Skip to main content

RNY 1340 - David Lang - Composition as explanation

Page 1


david lang

composition as explanation

text by gertrude stein

Classical

fullscore

1.there is singularly nothing

2.those who are creating 3.of course it is beautiful 4.beginning again and again

5.it is understood by this time (percussion solo)

6.and now to begin as if to begin

7.and after that what changes

8.intertext (instrumental)

9.the problem from this time on 10.this then

11.the time in the composition

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Warning : Unauthorized reproduction of this publication is prohibited by Federal law, and subject to criminal prosecution.

© 2019 by Red Poppy (ASCAP)

instrumentation

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

fute, piccolo

clarinet in Bb, bass clarinet in Bb

percussion

glockenspiel, marimba, vibraphone, various drums and instruments ad lib, 1 tuned tom tom, kick drum

piano violin cello

and at least three amplifed writing surfaces – see performance note below

score is in C the duration is about 60 minutes

The words of ‘Composition as Explanation’ by Gertrude Stein are set to music and reproduced by permission of the Estate of Gertrude Stein.

composition as explanation was commissioned for Eighth Blackbird by The Arts Club of Chicago on the occasion of its centennial, and co-commissioned through the generous support of Elissa and Richard Replin.

performance note

composition as explanation is a piece of music, and a piece of theater. It has a spoken and sung text that is divided among the players, making the players both musicians and actors at the same time, and it has several actions that are specifed in the music.

Because of this, it has certain performance requirements:

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby

A proper performance of the piece must feel like it is occurring in a theatrical space and not in a concert space – it can and should incorporate staging, scenography, movement, lighting, costume, and sound design.

A proper performance will require the engagement of professionals from the theater world. At the very least, it will require a theater director to shape the performance.

A proper performance will require the performers to move and to speak, in other words, to become actors. It is recommended that the players engage movement and acting coaches to make these actions as natural as possible.

The music and text must be memorized.

The music and text must be amplifed, and a sound designer may be called upon to adjust both the sound and the sound effects during a performance, as needed.

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

It is imagined and encouraged that a stage director may wish to add instructions and actions and scenarios beyond those that are already notated in the text. Have fun!

In addition to playing their normal instruments, at least three of the players are required in the score to play what are called ‘surfaces.’ These ‘surfaces’ should be things that make us think of writing, in as literal or as metaphorical a way as can be imagined. Players may play the same surface together or different surfaces, and the surface parts may be divided up differently among the players than is notated in the score, if the theatrical needs of the performance require it.

program note

I have had the pleasure to work with the ensemble Eighth Blackbird for many years now. One thing that has always impressed me about them is that they like a challenge. They have a very wide defnition of what a chamber musician should be able to do, and this wide defnition has frequently led them into making work that employs staging, movement, speaking and theater.

When Eighth Blackbird asked me in 2016 to propose a project for them that they could perform at the Chicago Arts Club, in conjunction with the Arts Club’s centennial year, I started thinking of other kinds of actions that they might concentrate on, that would transform them. I began to think of what it would be like make a piece that required them not just to act, but to become actors - in order to perform it they would be forced to take acting lessons, to study diction, to study the art of theater. In other words, my piece would not just ask them to move and to speak, but it would ask them to commit themselves to a rigorous education process that would transform them as performers.

Upon doing a little research I discovered that Gertrude Stein had spoken at the Chicago Arts Club in 1934, after she had already become famous for her writings. I started looking at her published speeches as possible texts for this piece and I settled on using parts of Gertrude Stein’s 1926 lecture ‘Composition as Explanation,’ in which a yet-to-be-famous Stein explains to her audience what she is doing in her writing, in the same repetitive and plainspoken and circular format that she uses in her writing. In other words, she has blurred the relationship between her content, her form and her performance, in much the same way that I have tried to blur the musicality of Eighth Blackbird.

I have used almost all of Stein’s entire text in my piece, except for a few stray lines here and there and the parts of her lecture that deal with details of specifc books she had written, which seemed too literary for my purpose. In particular, I wanted to highlight her implication that the changes in the composition of her work are in some measure a response to the First World War, which had ended only a few years before, and which changed so many of the artists who lived through it.

I want to thank Janine Mileaf and the Chicago Arts Club, where primitive versions of a few movements of this piece were, in fact, performed in 2016. I want to thank the Estate of Gertrude Stein for their permission to use this text. And I want to thank all the members of Eighth Blackbird, past and present, for asking me to make it.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

composition as explanation

1.

