Looking Back: 7 early works

July 20, 2017

Over the past few weeks I've been reviving some old forgotten pieces of music I wrote when I was in my 20's, posting them as video scores on YouTube. Why do that?

As I was writing new music over the past year, at some point I realised that my old works were asking me an important question. The question was this: What are you going to do with us? There are stories of well known composers who destroy all their early works. Brahms comes to mind. I thought for a moment about doing this, but to me it seemed inhuman and wrong. I decided that it makes much more sense to share my early work than to destroy it. This way, assuming that the music I write now — 20+ years later — is actually better (no guarantees there), then maybe a sense of progress might be found in what I've managed to do. After all, I still like the things I wrote back then. There are a few pieces that I would call unsuccessful, that I consider not worth sharing now, but most of what I wrote as a younger me was really not bad. The best of my early pieces were quite flawed, for sure, but I'm not embarrassed by them. On the contrary, I like them. Maybe this has something to do with the fact that I'm very aware that the music I'm writing now is still quite flawed, in ways that I know I can't understand right now. I won't understand until later. That's a big part of continuing to learn and improve. The more I understand about what I’m trying to do, the more flaws I can see in what I’ve done up to that point, and the more wary I am that anything I’m doing is ever as wonderful as I want it to be, but that doesn't stop me from daring to continue. This is something I simply didn't think about when I was younger. Maybe now I think about it too often, but it keeps me grounded.

Here are the works I've posted in the past week to YouTube, in reverse chronological order.

In 1997, I was 25 years old, just out of graduate school, and being away from the conservatory meant that most (not all) of the music I was writing at that time was doomed never to be performed. That situation continued until I started teaching theory and composition full time in 2002. This is why for the works between 1996 and 2002, I have no live recordings, only electronic realisations. For the English Mass and the Trio in e, I used MIDI Tapper to produce acceptable audio for the video scores. See what you think. If you like any of these pieces, let me know. Scores of the student works are also posted as free PDF downloads.

English Mass (1997)

for four voices SATB … the mass text set in English using simultaneous mirror canons in unequal intervals of inversion and time. The credo includes a wide variety of contrapuntal techniques in addition to mirror canon, and is written in an experimental declamatory rhythmic notation. You may notice occasional parallel perfect consonances. These were written intentionally in the original version. I haven't decided yet if I'll change any notes before publishing the score.

Trio 1 in C (1997)

originally written for pipe organ … upper parts in mirror canon, freely written bass line … one from a set of three trios, and also one from a set of four variations on (the harmonic structure of) a two-part invention written in 1995.

20 Reflections (1997)

for unspecified instruments … mini-compositions using double and triple mirror canons. Originally intended for public radio as “bumper music” between spots, but never used. The recordings are also from 1997, made with a Korg 01/W keyboard, recorded to minidisc. I couldn’t find the disc containing a few of the pieces, so I had to make a few new recordings. I no longer have the Korg, and I didn’t want to spend too much time on this, so I used soundfonts, which sound comparatively lame. I had also uploaded an earlier version of this video, but then I found some errors in the score, which have now been corrected. The original notation was done by hand, on graph paper, and I made a few mistakes when transcribing that into the computer using standard music notation.

Trio in e (1996)

for pipe organ … upper voices in mirror canon, pedal part freely composed

Fuga a3 in a (1993)

undergraduate final project for 18th Century counterpoint class in 1993, with a few improvements from 2017 (changes are written in red). No, the world probably doesn’t need this fugue, but I’m sharing it here anyway as a way to thank my counterpoint teacher, Dr. John Miller, who is now director of the department of music at North Dakota State University. PDF score

for W. David Hobbs (1992)

for piano …

W. David Hobbs was professor of piano at Eastern Illinois University from 1991 until his early death from cancer in 2007. He was my teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend.

David took me on as a private student in 1991, which was unusual, because piano was not my major instrument. In fact, I had only taken a handful of piano lessons in my life. I was allowed to focus on the works of J.S.Bach in my lessons, which helped me immensely as a composer.

In 1992, David asked me to write a piece for him. This eight-part work, which alternates between abstract harmonies and quasi-baroque counterpoint, is the result. At that time, I had not formally studied counterpoint — a fact evident in the many flaws of this (hand-written) music, but the piece shows what I had absorbed from my lessons with David, in addition to what I had been learning from my composition teacher, Peter Hesterman.

This is David’s rendition, the first performance of the work, recorded live. He also played it during his summer concert tours around the midwest in the mid 90’s. In the 25 years since its inception, the work has remained unplayed by anyone else. I now dedicate it to his memory.

Thank you, David …

PDF score

Suite for Violin and Marimba (1992)

In 1991, a composition contest was announced by marimbist Nancy Zeltsman and violinist Sharan Leventhal, then known together as the actively performing and recording duo Marimolin. At the age of 19, having studied percussion for almost a decade, my experience playing marimba allowed me to write easily and idiomatically for that instrument. On the other hand, I had been taking viola lessons for only about a year, and writing for violin was much more challenging for me. I threw caution to the wind, quickly wrote a single-movement work in 7/8 and submitted it to the contest. Although the piece was not selected as a winner, I was happy to receive a personal letter from Zeltsman and Leventhal which included some helpful feedback and encouragement for me to expand the work for submission to the next competition the following year.

That earlier work became the core of the second movement of a five-movement Suite as it stands in this score, completed in June of 1992 and newly resubmitted with high hopes to the next Marimolin composition contest that same year. By that time, I had taken two academic years of music theory and ear training, although I had not yet studied counterpoint. The five movements of the suite alternate slow, fast, slow, fast, slow with fast movements in 5/8 and 7/8, totalling around 13 minutes of music.

1. Prelude — ca. 3 min.
2. Scherzando — ca. 2 min.
3. Intermezzo — ca. 2 min.
4. Vivace — ca. 4 min.
5. Postlude — ca. 2 min.

This new larger piece was unfortuntely again rejected by Marimolin, and this time I was given no feedback. I was disappointed, of course, but remained confident in the value of the work. Twenty-five years later, I am glad to find that the music stands up relatively well, despite its flaws.

Personally speaking, I wrote this music not for a contest, but for my friends and fellow undergraduate students, percussionist Jeff Magby and violinist Rebecca Walker. Many intense rehearsals preceded their premiere performance in the spring of 1992. In the intervening years to date, nobody else has played this music. I now therefore formally dedicate this piece to both of them, with renewed thanks.

A final note to marimbists who may consider playing this music — it is in some places admittedly extraordinarily difficult, requiring very large stretches, but it is not impossible. Also, as I checked the score against the only existing recording, I found that Jeff sometimes altered rolling for playability. I have not changed the score to reflect these differences, but please exercise your best judgement concerning the sustaining of notes.

STUDENT PERFORMERS

Jeff Magby — marimba
Rebecca Walker — violin

N.B. violin glissandi are intentional!

PDF score

Best Regards,
Aaron