Dear Ones,
Welcome, to MUSE ECHO - where you can read the back story of what I compose.
FYI
TONIGHT (April 17, 2020) Katherine Needleman is premiering FANTASIA 1 which I composed for her in her
lock down solo oboe concert in her living room ….
between 7:30 and 8:30 PM this evening - check out her Facebook professional page to listen.
ABOUT THIS WORK:
Fantasia I, in F Lydian with b7
dedicated to oboist Katherine NEEDLEMAN
Completed March 29, 2020
Celebrates SPRINGTIME VERVE
I) Allegro playfully
6/8 in F Lydian with flat 7
II) Lento mysteriously
6/4 in D Dorian with a flat 2
III) Vivace joyfully4/4 in F Lydian with flat 7 - yet with a twist ending in C Major…
and yes - there is SO MUCH MORE TO THIS STORY!!!
I selected F Lydian, because it sound to me to be congruent in GIST with Springtime VERVE.
Blooming flowers, blue skies, that dormant sap awakening, gardens beginning to awaken from their long winter hibernation… you get the idea. ALSO - I was SO relieved profoundly grateful to A) return home safely and with out contracting THE VIRUS earlier that month (MARCH 2020) from Paris, FRANCE. Additionally, I was high on the wonderful things that happened in Paris the weekend of March 7th and 8th, reconnecting with Marika, meeting new students, and lastly BEING in Paris again - bien sur !
BUT - HOWEVER
This isn’t just PERFECT Springtime….with Global warming, the pandemic and ensuing domino effect - we are now mostly in lock down, soul searching, FAR AFIELD WAY BEYOND AND OUT OF THE 20th century, reeling with many of its aftermaths together on earth now, as we face the question
HOW DO WE GO FORWARD????
SO therefor, I LOWERED the 7th adding to an air of mystery while honoring our present condition concurrently happening during this natural time of joy of living.
Historically for year, I had toyed and played peek a boo with composing Fantasias.
I kept putting it on my annual composing TO DO LIST - but it kept getting eclipsed by some other plate I started spinning. (I suffer from being overly inspired and enthusiastic at times. It’s as if I get FLOODED with SO MUCH music to write, like the back log of resistance of air while playing the oboe! Only SO much can come out at a time!!)
HOWEVER - when I saw Katherine Needleman’s lock down solo oboe concert, I was set ON FIRE with inspiration kindled in great part by my decades long love of the Telemann Flute Fantasias - which she was and is prominently featuring on each performance! PLUS she was seeking living composers who compose for solo oboe and for women composers - HELLO!!! so of COURSE I said howdy do to her and her. When I mentioned that I’d like to compose a Fantasia for her, she immediately replied “I’D LOVE THAT.” so I said, OK, I’ll get started, then a couple days later she asked if I could get it completed in time for her APRIL 17th concert, and I just decided then and there YES -
I DOVE in head first to complete the Fantasia.
PAINTINGS:
Immediately upon my return home from Paris, earlier, on March 11, I started painting on March 12.
Painting helps me in so many many ways. I painted this on and it’s titled “After Paris” It is deeply influenced by being in Paris earlier last month.
AFTER PARIS by KJP, March 2020
This painting also includes the feelings of the state of current affairs as well as the beginning thrill of SPRINGTIME too powerful to be eclipsed by humanity - something to be most grateful!!!
Shortly after painting this painting, I learned of Katherine Needleman’s concert series and while I was composing the Fantasia 1, and thinking about all I’ve just written as well as Katherine herself, I painted this. For example, in honor of the fact she is a mother herself, I used the color of the ground that I did, and in honoring the embarking of a journey - a FANTASIA journey - as well as honoring feminism - the pink path.
Clearly, the flowers and flowering tree celebrates Springtime VERVE. I used the tree trunk to express my distress of the duality of the present situation while also wanting to make the trunk look artsy and how tree trunks often have a lot of light and dark shadow when viewed.
Like a Fantasia - I was putting in a “BOX” of form - somewhat realistic - however, not TOO realistic, it is ART and a FANTASIA after all! It rides the line of preconceived, form and freedom. Aspects of FANTASIA which I so dearly love and embrace.
