April 4 - Music as a Gradual Process

Morning magic, and record Op. 161 Genre Implosions No. 1: 4 Gradual -- two Gregorian graduals, Psalm 146 and Hec Dies, in juxtaposition, the latter overlapped.





Boy soprano solo (6 bars) in the second movement of Leonard Bernstein's Chichester Psalms for dictation in Theory, with its bluesy melody (Mi and Me), varied rhythms over a basic Do-Re-Mi --

A:

Sol Re Do Re Mi Do Re Mi Do Re Do Me Do Re Do --

and Please Mr. Postman altered harmony...

I vi IV ii V I...

... with an inevitably descending bass and two common-tones at a time for a stretch (since the harmony moves in thirds), at least when harmonizing traditionally.


Thereafter, Marin time, over the Richmond Bridge with views of San Rafael, picking up the April 2008 21st-Century Music, plus post-office and paper grading, then home



on 101 with the Big Rock Ridge looming,



over the divide between Marinwood and Novato,



tilting beyond Mt. Burdell


and Deer Island (a nomenclatural stretch, as it is surrounded by marshlands).



Off I-80 at Cordelia



and up Susuin Valley



where Twin Sisters unite above arbors



and the serene loneliness of a white ranchette



appears threatened by the encroaching development of those conscienceless conceivers of Ranch Solano.


The hills and cows don't seem to know the difference,


the slopes greening up as


the Pants-with-Nobody-Inside-Em Orchard blooms.

April 1 - Fuels Day

Driving hither and yon today, as is so often the case, but first write up Marin Symphony for Commuter Times, below

***

Aaron Copland once said something to the effect that
music is pretty much about the melody, and, while this is way overdrawn, there is still much to be said about the notion.

The Marin Symphony's "Season of the Silver Screen" continued on March 30 with a program that was less cinematic but rather more anamnestic.

OK, I admit -- had to google that last word for dramatic effect: it means, according to dictionary.com, "the recollection or remembrance of the past; reminiscence" and it brings to mind the memorability factor in music.

I'm home now. I'm remembering the music of the concert. What do I remember, just off the top of my head, without referring to my notes, but rather, instead, just the notes of the concert that I can remember?

The Haydn Cello Concerto, with its opening thematic gambit of a demonstrative C, followed by dotted "long-short" rhythms B C D E F and the cadential (ending) phrase of F E D E F C B C.

Catchy tune, which I've seemed to know all my life, and indeed the piece was astoundingly only relatively recently re-discovered (1962) at just about the time I was tuning in.

Also memorable was Hai-Yi Ni's animated and elevated playing, bringing a still-youthful demeanor and freshness to the endeavor as well as the experience of a solo career that dates back to 1991.

Keeping on the Aaron Copland citations, this is an actual quote: “A melody is not merely something you can hum.” And this definitely came to mind when recalling the sometimes-impressive efforts of Pierre Jalbert in "Fire and Ice," a 20-minute work that comes with a resounding several concluding minutes of excitingly strident percussion that forced its way into the consciousness.

The proceeding "Ice" was an age of stilled strings and shimmering by-now-a-bit-over-used bowed vibraphone strokes that left its own glacial moraine in the mind.

And as for Antonin Dvorak's Symphony No. 7, here's the composer on the subject -- "Wherever I go, I have nothing else in my mind but my new symphony, which must be such as to make a stir in the world, God willing."

And here's the cinematic Herr Rosenberg in Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus"... "A young man trying to impress.... Too many notes."

And, while this is unfair, and probably irrelevant, and Dvorak was not all that young at 44 when he completed this symphony, still we can hear the composer working hard to astound.

And the Marin Symphony gave it a gorgeous run, from the purely sonorous side of the street. And Dvorak provides symphonic solutions here that are not always the expected ones, and that go beyond some received norms.

Still, what remains? For that, his best symphonic workouts were next to come in his remaining two symphonies.

What lingers in the mind is that the composer had a ways to go. But that the Marin Symphony has come a long way, and continues of late to produce quality concerts on a par with the best.

***


Theory dictation is second part of Richard Rodgers's Do-Re-Mi, with increasing harmonic rhythm, followed by bits of Olivier Messiaen and blues.