There is singularly nothing that makes a diference a diference in beginning and in the middle and in ending except that each generation has something diferent at which they are all looking. By this I mean so simply that anybody knows it that composition is the diference which makes each and all of them then diferent from other generations and this is what makes everything diferent otherwise they are all alike and everybody knows it because everybody says it.

It is very likely that nearly every one has been very nearly certain that something that is interesting is interesting them. Can they and do they. It is very interesting that nothing inside in them, that is when you consider the very long history of how every one ever acted or has felt, it is very interesting that nothing inside in them in all of them makes it connectedly diferent. By this I mean this. The only thing that is diferent from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything. This makes the thing we are looking at very diferent and this makes what those who describe it make of it, it makes a composition, it confuses, it shows, it is, it looks, it likes it as it is, and this makes what is seen as it is seen. Nothing changes from generation to generation except the thing seen and that makes a composition. Lord Grey remarked that when the generals before the war talked about the war they talked about it as a nineteenth century war although to be fought with twentieth century weapons. That is because war is a thing that decides how it is to be when it is to be done. It is prepared and to that degree it is like all academies it is not a thing made by being made it is a thing prepared. Writing and painting and all that, is like that, for those who occupy themselves with it and don’t make it as it is made. Now the few who make it as it is made, and it is to be remarked that the most decided of them usually are prepared just as the world around them is preparing, do it in this way and so I if you do not mind I will tell you how it happens. Naturally one does not know how it happened until it is well over beginning happening.

No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who also are creating their own time refuse to accept. And they refuse to accept it for a very simple reason and that is that they do not have to accept it for any reason.

2.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Those who are creating the modern composition authentically are naturally only of importance when they are dead because by that time the modern composition having become past is classifed and the description of it is classical. That is the reason why the creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic, there is hardly a moment in between and it is really too bad very much too bad naturally for the creator but also very much too bad for the enjoyer, they all really would enjoy the created so much better just after it has been made than when it is already a classic, but it is perfectly simple that there is no reason why the

contemporaries should see, because it would not make any diference as they lead their lives in the new composition anyway, and as every one is naturally indolent why naturally they don’t see. It is so very much more exciting and satisfactory for everybody if one can have contemporaries, if all one’s contemporaries could be one’s contemporaries.

There is almost not an interval.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling. It is a natural phenomena a rather extraordinary natural phenomena that a thing accepted becomes a classic.

And what is the characteristic quality of a classic. The characteristic quality of a classic is that it is beautiful. Now of course it is perfectly true that a more or less frst rate work of art is beautiful but the trouble is that when that frst rate work of art becomes a classic because it is accepted the only thing that is important from then on to the majority of the acceptors the enormous majority, the most intelligent majority of the acceptors is that it is so wonderfully beautiful. Of course it is wonderfully beautiful, only when it is still a thing irritating annoying stimulating then all quality of beauty is denied to it.

3.

Of course it is beautiful but frst all beauty in it is denied and then all the beauty of it is accepted. If every one were not so indolent they would realise that beauty is beauty even when it is irritating and stimulating not only when it is accepted and classic. Of course it is extremely difcult nothing more so than to remember back to its not being beautiful once it has become beautiful. This makes it so much more difcult to realise its beauty when the work is being refused and prevents every one from realising that they were convinced that beauty was denied, once the work is accepted. Automatically with the acceptance of the time-sense comes the recognition of the beauty and once the beauty is accepted the beauty never fails any one.

4.

Beginning again and again is a natural thing even when there is a series. Beginning again and again and again explaining composition and time is a natural thing.

5.

It is understood by this time that everything is the same except composition and time, composition and the time of the composition and the time in the composition.

Everything is the same except composition and as the composition is diferent and always going to be diferent everything is not the same. Everything is not the same as the time when of the composition and the time in the composition is diferent. The composition is diferent, that is certain.

The composition is the thing seen by every one living in the living they are doing, they are the composing of the composition that at the time they are living in the composition of the time in which they are living. It is that that makes living a thing they are doing. Nothing else is diferent, of that almost any one can be certain. The time when and the time of and the time in that composition is the natural phenomena of that composition and of that perhaps every one can be certain.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

No one thinks these things when they are making when they are creating what is the composition, naturally no one thinks, that is no one formulates until what is to be formulated has been made.

