Douglas Knehans — Program Notes:
touch | the fire | bone vestiges | time processional | guitar concerto |une seule femme endormie
the ascension of robert flau | dawn panels |exiles |st. luke magnificat |winter steps
touch
touch is the word that immediately came to mind when I first heard the playing of the commissioner of this work, pianist Carsten Schmidt. Carsten's extraordinarily fluid and sensitive touch coupled with the extremely malleable coloration which he imparts to it lead me to begin thinking about the notion of touch both as a title and as a structural concept for the work. The title implied to me the idea of a structure in which one idea 'touches' another while not 'becoming' another as in the traditional developmental model. Therefore in this work pianist and electronics share many of the same ideas but the medium imparts its own 'touch' to their delivery. The solo music can be shaped and phrased and colored in a much more fluid way than can the electronics which are delivered in a quite severe, almost mechanical, guise. Additionally, the pianist can 'touch' the shape of the work by selecting a variety of different tempi for the electronics, which, in turn, impart a malleability to the electronics part which is not seen in most traditional 'instrument and tape' works.
touch was commissioned by Carsten Schmidt and written in 1997-8. The work is dedicated to him and to his sensitive artistry.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
the fire
the fire is a setting of a poem I wrote in 1988 entitled Walking at Night. The poem explores the subtle world of a love relationship with all of it's unspoken communications, assurances and perennial sensuality. The setting of the poem is somewhat more overt in all of these respects. The soprano voice takes up the text sometimes as continuant fricatives and front vowels and others as more traditionally sung words. Further coloring of the vocal line is achieved through a liberal use of microtonally shifted pitches and microtonal glissandi as well as closed lip singing or humming which is taken up also by the unamplified violinist's voice. More extensive coloration of particular words of the text is achieved through digital processing of the vocal line through the microphone feed.
The singers words and some violin fragments have also been taken into the computer for digital audio processing, synthesis and filtering. These pre-designed digital audio "soundbites" are then loaded into the computer and triggered, along with the vocal and MIDI violin effects via Max.
Although all of the technology involved may imply a sort of "sonic overload" I have tried to be sensitive always to the text and to the instrumentalists in my awareness of allowing them the space in which to be natural, albeit "wired," musicians. Thus the work conjures a dreamy and sensual yet passionate and dramatic world that the text implied to me.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
bone vestiges program note
Each section of bone vestiges oscillates around a central pitch center. The aggregate of these centers comprise a series or row that emerges in the foreground of the work in the form of long held notes. Around the (unstated) central pitch of each section an upper and a lower note are equidistantly expressed. For example if the center is C the major third Bb/D is stated; the interval representing both the aggregate of its parts -- the major third -- as well as it's individual constituents -- the major second.
Allied to this symmetrical unfolding of pitch elements is a similar rhythmic unfolding. For example, if we take the downbeat of the first measure as "home" each unfolding dyad is placed the same number of pulse units away from "home" as the pitches are placed in half steps away from their own (unstated) center. So, if the work is unfolding in eighth notes the Bb/D dyad would occur three (eighth) beats into the work.
The only flaw with this system is the "wedge" shape that is built into it. I decided to intervene to break this up enough to be musically and expressively interesting by a simple extension of the system outlined in the preceding paragraph. Instead of having the dyads rhythmically move around a common starting point, I created a short rhythmic fragment onto which I mapped, in random order, the dyads. The rhythmic structure of the work unfolds through each initial dyadic statement serving as its own "ground zero." The resultant music is tightly structured, yet also incorporates a human rhythmic element which lends the music a visceral forward propulsion.
Additionally, each section of the work is structured in sets of subsections with regard to the number of rhythmic cycles a dyad is to remain silent before restatement. Using this method I was able to control the flow of density of the pitches. For example, if the first large section were comprised of five subsections and I wanted the textural density to increase toward the end of the large section, I would structure each subsection in a descending order with a greater number of "rest" cycles at the beginning thus increasing the density of the texture towards the end of the large section. So, taking the major third example: if I structured the first large section with this cyclic ordering 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, the dyad would not repeat until 15 eighth notes in the first subsection (5 times 3), but this would decrease to 12 in the next and 9 in the next and so on. Associated with this "density cycling" is a cellular cycling or displacement of small groupings of dyads. As the work cycles through its seven sections, so too on the microstructural level the seven dyadic groups cycle through from beginning to end.
In addition to the two structural features already outlined, I decided on two macrostructural strategies for the work as well. The opening of the work presents two ideas: isolated martellato eighth notes and long, quiet sustained notes. Of the latter I used three sets based on larger dotted quarter values of one, three, and five and these initially are heard as a slowly unfolding fragmented line. So the two elements, to use a Paul Klee analog, are line and point. These points though, are chords, and the line is a single line. So my strategy with these elements was to have the single line "morph" into chordal points and the chordal points "morph" into single lines as the piece progresses. This necessitated gradually separating the dyads into single notes through displacement. This rhythmic displacement also has a macrostructural element. As the work unfolds I wanted the eighth note pulse to shift to a dotted sixteenth, or, in simpler terms to have a compound subdivision of three gradually move to a duple subdivision of four.