Evening class a conclusion of music from Alban Berg through Dmitri Shostakovich and Messiaen, then Left Bank with Doug and Owen, and finally home to Harriet and page 17 of Variations on Americana orchestration.

The birthday hits tomorrow....

March 30 - The Journey Out

Time to leave the Vaca Mountains and English Hills again, at least for awhile,



turning and getting on I-80, the northside of the Lagoon Mountains as a bumpy dark green horizon,


the south side of the Poverty Hills starting to sere out against rogue cumuli.


Harriet's driving, so I get to take slightly better pictures than normal of some of the 680 sights, including Long Barn and its backing fingers of vegetated canyons reaching up to the Sulfur Springs summits,


Eden,


the Hovel Hills,


and Horse Farm



On beyond, approaching cloudier conditions near Orinda,



up to


and through the Caldecott Tunnel



for another rehearsal of Antigone: III-V and San Rafael News at Berkeley's Chamber Arts with Eliza, Kristin, Beth, and Janet;



then to the City for a brief practice with John Partridge, checking the Goat Hall mail, dropping the PHNH key off with Erling, lunching in the chill of Connecticut Yankee, and checking out the Phoenix Theatre near Union Square (an interesting 49-seat venue six floors up in the Native Sons Building) -- ultimately heading to Marin, approaching the Rainbow Tunnel



through the 101 Headlands Canyon,


down the Waldo Grade with Mt. Tam rising.


Stopping at the Strawberry Starbucks yields views north to Horse Hill,



west to an outlying eminence in greater Mill Valley,



and south back to Marin City and the highlands beyond.



It's Symphony night, but we're early, so we take our leisure by driving the long way around China Camp, three-quarters circling San Pedro Mountain,



past the Brick Yard,



to the heroic viewpoint at Rat Island Cove, where Mt Burdell looks great



at any distance.


So does the isle itself


(just offshore of the picnic area),


a spot of singularity,


as distinctive a presence as the shadowy Turtleback beyond.


We arrive at the Civic Center, with Frank Lloyd Wright's singular spire,


and views of the north slope of San Pedro Mountain (across from the druid-circle-flowers of the duck pond's artificial island),


the eccentric light sculpture in the round-about (one assumes Frank Lloyd Wright's own?), and


Mt. Tam glowing in the half-light beyond the parking lot.


Concert is fine (and in color, live) and will be reviewed tomorrow, appearing in Commuter Times this Friday, and excerpts at 21st-centurymusic.com and 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com.


Page 4 of Variations on Americana orchestrated upon return.

March 13 - Rite of Spring Break

Morning joys and Quiz 9 in Theory, including material derived from Charles Ives's Serenity, Scott Joplin's The Entertainer, Claude Debussy's Children's Corner and Preludes, and Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring -- then off on an early break to Marin, with clouds building up over Mt. Tamalpais.


After the usual errands, seems appropriate to try to capture some local landmarks, such as the Big Rock Ridge (north of the Terra Linda section of San Rafael),


and Mount Burdell (above Novato).


Cruising across the Sonoma lowlands, with a signature Red Barn, Sears Point Mountain comes into focus


in light and shadow,


and cows and canyons,


before turning north towards Route 24 in the Southern Mayacamas Mountains (dip in road...)


for discrete colors of forest, chaparral, grassland, vinyards,


stones, and walls,


near the lone oak at the Napa border,


where the view opens up across the Valley to the distant Vaca Mountains and Mt. George.


As it's indeed only a stone's throw to Old Sonoma Road, cannot resist a detour to continue the personal Bay Area Ridge Trail by returning to the scene of two-Saturdays'-ago-last-Napa- walking crime, and proceeding from the beginning of Congress Valley Road to its next major intersection,


where an old farmhouse lazes amongst palm and other greenery.


Return is via the viaduct of Route 29 over the Napa River,


past a flaming eucalyptus windbreak,


with one last look of George-and-company vincinity.


Previous to all this, in early a.m., finish notation for first movement of Vocal Sonatina No. 1 ("Spitzer"), with words drawn from news items re the Emperor's Club V.I.P. and Ashley Alexandra Dupre (a.k.a. Kristen).