Friday, January 09, 2004
Grave
It’s becoming terribly hard to compose any music, ever since I became stuck with sequencing the musical (God bless, I’m only still at the opening of Act I Scene 1!). I have just composed the confirmed version of the Entr’acte of this section of the musical having written and abandoned God knows how many versions. Now I’m worried about how the orchestration will sound, because I only wrote the melody line on paper and orchestrated directly on the computer. As usual it has my trademark shift of modes and unexpected and twisting harmonic changes. I fear it might become too autobiographical… because I have been feeling exactly the same way my music feels for the past few days.
* * *
I go to the Esplanade library in the evening; it’s been a while since I went there, and I sorely miss it. I’m going to get the “Trout” Quintet score as well as a book of Schumann’s piano works; I’m choosing pieces to orchestrate. Besides these two I pick out a book of Chinese tribal folk songs, and a CD of Janacek’s stage music.
At the same time there is a talk given by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) with regards to its 25th anniversary. It’s a conversation between Dr Chang Tou Liang and composer and physics lecturer Professor Bernard Tan. I can vaguely remember the conversation, because it’s been ages since I write this, but Prof Tan made some snipe comments about the orchestra “over there”, thumbing in the direction of the north. Obviously it meant Malaysia and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. It brought a few sniggers in the crowd. Prof Tan was saying that the Malaysians needed a foreign management team to build up their orchestra, while the Singapore one relied on locals to sit on the directorial board. Also, Dr Chang made an ironic statement: “Thank you for supporting the SSO, even though we play badly AT TIMES [author’s own capitalisation]”. Hello, I think it’s most of the time, especially in the familiar works. I think I have recounted the instance when they played Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to widespread cringing from the audience, and when they messed up my favourite Brahms and made a requiem out of it (see the entry on 28 November 2003). Okay, they do play well, like the Sibelius Symphony Number 2, which I still count as among one of the best versions I’ve ever heard (even better than the CD that I bought).
I’ve discovered two interesting things from the talk. One is that our National Anthem used to be much longer. After the part “Berjaya, Singapura”, there used to be another eight bars of music, before the chorus. It was taken out during the adoption of the Anthem because it was deemed too long. Ever since, the Anthem sounds imbalanced. The first verse seems to end too quickly, while the chorus are played twice. Prof Tan said he had kept a recording of the full-length version played by the SSO during their inaugural concert, but I had no chance to ask him for access to it after the talk.
Another thing is that the “Red Hot” that Bond has been playing is really the theme from the Overture to the “Barber of Seville” by Rossini. Prof Tan was mentioning about the repertoire of the inaugural concert. When he came to the part about the Overture, he pointed towards the ceiling (at some invisible PA): “Ah, this is what we played. The very piece you’re hearing now.”) Then I recognised the tune. After the talk I went to pick up the “Barber” score and realised that the theme WAS from that opera. Fuck those stupid pop groups who call themselves “exponents of classical music – to bring them to a wider audience” for sexing up that theme – it is blatant disrespect for the great masters. In revenge I shall probably take one or two pop songs and deface them, using my metamorphosis and motivic variation techniques. I leave the library with even greater hatred for Bond. ¶ 1/09/2004 10:30:00 pm
It’s becoming terribly hard to compose any music, ever since I became stuck with sequencing the musical (God bless, I’m only still at the opening of Act I Scene 1!). I have just composed the confirmed version of the Entr’acte of this section of the musical having written and abandoned God knows how many versions. Now I’m worried about how the orchestration will sound, because I only wrote the melody line on paper and orchestrated directly on the computer. As usual it has my trademark shift of modes and unexpected and twisting harmonic changes. I fear it might become too autobiographical… because I have been feeling exactly the same way my music feels for the past few days.
* * *
I go to the Esplanade library in the evening; it’s been a while since I went there, and I sorely miss it. I’m going to get the “Trout” Quintet score as well as a book of Schumann’s piano works; I’m choosing pieces to orchestrate. Besides these two I pick out a book of Chinese tribal folk songs, and a CD of Janacek’s stage music.
At the same time there is a talk given by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra (SSO) with regards to its 25th anniversary. It’s a conversation between Dr Chang Tou Liang and composer and physics lecturer Professor Bernard Tan. I can vaguely remember the conversation, because it’s been ages since I write this, but Prof Tan made some snipe comments about the orchestra “over there”, thumbing in the direction of the north. Obviously it meant Malaysia and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. It brought a few sniggers in the crowd. Prof Tan was saying that the Malaysians needed a foreign management team to build up their orchestra, while the Singapore one relied on locals to sit on the directorial board. Also, Dr Chang made an ironic statement: “Thank you for supporting the SSO, even though we play badly AT TIMES [author’s own capitalisation]”. Hello, I think it’s most of the time, especially in the familiar works. I think I have recounted the instance when they played Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony to widespread cringing from the audience, and when they messed up my favourite Brahms and made a requiem out of it (see the entry on 28 November 2003). Okay, they do play well, like the Sibelius Symphony Number 2, which I still count as among one of the best versions I’ve ever heard (even better than the CD that I bought).
I’ve discovered two interesting things from the talk. One is that our National Anthem used to be much longer. After the part “Berjaya, Singapura”, there used to be another eight bars of music, before the chorus. It was taken out during the adoption of the Anthem because it was deemed too long. Ever since, the Anthem sounds imbalanced. The first verse seems to end too quickly, while the chorus are played twice. Prof Tan said he had kept a recording of the full-length version played by the SSO during their inaugural concert, but I had no chance to ask him for access to it after the talk.
Another thing is that the “Red Hot” that Bond has been playing is really the theme from the Overture to the “Barber of Seville” by Rossini. Prof Tan was mentioning about the repertoire of the inaugural concert. When he came to the part about the Overture, he pointed towards the ceiling (at some invisible PA): “Ah, this is what we played. The very piece you’re hearing now.”) Then I recognised the tune. After the talk I went to pick up the “Barber” score and realised that the theme WAS from that opera. Fuck those stupid pop groups who call themselves “exponents of classical music – to bring them to a wider audience” for sexing up that theme – it is blatant disrespect for the great masters. In revenge I shall probably take one or two pop songs and deface them, using my metamorphosis and motivic variation techniques. I leave the library with even greater hatred for Bond. ¶ 1/09/2004 10:30:00 pm
