a shadow is reading, In the corner over there

for Female Voice, Cello, Male Voice, Viola, and Singing Pianist

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William Pearson (Spring 2015)

A little light You see a little light come down on your abdomen to light you up -A woman stretches herself like a rocket- In the corner over there a shadow is reading * Her feet swinging free are too pretty   Short-circuit in the heart A breakdown in the motor What magnet holds me up? My eyes and my love are losing their way *   A mere nothing A fire we rekindle and which goes out I’ve had enough of the wind I’ve had enough of the sky At heart all we see is artificial * Even your mouth * And yet I am hot where your hand touches me   The door is open and I don’t go in I see your face and I don’t believe in it * You are pale * One evening when we were sad we wept on a trunk * Over there men were laughing Nearly naked children sometimes strolled by The water was clear A red copper wire guides the light there The sun and your heart are of the same substance

“Central Heating” by Pierre Reverdy (1915)

Having decided never to be permeable, separately and young, living in something more silent.

Not the wind I hear from inside my hat, and not the steps

I’m taking, nor their sounds,tearing and clotting on my usual walk,

until finally, stirring upwards, covered in snow or mist or whichever demonstration of matter today has presented, he disappears, lit clouds or dust. He’s bound to if this continues,

that much is clear, and separating further, so will the sound, the snow,

now a scene.

Becoming a scene, or at least becoming descriptive, and truer, perhaps, because such simple words are fat enough, titles,

covering the trees and the ground. Fat enough to have waste and to overlap with themselves and their reference, like the whistling outside my hat.

And there will be a point when, continuing further still, it will make sense to him to assert the same about the stars, silently becoming livid, their parts exposed,

and I burn up.

All I could care about was your hand touching me. The sound and the pressure were the same,

in my car, in the unplowed parking lot, evenly lit, and as such, shouldn’t be so difficult to reproduce. Maybe not great for art.

We weren’t each other’s audience that night, but, just as the evenly spaced halogen suggested, and the polystyrene melting on your big hat, your hair

getting caught in our mouths when kissing, your wearing too much makeup, your remaining unaware of how cold it was

outside my car, under the stars,

with which, from our distance, whether turning clockwise

or counterclockwise, we made a meaningful axis.

“Winter Broken” by William Pearson (2014)

General Notes

This work is an amalgamation of two pieces of music, performed simultaneously.

The first piece, which I wrote in 2011, is titled In the corner over there, a shadow is reading and scored for Female Voice, Cello and Silent Pianist. That work is reproduced in full in this score, and is indicated by the names of the original performers: Madeline, Chelsea and Matthew.

The second piece is the newly composed (2015) material for (and labeled as) Piano, Viola and Male Voice. The two pianist roles are played by the same performer, a double-role which is made feasible by the relative inactivity required in the 2011 part.

The two pieces should be rehearsed separately as much as possible. If the ‘2015’ ensemble is appropriately acquainted with the notation, very few joint ‘dress rehearsals’ should be needed with both ensembles. The 2011 ensemble need not ever be aware of any of the new material, and should perform it as such. Because of the considerable rhythmic looseness of the 2011 work, each performance of this new work will contain considerable indeterminacy.

All of this is to say that a virtuosity of attention and present awareness/engagement with the work is much more crucial to a successful performance than any technical virtuosity.

Notes on this Score

This particular score was made for the purposes of digital reproduction, and is a kind of ‘Study Score’ which differs greatly from the actual score. The actual score involves layered pages in which cut-outs have been made, revealing material below. Here is a description of how that score is arranged:

The first 4 pages of the actual score are arranged in this way: Top Page (Male Voice Part - 4 Staves - 1a/1b) Lower Page (Viola Part - 4 Staves - 1a/1b) “Page 1” Lower Page (Piano Part - 4 Staves - 1a/1b) Bottom Page (In the corner… (2011) Score - Page 1)

Top Page (Male Voice Part - 4 Staves - 2a/2b) Lower Page (Viola Part - 4 Staves - 2a/2b) “Page 2” Lower Page (Piano Part - 4 Staves - 2a/2b) Bottom Page (In the corner… (2011) Score - Page 2)

etc…

Please note that cut-outs in Male Voice Part can thus reveal any other part, while cut-outs in the Piano Part can only reveal the 2011 score. In general, the cut-outs are identical in each part at the beginning of the work, and gradually diverge over the first 4 pages. In this ‘Study

