MORE DETAILS ON HOW I CAN PRODUCE MY SHORT PIANO PIECES

On Nov. 25, 2015 (the day before Thanksgiving) I wrote a description of a sketch of a 5-movement symphony I had mapped out over the years, mostly in the 1970s, and I still have the handwritten manuscripts and copied them to PDF’s.

There may be some inaccuracies in the post, and I wanted to map out some material from that work again. It is even possible, from the evidence, that there was a little but of controversy then.

The biggest works are the “Piano Sonata #2” (1960), d minor, and “Piano Sonata #3” (C, more or less, with a lot of atonality along the way).  This five movement “symphony” is more like a song-symphony, and there is also a sketch in hand notes and PDF of an E Minor Symphony (conceived of in the all of 1960 as I started my senior year in high school) and the notes for it are pretty much as I imagined it then, up to the time of my own “Science Honor Society initiation” in my own basement (Dec. 9, 1960, I date I could visit with an “infinity stone” from “Avengers”).

But the “song symphony” has an architecture that should be restated.

First Movement:  C (more or less): A slow introduction leads to a “movie studio fanfare” (like “Do Ask Do Tell Films”, if I could pull that off) and then there is an episodic sonata-like movement with the second theme (in D) a song with tenor based on the “Rich Young Ruler” and later, “Doubting Thomas”. The ending of the movement is bombastic

Second movement:  B minor and C simultaneously, a disco dance (like the Town Dance Boutique before it closed) that would capture the wildness of it all. There is a long trio-within-a trio of a minuet-like dance.

Third movement:  A collection of songs and short pieces, centered around the idea of “upward affiliation”, which is rendered in Sprechstimme, around simpler pieces.

Fourth movement;  A church communion, with a ternary structure (the simplest).

Finale: A rondo, allegretto, 3/8 time, that gathers momentum for triumph at the end, C Major.

The most practical (or “practicable” way) to get this performed is to offer the short pieces on piano.

But some of the pieces require vocal soloists.

So it is possible to imagine a short film, with a gay male setting, maybe like “soft core” on YouTube but very professionally done, about 10 minutes, to explore the “upward affiliation” sequence. (Not exactly “Always Be Closing”.)

The following notes will give the file name in Sibelius on my Mac, for my own reference.

The film sequence would be

(Su594Bf): “Drinking Song” (B-flat),  fast tempo, exploring the idea of physical rejection of a potential partner, and questioning whether one would ever commit “to death do us part” his body and soul and loyalty in lifelong openness for intimacy.  One can sometimes only “get it up” when one knows others will be pure.   Requires Voice

(Su502d): “Doubting Thomas” (A Min):  “I” meet my hero and insist on inserting my finger in the hole in his hand to prove he is risen. But then I want to peek further to see if he really would measure up.  Requires voice

(Su501DSongV2): “Rich young Ruler”: (D Major)  Enactment of the famous parable where the Christ-like man says “don’t pander me”.  Then “I” get lectured on the difference between a mother’s love and a father’s (a real sermon from 1972) and about the problems of staying “in a box”.  Requires voice

(Su505 “Obsession”) (twelve-tone):  a monologue about upward affiliation (requires voice), which is interrupted by (Su506Bf)   This could be staged as a “ritual tribunal” where the protagonist (me) is finally ready for commitment to another person, because his own terms have been met.

(Su506Bf) “Losing”, a hymn like piece (already Aug. 21, 2016, played on an organ). (soloist)

And (Su 605Ef) – E-flat  (I think it was supposed to be 606).  (soloist)

Then from the Communion movement:  Su 602 (E-flat) with compound trio (Su603, A-flat and Su 604, D-flat) – played as one piece

I can extract the “Minuet” compound trio (E Major) from the Disco movement as a piano piece (2 minutes).  These pieces then to have phrases collapse on themselves at times, like in Mozart’s “Musical Joke”.

The Finale would make a piano piece (4 min).

So far I count five solo piano pieces from this “song symphony work” as performable and reasonably straightforward to do on Sibelius (some of it is done now).

From the Piano Sonata 3 I would propose

Andante Religioso Theme  (solo), B Major  from slow movement

Toccata-tina opening of finale (2/4, fugato)

Applause theme form finale, F# Major

These are done on Sibelius

Coda (3 parts) with instruments or maybe solo piano  — this still needs a lot of work

That adds up to four more short pieces.

It seems that there are up to nine short pieces that can be extracted for concert performance.  You could add the opening logo theme, that makes ten.

I could add the “Polytonal Prelude” in E and D (about 3 minutes), and that makes eleven.  It ends quietly.

Sometimes the best way to introduce ambitious work is to perform the miniatures from it.  (Schumann taught us that.)

One other points:  there are several “music memes” or mottos that recur through various different pieces in the music.  This would become very obvious in the “short film” and the opening logo.

(Posted: Thursday, May 9, 2019 at 8”15 PM EDT)