Composition is not there, it is going to be there and we are here. This is some time ago for us naturally.

The only thing that is diferent from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything. This makes the thing we are looking at very diferent and this makes what those who describe it make of it, it makes a composition, it confuses, it shows, it is, it looks, it likes it as it is, and this makes what is seen as it is seen. Nothing changes from generation to generation except the thing seen and that makes a composition.

Each period of living difers from any other period of living not in the way life is but in the way life is conducted and that authentically speaking is composition. After life has been conducted in a certain way everybody knows it but nobody knows it, little by little, nobody knows it as long as nobody knows it. Any one creating the composition in the arts does not know it either, they are conducting life and that makes their composition what it is, it makes their work compose as it does.

Their infuence and their infuences are the same as that of all of their contemporaries only it must always be remembered that the analogy is not obvious until as I say the composition of a time has become so pronounced that it is past and the artistic composition of it is a classic.

6.

And now to begin as if to begin. Composition is not there, it is going to be there and we are here. This is some time ago for us naturally. There is something to be added afterwards.

Here again it was all so natural to me and more and more complicatedly a continuous present. A continuous present is a continuous present. I made almost a thousand pages of a continuous present.

Continuous present is one thing and beginning again and again is another thing. These are both things. And then there is using everything.

This brings us again to composition this the using everything. The using everything brings us to composition and to this composition. A continuous present and using everything and beginning again.

7.

And after that what changes what changes after that, after that what changes and what changes after that and after that and what changes and after that and what changes after that.

8.

intertext (instrumental)

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

9.

The problem from this time on became more defnite.

It was all so nearly alike it must be diferent and it is diferent, it is natural that if everything is used and there is a continuous present and a beginning again and again if it is all so alike it must be simply diferent and everything simply diferent was the natural way of creating it then. In this natural way of creating it then that it was simply diferent everything being alike it was simply diferent, this kept on leading one to lists. Lists naturally for awhile and by lists I mean a series. More and more in going back over what was done at this time I fnd that I naturally kept simply diferent as an intention. Whether there was or whether there was not a continuous present did not then any longer trouble me there was or there was not, and using everything no longer troubled me if everything is alike using everything could no longer trouble me and beginning again and again could no longer trouble me because if lists were inevitable if series were inevitable and the whole of it was inevitable beginning again and again could not trouble me so then with nothing to trouble me I very completely began naturally since everything is alike making it as simply diferent naturally as simply diferent as possible. I began doing natural phenomena what I call natural phenomena and natural phenomena naturally everything being alike natural phenomena are making things be naturally simply diferent. This found its culmination later, in the beginning it began in a center confused with lists with series with geography with returning portraits and with particularly often four and three and often with fve and four. It is easy to see that in the beginning such a conception as everything being naturally diferent would be very inarticulate and very slowly it began to emerge and take the form of anything, and then naturally if anything that is simply diferent is simply diferent what follows will follow.

So far then the progress of my conceptions was the natural progress entirely in accordance with my epoch as I am sure is to be quite easily realised if you think over the scene that was before us all from year to year.

As I said in the beginning, there is the long history of how every one ever acted or has felt and that nothing inside in them in all of them makes it connectedly diferent. By this I mean all this. The only thing that is diferent from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything.

It is understood by this time that everything is the same except composition and time, composition and the time of the composition and the time in the composition.

Everything is the same except composition and as the composition is diferent and always going to be diferent everything is not the same. So then I as a contemporary creating the composition in the beginning was groping toward a continuous present, a using everything a beginning again and again and then everything being alike then everything very simply everything was naturally simply diferent and so I as a contemporary was creating everything being alike was creating everything naturally being naturally simply diferent, everything being alike. This then was the period that brings me to the period of the beginning of 1914. Everything being alike everything naturally would be simply diferent and war came and everything being alike and everything being simply diferent brings everything being simply diferent brings it to romanticism.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Romanticism is then when everything being alike everything is naturally simply diferent, and romanticism.

Then for four years this was more and more diferent even though this was, was everything alike. Everything alike naturally everything was simply diferent and this is and was romanticism and this is and was war. Everything being alike everything naturally everything is diferent simply diferent naturally simply diferent.

And so there was the natural phenomena that was war, which had been, before war came, several generations behind the contemporary composition, because it became war and so completely needed to be contemporary became completely contemporary and so created the completed recognition of the contemporary composition. Every one but one may say every one became consciously became aware of the existence of the authenticity of the modern composition.

