Trying to finish the symphony...

My first symphony has been done for several months now, meaning that the music has been written but I haven't had the time nor the courage to actually go back and finalize the marking and the editing. Really, writing the music is no big deal. One you get started, it's just a matter of putting the pieces together. But then you have to go back and put in the harp pedaling, to try to figure out if the second clarinet has the time to grab the bass clarinet, what drum the middle stave Bb needs to go on in the tymp. part and all the other "practical" things that make a piece playable.

I'm actually pleasantly surprised going back over this. I've made a few cuts here and then, but for a long work (25 minutes or so) it's pretty tight. It's also kind of fun to remember the circumstances which lead to me writing this piece, which has taken up about five years or (in spurts, between lots of smaller works). This came out of working with the Tailleferre 2 guitar concerto that had been found in the Radio France Library (where everybody knew it was , having been lost there years earlier...) and being fascinated by the shadowing of the two guitars by a harp and celesta group. This work is extremely dark, in Tailleferre's full mature style and has some pretty dissonant bi-tonality. I started playing around with an ostinato figure for harp and celesta, added some strings....and off I went.

Of course, I always think of my music as being inherently abstract...and the editing process is very mechanical. Luckily, I get to work with live musicians today too, which will bring me back to heart of this issue.

What's nice about working on a big orchestral piece is when you get back to smaller chamber works, it seems so much easier to work with. I might have a look at the Clarinet and Piano piece that I was trying to make into a short three minute number, but which seems to be trying to turn itself in to a three movement sonata...

Back to work.