I am a little concerned that work on Seven Dreams of Falling continues to be in the 2-3 range of the LSCA, but take it and run, I always say.

Today’s work is from the middle of the fourth section, “Hark, the sound of screaming fans,” in which we’re in the control center for the Event.  It’s a bit of exposition, filling us in on the background of the overall myth.

For those who don’t know the whole slutty story, Pasiphaë is the wife of Minos, king of Crete, and Ariadne’s mother.  (She is also the daughter of Helios, the sun, which is cool but not relevant to our story.)  She managed to offend Poseidon, who sent a fabulous bull to Minos and then cursed Pasiphaë so that she was consumed by lust for the animal.  She forced Daedalus to build her a sex sling that looked like a cow so that she could lure the beast to her.

The result was that she gave birth to Asterion (“starlike”), otherwise known as The Minotaur.  Daedalus was then coerced into designing and building the labyrinth to hide the Minotaur from the outside world.

So that is the exposition Ariadne sings for us in today’s work:

Dream One, “My mother” (05/14/14) | score (pdf) | mp3

Ariadne herself has issues, needless to say.  (So, mezzo it is.)

Another appearance of the labyrinth tone row at m. 13.

I would like to point out how not comfortably diatonic this passage is, thank you very much.  As a self-taught composer, I am sensitive to the charge that purely tonal music is a) too easy; and b) unsophisticated, so the fact that the first five minutes of the opera just wallows in “pretty” music had me worried that it was dismissible.  (Not to worry: I quite like my opening.)

I’ll be honest: this is the fifth version of this opening number that I have written, and I’m still not sure this is it.  However, as Frank Gehry always says, let’s let it sit there and annoy us for a while.

After whatever I work out for the plunging motif, we are presented with the chorus.  As it says in the libretto: The Event is on.  Observers attend the moment in amazement and delight.

A brassy Baroque anthem launches right out of the gate, and the chorus sings.  It’s all extremely standard harmony, except for their paean to Apollo, the bass line of which is the labyrinth 12-tone row.¹

At the very end, you can hear the Zadok-arpeggios beginning, and in performance we would head straight into Daedalus’s “Fly and fall.”

“Let us joyfully gaze” | score (pdf) | mp3

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¹ I promise it gets more “modern” with Icarus’s first dream aria, right after “Fly and fall.”

Well, there’s one small part of Seven Dreams of Falling completed: Daedalus’s first number, “Fly and Fall.”

As you will recall—and if you don’t, go back and read the previous couple of posts—Daedalus is setting forth the idea that the annual Event, i.e., Icarus’s flight and fall, is a ritual both good and necessary.  It is “the story of us all,” as all good myth should be.

Some slight changes in the main body, but unless you were bugged by something and want to go back to hear if I fixed it, you can pick up the mp3 at 2:30 to hear the changed cadence from yesterday (as promised) and the thrilling conclusion of the section.

I will say that I have now done to Daedalus what I have issues with in many modern operas: there’s not a place for the audience to applaud.  The piece ends softly and will segue into Icarus himself, “Dream One,” so no applause for poor Daedalus.  I’ll make it up to him later in the opera.  After all, Icarus gets seven arias.

Dream One, “Fly and Fall” | score (pdf) | mp3

I have to say that I think this is pretty good stuff.  Here’s a slammed together idea of what I think is going on onstage:

I’ve also started a page for Seven Dreams so we can keep up with finished music.

update: I have a proposed solution to the applause problem: just bring the chorus back in for one more big “Fly and fall!” and wrap it up with a stinger.  We can come back in after the applause as the spotlight focuses on Icarus for his aria.  Compare the last 10 seconds of the above mp3 to this:

“Fly and fall” applause ending: score (pdf) | mp3

Express your preference in comments.

Whattaya know…  Another day of 2-3 on the LSCA!

I had thought I might just fart around with unplanned/unattached melodies and harmonies, but I went back to the idea of working on the rest of Daedalus’s entrance in Dream One.  And that’s what I did.

Those who are keeping track of my compositional style might be surprised at the simplicity of the harmonies of this section.  It seems a throwback, I know, but I’ve decided that the opening will be relatively uncomplicated as they introduce the idea of myth and its supreme value.  Trust me, when we segue into Icarus’s actual dream in another few measures, there will be enough interesting harmonies to do you.

The first bit of this section is quasi-recitative, blossoming forth with the previously heard aria, then (new part) retreating again before the chorus joins in.

The usual abrupt ending, which I’m pretty sure is going to get a new tonality before heading into the final bit of this section.  Simplicity is one thing; cheesiness is altogether something else.

Dream One: Daedalus | score (pdf) | mp3

Here’s today’s abortive attempt.

I took the notes of our 12-tone row and splattered them in a descending cascade from the top of the orchestra to the bottom. I thought it might be a good stab at an opening to the show.

