In memoriam Jason Clark

A Series of Allusions and Implications: In memoriam Jason Clark (2009) 7'
For Oboe and Electronics sampling words of Jason Clark

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Begun as a humorous experiment in writing my first electronic piece, In memoriam Jason Clark has become a more substantial effort in musique concrète with solo instrument. The sampled words are taken from a two-and-a-half-hour conversation Herr Clark and I recorded during the Summer of 2009 specifically for this work. The work uses small phrases and words as its various ostinati and groove-created phenomena. On top of these manipulations, three longer rants of gradually shortening durations occur that end with an outburst that momentarily stops the background. The final push introduces the composer names mentioned earlier and crams them together to lead to the final outburst. The oboe part is made up of material based on a five-note spelling of Clark, short quotes of mentioned composers, and rhythmic and contour copying of the rants. This music maintains an amount of humorous element, namely the fact that Jason is far from deceased.

Premiere Performance: December 5, 2009

Trystero New Music Concert No. 3

7:30pm Ludwig Recital Hall Kent State University

David Kulma, oboe

December 8, 2009

Student Composers Concert

8pm Ludwig Recital Hall Kent State University

David Kulma, oboe

Text in order of first appearance:

Craftsmanship.

A Series of Allusions and Implications.

I love Webern, but no one does Webern better than him.

No one succeeds at imitating Stravinsky, because he doesn't have a system.

He has mannerisms and you can rip them off fairly easily (guilty).

It's a useful system for labeling sonorities, and because it relies on unordered sets for the most part, it's too problematic, and that's where set theory falls apart, is segmentation. As soon as you start talking about, well, two notes of this chord plus a half note in the next measure equal this set, but the other two notes and the preceding eighth note to that chord are another set. There's no musical justification for how, especially Forte, how Forte segments sets. It really seems to me he's looking for those note patterns in a situation completely divorced from the musical nature of what he's looking at.

Thus x.

Schoenberg never built a matrix.

But it would have been sweet.

Allegedly.

I don't doubt that.

We can do whatever we want, which is how Stravinsky did what he did, how Bartók did what he did, even how Hindemith did what he did (as regimented as it was after the thirties). He was still, as long as he was internally consistent, the rules for that piece are the rules for that piece.

A paradigm.

I have problems with that idea.

You're living a lie.

I advocate for the latter.

So this means someday someone will be walking through the ruins of Chicago and see a statue that says, "My name is Obama, King of Kings, look on my work ye mighty and despair."

I made that up.

Schoenberg.

Webern.

Stravinsky.

Bartók.

Hindemith.

Fantastic.