A dark night on a bright piano

[furtwaengler]

Recordings of this night have been hiding on a CD since about the time they were born, on a lonely night February 27, 2016 in studio 211, a place reserved mainly for college voice lessons. I will admit to being a bit obsessed with these recordings lately, maybe with the thought of adapting the material into an actual written sonata. In that case, you would be hearing seeds, and yet I don’t want to take away from the integrity of this moment of conception which channeled out the brain of my hands and it’s relevance to my state of health and life as possible informants. How is it that in pain, in not knowing how to allow grief to happen and emotions to surface, I sit on a bench at this block of wood and steel and whatever else it is, and the tips of my fingers and everything behind them as if apart from me, knows exactly what to do and what to say. This is one of the most important reasons to start or continue a practice of improvisation, casting in the moment judgements aside.

This 19+ minutes of music seems effective taken at once in the order they are presented. If you can hear the ticking of the clock in the background, that also enhances the experience.

[ted]

Dark indeed, Dave, but whether due to your mood or to my listening brain is not immediately clear. The fourth one, "D", is the most interesting and easily accessible to me in the abstract sense, and contains one or two very effective orchestral effects. Because the keyboard vocabulary and means of expression are so different to my own, my mind tends to impose its own images and associations, which may well deviate considerably from your stimulus of creation. In other words, how I ought to feel in the light of your explanation, and what I actually feel as a receiver of abstract sound probably differ. However, as I have said many times, here and elsewhere, I consider this essential ambiguity of meaning and perception a vital property of the art of music. It is not a popular or accepted view, but I shall stick to it until proved wrong.

I do not possess your ability to create music through direct cathartic reaction, and have succeeded with it at best rarely. I concur with your remarks about the subconscious though; the subconscious always knows best. The trouble in my case is that, unlike your example here, cause and effect have no proximity. I can hear something I improvised last week and realise it perfectly embodies a certain life experience of six months ago. These time differences notwithstanding, we are in complete agreement regarding the power of spontaneous creation at the instrument.

It strikes me that the only important thing about your forming a composition from this is that you are not conflicted about the simultaneous validity of both products. I don't think you would fall into an "either/or" trap here, but many creators still do. Technology of recording devices has actually resolved this dilemma once and for all in recent years but no one seems to realise it. In the old days, the improvised form could not be preserved at all, and even more recently was of low aural standard. These problems of impermanence no longer exist, and we can choose either medium or both, depending on feasibility of written notation.

[furtwaengler]

Ted, thank, always thank you, for you thoughts on this. Music as a language is an abstract language and can work in tandem with words, thoughts, concrete meanings, but is never dependent on them.. Even if my words describing the music describe something about it, it is not meant to limit and control how anyone else hears it and even how I continue to hear it. I actually even removed some  titles that I'd given because they no longer fit the experience I have with them listening now. There is something in the intensity, dissonance, drive and tactile force that keep me coming back to this (3rd of which may have been compressed out in the transfer), and the main reason to compose it is to say it again with my own hands. It would not be a small undertaking, and that has been why with me most everything stays as a recording and does not meet the page, alas. 

[ronde_des_sylphes]

I think the idea of adapting this into a sonata is a good one. Associations are peculiar things, but the first two movements, in particular, seemed almost like a 21st century analogue to Janacek's 1905-sonata. There were also some interesting moments when I had the strange sensation of order forming from out of disorder.

[furtwaengler]

Oh, the Janacek Sonata is certainly the pinnacle of sorrow and desolation in music. What a haunting world that is. I can see an element of that in the first. I do think in cross references, though not at the time of creation. I've thought about the post Scriabin Russians like Mosolov, Feinberg, and Roslavets, or better yet if you have any familiarity with Galina Utvolskaya’s 2nd Symphony - I’m not thinking the actual sound of it as much as the idea of it. In the second improvisation there is something of that "SCREAM into space," crying out to God. It’s a powerful image.  There is an excellent documentary on that here:

Funny the only actual quote I could find buried in these is of a different world altogether, the conductor Furtwaengler's 2nd Symphony. But that's very subtle. (I stole his name).