It’s not a sure thing: mp3

At the very least, it sounds sparse; that could be fixed with judicious tinkering.  This was after all just a splatter, not meant to be a finished product.

However, and this will probably seem odd, the last three notes—the ones that outline a V⁷ chord—simply sound too pat. I’m all about the tonality, but that cadence just made me wrinkle my lip.

Oh well, that’s the purpose of abortive attempts, ne-c’est pas?

Back to Tibbetts’ song.

A third thing I’m playing with for the opening of Seven Dreams of Falling is motifs, and the first motif is one that I used in Six Preludes (no fugues) for “Prelude (no fugue) No. 6.”

I got this from Sid Lonegren’s Labyrinths: ancient myths and modern uses (p. 139). He takes an eleven-circuit labyrinth:

…and labels the circuits with the notes of the chromatic scale, starting with A on the outside circuit and ending with G# at the center.  When you walk the path, you encounter the notes in the order C# – A# – B – C – A – D – G – E – F – F# – D# – G#, which I have transposed down a half-step for the above motif.

It is of course a 12-tone row of serial music infamy, but when you play it there’s a definite tonal, if chromatic, pattern to it.  I mean, look at the penultimate measure: it outlines a V⁷ chord, of all things, leading straight back to our tonic note.  You may hear it in the “Prelude (no fugue) No. 6” here.

So I’m thinking it would be a valid thing to use this motif as a major element in an opera that centers in part on a labyrinth (technically a maze¹).  The question will be how to do so.  (I’m already thinking about stealing incorporating some of the prelude.)

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¹ A labyrinth is unicursal: it has only one path to the center.  You cannot get lost in a labyrinth.  A maze is a puzzle; you would need Ariadne’s thread to get back out.

I’ve decided to be a badass composer and post my failures here as well as my successes.  (Wait, he thinks he’s had successes?)

Today I thought I would whack out a grand baroque chorus to open the show with, and I did but it doesn’t really work. However, the best way to get good work is to crank out the bad work, at least for me.  I can hear what doesn’t work and move on from there.  (For those who are new to my whinging composer posts, I start a file called “abortive attempts” and futz around in that before committing to a real score.)

So what doesn’t work about this?  It’s too rushed, not spacious enough. The text needs more breathing room.  It needs to sound more like the opening to this opera, and that means more tension, even in the pure tonalities of unexamined myth.

When finished, the text and the music will move on to a B-section, with the piccolo trumpet diddling little triplet figures, before returning to the big theme.  That will segue into the Zadok figures from yesterday, and Daedalus will have a quasi-recitative section before breaking into yesterday’s bit.

There are also some harmonic things that I thought might throw us off balance in a good way but don’t quite hit the mark.

In any case, it gives the flavor of what I’m going for.

score (pdf) | mp3

In other news, I avoided working on John Tibbetts’ song another day.

update: already improved it; will start completely over tomorrow nonetheless

As most people who have to listen to me face-to-face know, I have recently accepted a “handshake commission,” i.e., no one is handing money over to anyone else, to write the score to Carey Scott Wilkerson’s Seven Dreams of Falling.  We were introduced by a mutual friend who hoped we would find such a collaboration fruitful and enjoyable, and indeed we hit it off right away.

Scott and I have been communicating for about a month now discussing how to turn his quirky little post-modern play into an opera, and we’ve made some good progress.  However, I haven’t really thought about actually writing any music yet.

Until today.  Or rather, last night, when my body and my brain conspired to keep me from sleeping, and one thing that kept running through my head was music for part of the opening scene, “Dream One.”  So this afternoon I thought, well, why not see if it actually comes out of my head?

On the LSCA, this tiny bit was between 2 and 3, so yea me!

Quick synopsis: Icarus’ flight and fall has become an annual event, webcast, pay-per-view.  His father Daedalus manages all the technical aspects.  Theseus has become their publicist while still managing his own annual myth, that of killing the Minotaur.  Ariadne has settled into embittered sniping; she runs a feminist blog and podcast.  The Minotaur—well, let’s talk about him later.  As the show progresses, Icarus decides he wants out of the myth, wanting to find life for himself.  Etc.

In Dream One, we open with a grand baroque chorus as the populace watches the Event on their iPads and phones.  We shift from the Chorus to Daedalus, and he sings of his son and the pride he feels in their continuing their myth for the benefit of the world.  That’s the part I wrote today, when the music shifts from piccolo trumpet and chorus to a Zadok-the-Priest-like figure in the strings and Daedalus steps into the spotlight.

So here are the very first notes written of the fabulous new opera, Seven Dreams of Falling, by Dale Lyles and C. Scott Wilkerson.  I should note that I decided to start with a piano score, which I will have to have anyway for rehearsals.  Those who remember the sometimes astonishing changes the William Blake’s Inn score underwent during orchestration may already hear timpani and chimes in the future.

score (pdf) | mp3