An insistent number, written as I was enjoying a new piano.

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Ah, there’s nothing like a violin duet.  I wrote six of them in 1990; here’s how the first begins.

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“En Route” sets my adaptations of three poems by Blaise Cendrars.  The piano part is based on 4-pitch diatonic chords, which are manipulated in various ways.  In this first one, chance procedures determined the direction, duration, and key of each arpeggio.  The violin and voice parts were written over that, using the three pitches left […]

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For this one, back in San Francisco in 1977, I provided text pieces to accompany two of Betsy’s dances: “Never” and “Frame.”  I also sang a couple of songs, and played some ambient piano music for the pre-show and post-show.  And I also drew the program, which I often did back then.

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This “Aubade” is quieter than most.  I don’t want to wake the lovers too harshly.  A simple tune repeats, gathering more counterpoint, until it fades away.  Here’s the beginning; sh.

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I discovered Edmond Haraucourt’s scabrous theological poem in the anthology L’Esprit fumiste, by Daniel Grojnowski and Bernard Sarrazin. In it, Haraucourt compares our passage through life to a turd dropping from God’s anus. He published it in 1883, and it caused him a bit of trouble. I’ve translated it, and set it for four-part choir. […]

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“Spang” is an abridgement of a score I wrote for a dance by Virginia Mathews, back in 1978.  It was purely diatonic, all derived from the seven note set that begins it.  And here’s the first part of it.  

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Graphic scores were on my mind back in 1973; I came up with this way to make one that moved.

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The “Air de Trois Notes” may not be Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s most memorable melody, but it’s a charming essay in restraint.  I harmonized it both in G and in C, setting off those three pitches with a maximum of contexts.  And here’s the first part of it.

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