Modern Miscellanea

by Paul Hembree

Two weeks ago, my work Nyx & Eris was performed in a new version by the Playground Ensemble in Denver, and I am pleased with the changes I made from last year's version, as well as the excellent performance. Most of the changes stemmed from a composition seminar last year, during which there was quite a bit of constructive criticism, mostly lead by Brandon Vacarro. I find generally that composers are too soft to each other (in many of the contexts I've experienced that involved numerous composers interacting with each other - festivals, master classes, seminars, etc), and in order for us to grow as composers we should both give and take constructive criticism effectively. Though it might not have been a Paul Hembree love fest at the time, the criticism I received, particularly on the Eris movement, encouraged me to continue crafting the work into the improved version that now exists (I'll post a video when get all the material - check it out!).

Eris was changed extensively in the new version. That movement particularly suffered from a lack of breathing points - something have been prone to in recent years. Part of this stems from my almost obsessive-compulsive urge to fill all the staves on the page with some kind of material at all times, preferably contrapuntally independent material. However, considering the size of the Nyx & Eris ensemble (woodwind quintet, piano, and string quartet), this type of textural saturation was not as viable. The new version uses gaps in the texture for breathing points. Furthermore, I believe the orchestration is much more successful in the new version - typically only three layers are in play at any one time, and though those layers may each consist of many different components, they are united in gesture to form a single nuanced layer, with an "inner quality."

(A long tangent: The term "inner quality" I first heard from Wayne Vitale, a composer for and director of Sekar Jaya, the highly successful Balinese gamelan ensemble. My take on progressions or gestures with an "inner quality": they have an internal structure which reveals nuances that are perceptible only on the periphery of consciousness, while their entire outline is apprehended in the foreground of consciousness as a Gestalt unit. Debussy seems to be good at both this type of gesture, an example of which might be the opening chords of Nuages, and a much more "flat" gesture: "planing," that is, simply using successive, identical quality chords.)

The other main change to Eris that was a drastic improvement was the rhythmic simplification of sections of the piece that did not require a vigorous "aksak" feel (an asymmetrical rhythmic feel composed of chaotic alternations of groups of 2 or 3 eighths, creating a kind of kaleidoscopic Eastern European / Balkan dance). While the aksak rhythms created an appropriate intensity for some of the jarring chromatic lines of the movement, it was not appropriate for the "Tapestry" sections, during which the performers should feel much more relaxed and expressive. Though not tonal, the Tapestry material was certainly conceived of as being beautiful. The new version ironed out the aksak rhythms during these sections, instead employing a lightly mixed, pervasively compound meter throughout. The conductor, Jonathan Leathwood, described these sections as moments of "sanctus" - I feel that this is certainly an appropriate analogy. I love the balance of heavenly and hellish sound worlds, sometimes even simultaneously, because to me it is one of the best ways to express the feeling of apprehending something sublime in the cosmos.