A new recording has been premiered on the Facebook page under the title "A Waltz in Winter". A slightly uncharacteristic piece not only in being a waltz but in that much of the piece is spent in major keys while the thematic material is explored.
The piece is also somewhat experimental in that the melody is an extrapolation from a textual source, a treatment of text-as-music, using the words of a certain proposal as inspiration.
Hope you'll enjoy my final work of 2010.
My work can now be found in a few additional places online. After several requests, it's finally available on Facebook, both at that link and in the new sidebar here.
For the interested, it may also be discovered now as part of the experience of the Sixty One.
If you'd like to see it elsewhere, leave your suggestions in the comments.
“Εἰ δ᾽ ἄγε νῦν, Ἐρατώ, παρά θ᾽ ἵστασο, καί μοι ἔνισπε...”
Long already a muse and inspiration to me, as I have mentioned here before, I have written and released this newest piece to acknowledge that she has also inspired me in ways and directions I'd no longer thought open to me.
It's but a little thing, I know, but we work with what gifts we have and this is mine. Thank you, my dear, for everything: my life is better with you in it.
With all my love, then, I present for you, Gabriela, your track “Erato”—the Greek's muse of love for the muse of my own:
Up to the present, I have used the once decent artist hosting service of iMeem to provide my listeners with free, streaming versions of the music I have released and blogged here. Today it was brought to my attention that those links no longer worked but instead were displaying a plethora of unwanted and unintended advertising here. Investigating, I have discovered that at some recent point the blasted behemoth of MySpace has acquired iMeem, and with neither site alerting any of the artists once hosted there about the matter, have removed access, streaming or otherwise, to our works hosted there.
I apologize for this inconvenience, and will investigate as soon as I have the chance, some other means of offering my works for listening here again. In the meantime, some thirty-five tracks of my work are currently available for free listening at the Last.FM site, under the artists Agrypnia and Hexachordum, the latter for bass work.
A small piece this time round, barely three minutes of playtime. It began as a simple piano melody that came to mind one evening earlier in the week, but shaped by the week's events and some dream-time inspiration it has emerged as a small work for violin with piano accompaniment, primarily in E minor, with small diversions into G major and C minor along the way. The title, I think suitable enough, comes from a line in the Mayrhofer poem "Einsamkeit" which Schubert once set to music.
The work may be heard here at Last.FM.
Last fall I found myself lamenting my lack of a Muse, fumbling around with this or that, doing arrangements or covers—just to keep in practice—of some other artist's work for want of my own inspiration. Those of you who've followed my pre-release blogs may recall the grumbling. Yet with the previous post, I had thought—had hoped—perhaps that phase had passed, as new work began once more to trickle out.
I should have been more wary of optimism, perhaps, but so it goes.
And yet, as fate's mysterious ways are wont to unfurl, it turns out that further inspiration was even then making itself known, entering life from unexpected quarters. In the months since, this muse has proved inspiring in myriad ways, but most significantly for this blog, she has brought me round again to music, having so far inspired several new works.
In gratitude, I here dedicate this latest to her, with all my thanks and all my love, which she has also re-awakened.
You may hear it at Last.FM, here: Su melodía oculta (A Song for Catherine).
The title comes from the reported ancient practice of setting aside a stone for every day of life: white, if a good or fortunate day; black, if not. At the close of day, or of life, the stones are counted, and the day, or the life, considered fortunate or not depending on which color predominates. (See here, for example.) As moods and experiences fluctuate through my own life, I am not certain which color so far describes my course; nor, perhaps, am I even sure which is predominant in my music, as I slip from major to minor modes and round again. The title is inspired by that consideration. And the tabulation of counting stones? What more fitting day for such a name than today, the Election.
For those of you who have followed my work, you may have noticed that for a while now the bulk of my releases have consisted of arrangements—Bach, Mozart, Salieri, Beethoven (or here or here), Grieg, et al. That changes with this post, as here, at last, is a return to original work. The credit, inspiration, and ultimately, the dedication for this goes to Ekaterina, to whom, all my thanks.
You may hear the track here