CREATIVE PROCESS of COMPOSING Fantasia 1 in F Lydian with a flat 7 dedicated to Katherine Needleman
I started out with some UNBREAKABLE RULES:
1) It’s a solo oboe work for a virtuoso oboist which also needs to be playable on FLUTE and CLARINET (not transposed but as written)
2) It has to start out in F Lydian with a flat 7
3) It has to resemble and be influenced by Telemann’s Fantasias (so too the entire project of XII)
by having more than not focus and maintenance on tonality and meter.
4) Have freedoms in it.
5) It MUST EXPRESS Springtime VERVE and the underlying concerns and hidden mysteries
Once those were clear - like selecting the size canvas and palette for a painting - WHOOSH - the rest was surrender and let the current carry me away.
That’s what happened.
Once I got to the second movement - I dove into the underlying angst - without drowning in it - because LIGHT ALWAYS ECLIPSES DARK whenever there is love. And there is certainly love going on here.
i kept the key signature and threw in chromatics as needed. I loved how D was tonic for some mysterious course of events so thereby making the second movement in D DORIAN with a FLAT 2. It’s where the spirit of the muse took me and I say - yes mam. Also - second movement needed to be slower - in keeping with the contrasting movement nudge HOWEVER - I don’t feel beholding to it in a FANTASIA -
Fantasias are so lovely because they are like FAIRY TALES - yes rules apply but not the rules of reality. They only apply when CONVENIENT because in a fairy tale, things transform into tress or birds and the laws of everyday programming need not apply.
OK so now we are onto the third movement. I desired to compose a challenge for our illustrious Katherine and give her some fast finger work like the Telemann Fantasias provide. I didn’t want to disappoint. I wanted to give myself permission to compose in 4/4 and stay there. I wanted it more upbeat than the first movement and longer - for general shape of composition.
Because of the enormous TIME PRESSURE to get this done and to be compassionate with the fact that Katherine had NO time to properly get to know the piece adequately to labor over her own personal interpretation will lots of details of articulations and while I knew she didn’t really know my style or ways of playing - I decided to spend COUNTLESS HOURS agonizing over how to articulate IN GREAT DETAIL this entire work for her the way I would articulate it myself. WAY OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE TO DO THIS however - I’m so very glad that I did.
On Monday April 13th, (Poet, Tina Barr’s birthday random BTW, and I tell her, (TINA) poetry month is in APRIL because she was born in it.) I received a first sound and video of Katherine Needleman playing through this work.
Mind you that on Saturday the 11, after looking at it FOR THE FIRST TIME, she expressed some concern about the difficulty playing a new piece in a completely foreign to her key signature.
Understanding that the more trained a western classical oboists is, the more entrenched the key training is I GOT A LITTLE WORRIED. So, putting on my teacher hat, I suggested that she practice an F LYDIAN building scale to get that under her fingers and then practice the F Lydian with a Flat 7 - the get THAT under her fingers AS WELL AS assisting her in hearing what is written.
UGH - I feel like my fingers just ran a key board marathon.
OK dear ones - I hope that this Fantasia no. 1 brings SERIOUS JOY to all who hear it, study it, perform it. It was a labor of love.
NOW, I am most eager to return to FANTASIA 2 - in F Melodic minor
OH! WAIT - there’s more.
The third movement concludes with a C MAJOR cadence, and to me FEELS like it is resolved. I love it and let it happen and stopped there and didn’t change it because A - I felt guided to do so and B) I LOVE the thought and feeling that it gave me - that we are going through a weird time and it will turn out eventually - let me repeat EVENTUALLY - much brighter and we will transform into a new tonality.
I CRAZY love how sometime I will start in one key (when I get my “TONAL ON” ) and end the work in a way that feels resolved - in another key.
Personally and philosophically - I give myself FULL PERMISSION - to fling the tonal rules aside regarding leave and return to the original tonic. WHY? Life isn’t like that? WE TRANSFORM and now that we are in this 21st century TOGETHER - we HAVE TO MODULATE and transform PERMANENTLY.
That’s what we’re doing. That’s where we are, and I’m really HAPPY that my writing “MY” writing - I simply assist as a servant to the MUSE - m for MUSE in the word MY - I’m really happy that this work reflects moving forward and not turning back.
(NOW that I’ve written that - I wonder how other Fantasias will end….ha ha - stay tuned you lovely lovelies. )
All best wishes for your health and overall well being.
Thank you for your interests.
Kathryn J. Potter
KJP
April 17, 2020.
FANTASIA 1 by KJP, March 2020 gouache on canvas board