional cellist, to review my scores.
After a day of fishing, we went to a restaurant and I pulled out my scores with Kevin and Aaron’s suggestions. One thing Peter stressed was how important it was to put contextually correct accidentals on the notes a violin must play. I approached the score thinking of key signatures and trying to keep the accidentals correct within that key. For example, e minor has F #. Peter suggested I make the F# note into a G flat. Though on a piano, these are the same keys, he pointed out that with a violin, it changes how the musician will interpret the note and was very important to get right. Sarah felt the cello parts were quite playable which was reassuring.
After meeting with Peter and Sarah, I had a list of changes that would hopefully enhance the playability since I do not have a lot of rehearsal time available to work through issues that could have been avoided if the notes were spelled differently. This information was invaluable to me and I felt after meeting with distinguished composers and professional performers, my pieces would at least be performable and nothing major should stand out. I do expect issues, I’m just hoping none of the issues will require changing the composition or other lengthy delays.
I realized it was very valuable to solicit the opinions of experts but there is also a danger to this. One would think the more opinions I would solicit, the closer the work would get to a general consensus opinion. The reality is that there were musicians who had different trains of thought and I would receive as many opinions as there were people to ask. In the end, I concluded it is useful to ask for opinions of experts, but it is still completely up to me and my responsibility to do what I wish and how I wish it.