The final structural strategy of the work is the one that initially gave rise to useful work on the piece and that is the notion of registrally associated timbral change, or registral "filters" or "envelopes." As the work unfolds the tessitura gradually climbs higher, until a restatement of the opening materials occurs some six octaves higher at the close of the work.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
time processional program note
The form of time processional unfolds both sequentially, in time, and through a complementary projection of ideas into various interlocked strata of pitch and pulse. Such strata are generated using strict permutations of a central pulse, so that, in most sections of the work, two or more strata are being unfolded simultaneously. Each pulse stratum carries with it a centric pitch, which acts, like the pulse, as a center around which all musical unfoldings in each particular stratum occur. Using this compositional framework, or web of pulses linked to pitches, allows for a stratified and organized way to transform musical materials. Apart from this technical and formal aspect of the composition, such elaborate, stratified interlockings yield a temporal and expressive freedom that I find liberating and dramatic as well as powerfully expressive.
The title of the work refers to this process directly. Musical ideas are established and associated with one sense of time, or pulse, then shifted to another, resulting in a reorientation of the idea, much as occurs when one first perceives an event then goes on to re-live that event in memory: the event itself has not changed, yet time has recast the event in a new, yet deeply related way. It is the network of such transformations of events through time that is the compositional focus of the work.
time processional is the result of a summer research grant from the Research Grants Committee of the University of Alabama and is dedicated to Dr. Gerald Welker and the University of Alabama Wind Ensemble.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
concerto for guitar, orchestra and concertino note
There are really four movements to this three movement work. The first three are those for the solo guitar and orchestra (strings, low brass and percussion). The “fourth” is the movement played by the concertino (piccolo, oboe, bass clarinet, horn, piccolo trumpet, percussion and harpsichord). This “fourth” movement is a variation on the first movement “stretched out” over the length of the entire concerto. Thus, throughout the work, reminiscences of the first movement can be heard in a slower, varied format, lending a certain suspended, dreamlike character to much of the concerto.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
une seule femme endormie program note
Une seule femme endormie was written very quickly after a long period of consideration of the brooding text of Jouve’s poem. Formally the work is very free and responds dramatically to the emotional nuances of the text. The work unfolds from a fragment of the opening ‘cello line which recurs in varied forms throughout the work. The unusual aspect of the ‘cellist being called upon to hum and sing was a response to the dense ambiguity of time and space evoked by the poem. Beyond this, however, the vocal contributions of the instrumentalist lend an added depth to the vocal line itself, while at the same time projecting a sense of mystery and longing that is also inherent in Jouve’s moving poem.
UNE SEULE FEMME ENDORMIE
Par un temps humide et profond tu étais plus belle
Par une pluie désespérée tu étais plus chaude
Par un jour de désert tu me semblais plus humide
Quand les arbres sont dans l’aquarium du temps
Quand la mauvaise colère du monde est dans les coeurs
Quand le malheur est las de tonner sur les feuilles
Tu étais douce
Douce comme le dents de l’ivoire des morts
Et pure comme le caillot de sang
Qui sortait en riant des lèvres de ton âme.
Par un temps humide et profond le monde est plus noir
Par un jour de désert le coeur est plus humide.
Pierre Jean Jouve
A LONE WOMAN ASLEEP
When there came days sunk deep in damp your beauty seemed increased
And ever warmer grew your glow when rain fell in despair
And when days came that were like deserts you
Grew moister than the trees in the aquarium of time
And when the ugly anger of the world raged in our hearts
And sadness lisped exhausted through the leaves
You became as sweet as death Sweet as teeth in the ivory skull-box of the dead
And pure as the skein of blood
Your laughter made to trickle down from your soul’s parted lips.
When there come days deep-sunk and damp the world grows still more dark
When days like deserts come, the heart is drenched with tears.
[David Gascoyne]
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
opera — the ascension of robert flau program note
The Ascension of Robert Flau is a serious opera built on themes of death and transcendence in the broadest sense. The opera explores the life of Robert Flau, the central character, and his decline into an evenings drunken reminiscence on his life and unfulfilled dreams. Each scene explores Flau's relation to various important aspects of his life: his work; his wife; his child; his achievements; his status in society. By the end of this dreamlike act, with its haunting images of death and unfulfilled love, Flau confronts some of the demons in his life in the form of apparitions of his wife and the ghost of his dead son, whom Flau symbolically murders in an effort to rid himself of guilt associated with not loving his son more fully.