10.

This then the contemporary recognition, because of the academic thing known as war having been forced to become contemporary made every one not only contemporary in act not only contemporary in thought but contemporary in self-consciousness made every one contemporary with the modern composition. And so the art creation of the contemporary composition which would have been outlawed normally outlawed several generations more behind even than war, war having been brought so to speak up to date art so to speak was allowed not completely to be up to date, but nearly up to date, in other words we who created the expression of the modem composition were to be recognized before we were dead some of us even quite a long time before we were dead. And so war may be said to have advanced a general recognition of the expression of the contemporary composition by almost thirty years.

11.

The time in the composition is a thing that is very troublesome. If the time in the composition is very troublesome it is because there must even if there is no time at all in the composition there must be time in the composition which is in its quality of distribution and equilibration. In the beginning there was the time in the composition that naturally was in the composition but time in the composition comes now and this is what is now troubling every one the time in the composition is now a part of distribution and equilibration. In the beginning there was confusion

there was a continuous present and later there was romanticism which was not a confusion but an extrication and now there is either succeeding or failing there must be distribution and equilibration there must be time that is distributed and equilibrated. This is the thing that is at present the most troubling and if there is the time that is at present the most troublesome the time-sense that is at present the most troubling is the thing that makes the present the most troubling. There is at present there is distribution, by this I mean expression and time, and in this way at present composition is time that is the reason that at present the time-sense is troubling that is the reason why at present the time-sense in the composition is the composition that is making what there is in composition.

And afterwards.

Now that is all.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing

Classical

composition as explanation 1.

speaker: Speak clearly and simply, facing the audience, as if giving a lecture. Keep as natural a speaking rhythm as possible, but the syllables in bold have to land on the downbeat of every other measure. At first this is easy but it soon gets very hard.

surfaces: All surfaces are amplified — amplified clipboard, amplified chalkboard, amplified table, amplified drum head, etc. Players may write on the same surface or on different surfaces. The action of the surfaces is in response to the speaker — surface 1 attempts to scribble down the words of the speaker, after he or she has spoken them, surfaces 2 and 3 are more stylized responses. All responses begin on or after the downbeat of the measures that are initiated by the accented syllables of the speaker — even if the speaker began the phrase before the downbeat the surfaces don't respond until on or after the downbeat. It should feel at the start like taking dictation. And then it should feel a lot stranger.

(flute) spoken:

text by gertrude stein music by david lang

There is singularly q = 100

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing

Classical

Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusic

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

composition as explanation

everyone sing, one of the vocal lines below even those playing their instruments better a strong sound than a pretty sound

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

explanation

text by gertrude stein music by david lang

spoken: ...beautiful but first all beauty in it is denied

piano

violin pp

breathy, introspective a little uneven, as if you are singing quietly to yourself speakers continue, changing to clarinet and cello at ms. 42 (attacca from previous movement) q = 66 pp pp pp

spoken: but first (clarinet) (cello) and then all the beauty of it is accepted. and then

Classical

If every one

If every one were not so indolent they would realise

not only

not only when it is accepted and classic.

Of course

Of course it is extremely difficult nothing more so

than to remember back to its not being beautiful than & & ?

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

when the work is being refused when and prevents every one from realising that they were convinced that beauty was denied, and once once the work is accepted.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

of the time-sense of comes comes the recognition of the beauty and once and once the beauty is accepted

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Classical

composition as explanation

4.beginning again and again

Classical

Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

composition as explanation 5.

it is understood by this time (solo percussion)

note to percussionist – Speak this text and play percussion at the same time, with your fngertips, in exactly the same rhythm and with the same accents as you speak it, one spoken syllable per note. Your set-up should begin simply and directly, and may become wild and dramatic, and you should change slightly your choice of percussion instruments with each new paragraph of the text. You may use as many or as few percussion instruments as you wish.

text by gertrude stein music by david lang

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

It is understood by this time that everything is the same except composition and time, composition and the time of the composition and the time in the composition.

Everything is the same except composition and as the composition is diferent and always going to be diferent everything is not the same. Everything is not the same as the timewhenofthecompositionandthetimeinthecomposition is diferent. The composition is diferent, that is certain.

