In the past, I had a lot of success with composing. And I still do, when I work at it. So I'm planning a relaunch of my music, to stand next to my relaunched blog, book and website.
On this page, you'll find many of my pieces -- scores, recordings, and, where appropriate, texts.
Browse and enjoy!
SOLO PIECES
Short Talks(piano; the pianist also plays a small drum; in progress, 2008 - )
These are piano pieces, settings of prose poems by Anne Carson, whose searing intensity is burned into very few words. The pianist plays both the piano and a small drum. Eventually there should be eight or more of these; right now there are five. The music might seem calm (deceptively), but it bursts into violence, and sometimes falls silent, unable to speak. The drum is its underworld.
live performance at the Cutting Edge Concerts New Music Festival (Symphony Space, New York, April 6, 2009)
Jenny Lin, piano and drum
computer demo
Short Talk On Gertrude Stein About 9:30
Short Talk On Defloration
Short Talk On Ovid
Short Talk On Rain
Short Talk On Rectification
Organ Piece (no title yet, 2007)
This is a rewrite of—or maybe variations on—the C major fugue in the second book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. It’s more than a little crazy, with (in places) double Bach’s counterpoint and big gaudy cadences. Listen and see.
I wrote this as a birthday present for my wife Anne Midgette, and built it from swatches of other pieces she'd heard me working on, ending with a song I wrote for her. And then I brought a quartet to our home to surprise her with it. Two years later, the Fine Arts Quartet gave the first public performance and played the piece several times more.
live performance, by the Dakota Chamber Orchestra, Delta David Gier, conductor (edited from performances in April, 2007, in Sioux Falls and on tour)
1 Adagio - Allegro
2 Ballad
3 Scherzo (Palindrome)
4 Finale
computer demo
1 Adagio - Allegro
2 Ballad
3 Scherzo (Palindrome)
4 Finale
Note: since making this recording, I’ve made small revisions in the score. So there are tiny, maybe all but imperceptible differences in the last movement between what you’ll hear, and what’s written in the score. Mostly they’re about switches from bowed playing in the strings to pizzicato. I gave the players a little more time.
live performance at Bowling Green State University, October 2006: Ann Corrigan, soprano I-chen Yeh, piano
1 If to doe were as easie as to know what were good to doe
2 I am a simple Maide
3 But I do thinke it is their Husbands faults if Wiues do fall
4 How all the other passions fleet to Ayre
5 Giue me my Robe, put on my Crowne
computer demo (all five songs)
OPERA
Frankenstein (1981)
Opera in three acts, written in the full-blooded operatic style of the 19th century. My idea, in part, was to imagine what a Frankenstein opera would have been like if Verdi or Bellini had written it. The novel, published in 1812, dates from their era.
(for vocal scores of Acts 2 and 3, please
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)
recording of a workshop performance with piano
Victor Frankenstein: Allan Glassman Elizabeth: Carolyn Mallory Henry: John Absalom The Creature: Robert Stephens Victor’s Father/Philip: Joseph Warner Charlotte: Cheryl Littell Lars: Richard Nickell
chorus of the C. W. Post College Summer Opera Workshop music director and pianist: Ralph Zitterbart stage director: Richard Getke
Act 1
Act 2
Act 3
There’s a special page about Frankenstein here. For information not on that page, including availability of the complete score, please
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.
The Richest Girl in the World Finds Happiness (1975)
One-act comedy, in a pop/Broadway style, a setting of a play by Robert Patrick. Piano accompaniment.
Quartet for Anne (string quartet, 2001)