Today I set 6 more lines of the movement I’ve been working on for upper voices, which in a way seems like I tripled my output from yesterday, but in reality means that tomorrow I probably won’t set any new text. What I’ve written is very skeletal and sketchy, and I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to figure out the best way to convey the aleatoric elements of the piece, before realising just now on the luas home that my first instinct, which I’d forgotten about in the heat of the work, was not only the best idea but also the convention. Good news – this means that I don’t have to do any more tinkering with notation and can instead spend all that time tinkering with sibelius… Once I’ve figured out how it should all look, I might post a picture.
I also haven’t actually written any of the string or harp parts for those 6 lines – just the vocal parts, so tomorrow I’ll probably focus on filling out what I wrote today. The vocal lines all snake chromatically upwards, to convey a sense of rising tension in the mourning, but also to reflect the words Féach an spéir, which I’ve chosen for the sopranos and altos to repeat ad lib under the next 4 lines, sung by a soprano soloist. I think that the consonants “F”, “ch” and “sp” will be very interesting to listen to in an aleatoric texture. Underneath all of this, I think the strings can build up a chord (pictured below) that occurs at several structurally significant points throughout the work as a whole, but always glissando downwards before too long. The combination of the voices moving upwards while the strings are moving downwards should help convey a sense of dizziness or something. Ask me again when I hear it performed by real instruments.
This evening I did what I’ve been putting of for a number of years and finally got new headshots! I’ve only had the lovely one on the home-page of this site that we had done for the 10th anniversary of the Irish Composers Collective for the longest time, but the brilliant Miriam Kaczor was saying she had some studio times available so I pounced. Watch this space for updates!
The “structurally significant” chord.