The composition is the thing seen by every one living in the living they are doing, they are the composing of the compositionthatatthetimetheyarelivinginthecomposition of the time in which they are living. It is that that makes living athingtheyaredoing.Nothingelseisdiferent,ofthatalmost any one can be certain. The time when and the time of and the time in that composition is the natural phenomena of that composition and of that perhaps every one can be certain.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

No one thinks these things when they are making when they are creating what is the composition, naturally no one thinks, that is no one formulates until what is to be formulated has been made.

Composition is not there, it is going to be there and we are here. This is some time ago for us naturally.

The only thing that is diferent from one time to another is what is seen and what is seen depends upon how everybody is doing everything. This makes the thing we are looking at very diferent and this makes what those who describe it make of it, it makes a composition, it confuses, it shows, it is, it looks, it likes it as it is, and this makes what is seen as it is seen. Nothing changes from generation to generation except the thing seen and that makes a composition.

Each period of living difers from any other period of living not in the way life is but in the way life is conducted and that authentically speaking is composition. After life has been conducted in a certain way everybody knows it but nobody knows it, little by little, nobody knows it as long as nobody knows it. Any one creating the composition in the arts does not know it either, they are conducting life and that makes their composition what it is, it makes their work compose as it does.

Their infuence and their infuences are the same as that of all of their contemporaries only it must always be remembered that the analogy is not obvious until as I say the composition of a time has become so pronounced that it is past and the artistic composition of it is a classic.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

composition as explanation

6.and now to begin as if to begin

(flute) And now to begin as if to begin. Composition is not there, it is not going to be there and we are here. This is some time ago for us naturally. There is something to be added afterwards.

text by gertrude stein music by david lang

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

1st time through: recite the notated text 2nd time through: play

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusic

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

composition as explanation

7.and after that what changes

text by gertrude stein music by david lang

cello (sung) and p after - that whatchanges - what

vc (sung) changes - after - that after - that whatchanges6

vc (sung) and whatchanges - after - that and 11

vc (sung) after - that and whatchanges - and 16

vc (sung) after - that and whatchanges - after - that 21

(spoken)

vln

vc (sung)

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Speak naturally, not metronomically. The accented syllable of each phrase — ‘and' 'af-' and 'chan-' — should be on the beat notated. All other syllables should be placed as in normal speech. p

vc and after - that whatchanges

(spoken)

(sung)

(spoken)

(spoken)

(spoken)

(spoken)

(spoken)

after - that and whatchanges - after - that

& after - that and whatchanges - after - that

(sung)

Speak naturally, not metronomically. The accented syllable of each phrase — ‘and' 'af-' and 'chan-' — should be on the beat notated. All other syllables should be placed as in normal speech. p

and after - that whatchangesand after - that whatchangesp and after - that whatchanges - what

(spoken)

(spoken) pno

vc (sung)

whatchanges - after - that after - that whatchangeswhatchanges - after - that after - that whatchanchanges - after - that after - that whatchanges -

(spoken)

(spoken) pno

vc (sung)

(spoken)

(spoken)

(spoken)

Classical

composition as explanation

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusic

Classical

Classical

Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusic

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

composition as explanation

9.the problem from this time on

untroubled, plainspoken and simple (ensemble enters and plays together after violinist has arrived at ms 38)

violin part is unmetered — play the note or notes at the start of each measure and then speak the indicated text, moving onto the next measure in a natural speaking rhythm. eighth notes should be smooth and quiet, roughly q = 100, and the player may speak over the violin notes occasionally, as desired

ensemble enters independently at or around ms 39 and proceeds independently to the end; it is possible for either the violin or the ensemble to finish first

(no mute)

spoken:

words by gertrude stein music by david lang

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

The problem from this time on became more definite.it was all so nearly alike it must be different

and it is different,

it is natural that if everything is used

and there is a continuous present and a beginning again and again

if it is all so alike it must be simply different and everything simply different

was the natural way of creating it then.

(...pause...)

n this natural way of creating it then

that it was simply different everything being alike

Classical

it was simply different, this kept on leading one to lists.

8 (...pause...)

Lists naturally for awhile

and by lists mean a series. (...pause...)

More and more in going back over what was done at this time

Classical

whether there was not a continuous present did not then any longer trouble me

and beginning again and again 8 could

(untroubled, plainspoken and simple) ensemble enters here, independently of violin q = 100

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

and take the form of

and then naturally if anything that is simply different is simply different what follows will follow.