Throughout the opera Flau's relationship to the various aspects of his life is kept intentionally ambiguous in an effort to weave a web of oblique relationships much as exist in a dream. The notion of whether his son is real or a fantasy of his wife's remains ambiguous until the closing scene of the act where Flau fires a pistol at the ghostly image of his son and the symbolic blood of this act begins to ooze from the walls as Flau's cathartic breakdown ends the act.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
dawn panels program note
dawn panels was commissioned by the Adelaide Percussions and conceived as a showpiece for percussion quartet. To this end I decided to divide the considerable range of instruments into generic groups – instruments of wood, of metal and of skin – and to write a movement for each. The glistening collection of tuned metal instruments is used for the ternary slow movement which is the emotional core of the work. To precede this, there is a nervous athletic sonatina movement in wood, whose worrying ostinato for whip sets a dark undertone for the mood of this movement, serving as a preparation to the more serious second movement. The work ends with a spiraling rondo for drums. As this movement unfolds there is an increase in activity, dynamics and general density. The work concludes in a wild, almost orgiastic layering of rhythms.
The work’s title was inspired by the various moods one can experience at this time of day – a time of tenderness, openness and hope. The piece is dedicated to Merilee.
© Copyright 1988 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
exiles program note
Trying to define a purely abstract work such as exiles is a daunting task. The work commenced as a kind of ‘musical puzzle:’ ‘I wonder if I could write a work that is in fact two works drawn from the same material and argued from two different perspectives?’ So, I decided to write for an instrument to be pre-recorded and thus separate physically from the ensemble, and then for this to be played concurrently with the music written for the ensemble.
I then created the opening bars of the work which served as the basis for the arch-like structure for the live instruments as well as for the set of forty-two variations for digitally processed mandolin on two stereo tapes.
The work is full of mirror processes both in the larger formal sense down to small details. The ensemble’s music is a palindromic arch-like structure focused on a vertical (time) axis, while the mandolin’s quadraphonic variations also work palindromically but on a horizontal (spatial) axis.
So, given these formal ideas to solve, I began thinking of the piece much like the memory of being in a large, but incomplete, structure where one can see into the other rooms and still to the outside and sky, etc. Or, as if one were in a cave or cavern with its attendant resonances, architecture and mystery.
Having thought the work through this far, I planned the entire piece at once and worked to this plan. The architecture of the work being supported by a strong tonal design and its reflections, permutations and superimpositions.
In this way, I have created a work that is has a strong and logical structure supporting a dramatic and dark content.
The piece was commissioned ELISION with the assistance of the Australia Council Music Board. The work is dedicated to Daryl Buckley, Stephen Morey and ELISION in gratitude
.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
st. luke magnificat program note
I had, for some time, had in mind the setting of religious, and in particular, Latin texts, when in 1985 I was commissioned by Gaudeamus to write a work for unaccompanied double choir. I decided to write a work joyous in affirmation of the Spirit rather than a more sectarian, religiously pompous piece.
While writing, the text preyed on my mind and I found myself, uncharacteristically, writing music that wasn’t to plan. This at first concerned me but finally I allowed myself to feel free to support the broad spiritual and dramatic thrust of the words rather than rigidly imposing a musical ‘form’ on the work.
As it finally turned out, I finished with a hybrid – a work strong in dramatic thrust, yet cast in a rather free, yet formally satisfying ‘sonata’ type structure.
The one change, made on dramatic grounds, was in the placement of the Esurientes and the Deposuit. This was in order to end the middle section with a stronger dramatic statement.
Although the work has, as a structural element, strong tonal orientation, the harmonic language I use is usually far from diatonic and I am sure this will be apparent at once.
My st. luke magnificat is scored for unaccompanied SSAA/SATB choir and was commissioned by Gaudeamus, Canberra, with the assistance of the Australia Council Music Board. Work on the magnificat was completed in mid-April, 1986.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
winter steps program note
winter steps was composed in the early weeks of June, 1983 and was my first work for orchestra since graduating from undergraduate music school in Canberra in 1980. The intervening years were taken up (apart from some film and television music) solely with a set of five songs on which I worked very hard to liberate myself from the compositional techniques I had learned as an undergraduate. With these songs I intended to free myself from the constraints of what seemed to me ‘self-conscious Modernism.’
winter steps is an extension of this liberation. My goal with this work was three-fold. Firstly, to use the form, like most composers, as a test of contrapuntal skill and invention. Secondly, as a study in orchestral color and texture. Third, as a study in dissonance, tension, climax and resolution in the broader formal sense. winter steps is to a ground of 9 bars with a subsequent set of eighteen variations. The theme, while not being clearly diatonic is implicitly tonal and this tonal bias is borne out in subsequent argument.
The work was premiered by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 1981 as part of the state of Victoria’s 150th anniversary celebrations and broadcast nationally on ABC-FM.
© Copyright 2004 by Douglas Knehans, World Rights Reserved
