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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Die-hard serialists will recognize the tone-row from Webern’s Concerto for Nine Instruments, op. 24. Others can simply watch those twelve tones rotate.

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This is the only piece I ever wrote, or ever will write, in Beggs, Oklahoma.

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This started out as a song, but soon settled into a piano piece.  I used it in some of the shows I did with Bill Irwin, particularly in The Clown Lecture.

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2006 was a bad year for me.  I commented on it in this piano piece, in which a melancholy theme deteriorates.

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