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

So

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

This

vln &

was more and more different even though this was, 8 was everything alike.

vln & when everything being alike

Everything alike naturally everything was simply different

everything is naturally simply different and romanticism.

vln & (...pause...) Then for four years 8 this

vln &

vln & war.

and this is and was romanticism and this is and was

Everything being alike

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

everything naturally everything is different

vln & simply different naturally simply different. (.....pause.....)

vln & And so there was the natural phenomena that was war, which had been, before war came, several generations behind the contemporary composition

vln & because it became war and so completely needed to be contemporary became completely contemporary

vln & and so created the completed recognition of the contemporary composition

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby

Every one but one may say every one became consciously

became aware of the existence of the authenticity of the modern composition.

vln &

aggressive, on edge

(spoken - alternate playing and speaking; syllables in bold are spoken at the same time as the notes below them are played)

This

because

of

as explanation

war

then

having

in act

the contemporary recognition

words by gertrude stein music by david lang "

the academic thing known as "

been forced to become contemporary

"

not only contemporary

made

in thought

but contemporary in self-consciousness

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

words by gertrude stein music by david lang

(flute) spoken: And now after that as at the beginning, but the amplification of the surfaces is now distorted - the sounds may be dirty, and a little scary, and they may become more intense as the movement moves on

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Although the cellist begins speaking after the flutist speaks, this section should feel as if there are two independent, di erent versions of the speech being given at the same time. he flutist continues to place the syllable in bold on the downbeats but the cellist can be much freer.

finds oneself nteresting

(surface 2: now as if taking dictation from the cellist)

( ello)

(not as an echo, but as if you are giving the speech yourself) spoken: And so now one finds oneself interesting

oneself in an e uilibration, that of course means wor s

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

/ oneself in e uilibration that of course means words

tion

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

as well as things and distribution

as well as between themselves between the wor s and themselves

well as between themselves between the words and themselves

and the th n s and themselves a distribution as stribution

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

and the things themselves a distribution as distribution.

and now there is e ery reason why there should be an arran ement made.

Classical

and now there is every reason why there should be an arrangement made.

istribution is nteresting and e uilibration is nteresting

istribution is interesting and e uilibration is interesting

when a cont nuous present and a beginning a a n and again

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

when a continuous present and a beginning again and again

and everything naturally simply di erent has been one.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

and everything naturally simply di erent has been done.

Although the pianist begins speaking after the flutist and cellist speak, this section should feel as if there are three independent, di erent versions of the speech being given at the same time. he flutist continues to place the syllable in bold on the downbeats but the cellist and pianist can be much freer.

After all this there is that

(surface 3: as if taking dictation from the pianist)

(not as an echo, but as if you are giving the speech yourself) ( i no) spoken: After all this there is that

( ello) spoken:After all this there is that

there has een that that there is a composition

there has been that that there is a composition

and that nothing chan es except composition

and that nothing changes except composition

the composition and the t me of and the time n

the composition and the time of and the time in

the composition and the time of and the time in

the compos tion.

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

he time of the composition is a natural thing

the composition.

the composition.

he time of the composition is a natural thing

he time of the composition is a natural thing

he time of the composition is the time of the composition.

(continue following the flute, as if taking dictation)

he time of the composition is the time of the composition.

a beginning again and again and again and again,

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusic

a beginning again and again and again and again,

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

(flute: spoken, rapidly, with intensity)

he time in the composition is a thing that is very troublesome. f the time in the composition is very troublesome it is because there must even if there is no time at all in the composition there must be time in the composition which is in its uality of distribution and e uilibration. n the beginning there was the time in the composition that naturally was in the composition but time in the composition comes now and this is what is now troubling every one the time in the composition is now a part of distribution and e uilibration. n the beginning there was confusion there was a continuous present and later there was romanticism which was not a confusion but an extrication and now there is either succeeding or failing there must be distribution and e uilibration there must be time that is distributed and e uilibrated. his is the thing that is at present the most troubling and if there is the time that is at present the most troublesome the time-sense that is at present the most troubling is the thing that makes the present the most troubling. here is at present there is distribution, by this mean expression and time, and in this way at present composition is time that is the reason that at present the time-sense is troubling that is the reason why at present the time-sense in the composition is the composition that is making what there is in composition.

And afterwards.

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusicadministeredby UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

CopyrightbyRedPoppyMusic

UniversalMusicPublishing Classical

Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
RNY 1340 - David Lang - Composition as explanation by Ricordi - Issuu