First of the standardized Sunday posts! Feels sort of like a newspaper, now that I think about it. As promised, two sections for my projects and one for other finds.
With August ending and September starting, it is unfortunate to report that my progress this month was a lot slower than that of other months. I had hoped to work on more things, but where June and July saw me averaging around 2-3 scenes, in August there was only one- Scene 4, in which the atlant tries to remember how it left Santa Maria de Mur in the first place.
To give some context, the idea with this scene is that he had blocked his detachment from the wall- and the subsequent trip to the United States- out of his memory due to its sudden and unwelcome nature.1 So in Scene 4, he only remembers a faint, yet distinctly unpleasant, sense of unease when he tries to recall exactly what had happened. My intention was to introduce some of that uneasiness to the music to set up for the shock of Scene 5, but I've been having trouble with exactly how to write that uneasy feeling. Rhythm, phrasing and pitch combinations were experimented with, but I still feel rather unsatisfied with the results that I have drafted so far. They feel somewhat similar to two other scenes I've done, and maybe I just resort to droning on one pitch too often. But whatever the case, I think it would be effective to do up some more drafts to get the feeling right, rather than rush on just because I told myself I'd finish the whole opera draft by mid-September.
In addition, I was thinking about using extended techniques in regard to the violin and cello parts, but using them only to suggest fear, unease and general awfulness doesn't sit right with me. There are far more interesting things to use extended string techniques for, anyway, and I want to make sure I'm not relying too much on overworn musical shorthands.
As I briefly mentioned in the post on 30th August, writing and reading up for the article on Fabrice Fitch's Missa Scaramella reconstruction made me think more about what I want to do with a compositional approach to musicology. The paper made me question whether what I really wanted to do was related to what Fitch and other restorers were doing- rather, I feel like I still want some room to maneouver and experiment with historical techniques. In short, inspired by practical approaches to ethnomusicology, I want to see if it's possible to 'immerse' (as much as possible for a 21st-century composer) myself in the practice- creating new works, while adhering to older compositional techniques.
This is by no means a new concept. It has been done by early music practitioners and performers before (for example, Elam Rotem's compositions work in the style of the late early modern period, and are a delight to hear). However, I don't think I've seen it in the context of specifically serving research in musicology, and that is where some interesting possibilities may arise- for example, simulating compositional processes that have been debated, such as multiple authorship.
At the time of writing, though, I feel hesitant about this line of thinking. For one, I'm certain that it has more drawbacks than proper restoration- especially if proper diligence is not observed with regard to stylistic study. It also feels like there are easier ways to go about researching early music than having to watch a group of people spin out compositional projects for months, especially since the actual composers being researched are by right dead. So for now, I'll wait and see what my professor has to say about it.
1. Thomas Tomkins's Too much I once lamented. A wonderful performance from the group I Fagiolini, and I never knew a 'fa la la' refrain could sound so melancholic! (Though, I wouldn't be surprised if Dowland composed one too...)
2. Elam Rotem's video on (re)composing a motet for 4 voices. Very thorough analysis of the possibilities and processes when making a piece, and features beautiful singing from Cappella Pratensis! It also gave me further food for thought regarding 'compositional' musicology, and I love that he made the point of (re)composition allowing people to get closer to the composer and how these works were made. In a way, it's what I hope to achieve with my work in the future- composers have been mystified in the public imagination enough, I think.