Score’, the first 4 pages had to be stretched into 8, labelled 1a/1b, 2a/2b, etc…

Pages 5 - 11 are arranged in this way: Top Page (2015 Score - 4 Staves - Male Voice, Viola, Piano) Bottom Page (2011 Score - 4 Staves - Female Voice, Cello, Piano)

Page 12 does not exist in the actual score, nor is there a page 12 in the 2011 score. Page 12 is included in this ‘Study Score’ to show how instructions for ending the work would play out. These instructions will be included in the performance notes of the actual score.

General Notational Remarks

Because this ‘Study Score’ aims to show the entirety of the activity on stage during this work, it is a bit more cluttered than the actual score would be. To help clarify things, this study score has been color-coded.

Blue or Green Hues - Indicate cut-outs and what they reveal

Red or Orange Hues - Indicate physical gestures (finger tracing/gaze direction)

Black - Indicates how things line up in time (cues, etc)

About this work

a shadow is reading… is the fourth movement of a larger theatrical work, The Young Son. This larger work, consisting of six movements, attempts to both exploit the often-ignored theatrical potential within traditional musical performance, as well as find constructive, positive, expressive solutions to theatrical problems which are often approached with cynicism or negation.

a shadow is reading… focuses on a particular issue central to theatre: the frame.

Framing is problematic for the expressive artist, as it seems to undercut any possibility of intimacy in performance, distancing the audience from the work of art. It is this detachment which leads art critics like Michael Fried to disparage theatricality, and suggest (in his classic essay ‘Art and Objecthood’) that “Art degenerates as it approaches the condition of theatre.”

The artwork I have chosen to frame is an earlier work of mine, In a corner over there… (2011). I chose to focus on this particular work for two related reasons. The first reason is that the original work came from a (perhaps naive) desire to encapsulate a romantic relationship, to write a love song in the most traditional sense. Such a desire seems to me to be crucially related to the impulse to create theatrical artistic objects, to frame our experience of art just as we frame our experience of life. The second reason is that the 2011 work has become for me an important marker itself, a turning point in my progression as a composer. As such, there is a kind of compounded nostalgia in this work, a desire for intimacy in the face of a seemingly unbridgeable divide brought by time passed.

This nostalgia is, I think, a common feeling to have towards an artwork. Or indeed a person, or an emotional state, or a memory. And because this relationship is so similar to the problematic nature of ‘the frame’, a humanistic, constructive, and expressive grounding is provided for what is typically approached in a deconstructive, negative way.

With this in mind, I take three approaches towards framing in this work:

The first section of the piece explores framing as scaffolding. That is, as connected but not-yet-structural; a starting point for the construction of a frame. The music in this first section (p.1-4) exists entirely in relation to the quoted work, but as the section unfolds, the temporal distance of the scaffolding becomes more clear. The 2015 ensemble begins to anticipate or echo the old.

The increasing autonomy of the 2015 material builds towards the second section of the piece (p. 5-10), serving as a more traditional frame, fully distinct from the framed object. The temporal disconnect between the old and new is embraced. This more straightforward framing is highlighted by the gaze of the 2015 ensemble, which is occasionally directed towards the 2011 ensemble. Again, this is meant as a humanizing gesture, suggesting to the audience that what the composer is doing, and what the ensemble is doing, is not so different from what they are doing.

Still searching for a kind of intimacy in framing, the final section of the work explores framing as excavation. In this part of the work, the 2015 ensemble’s gaze is in constant flux, their eyes opening and closing. This entails a complete detachment from the score for the performers, encouraging increased attention on the minds of the performers. A particular pattern, pervasive throughout the work, dominates the performance during this last section. The two-chord progression performed during this section of the work is a more direct expression of the source material for the original love song.

When the quoted work has finished, Madeline walks to the Male Vocalist, kisses him on the cheek, and leaves.

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Performance Notes from In the corner… (2011) (unedited)

The pianist never plays the notated pitches, only silently depresses the keys, allowing for resonance.

A star with an accent beneath the pianist’s staff is for a Pedal Stomp. Depending on the piano, this may mean: 1) creating a percussive ‘boom’ by downward force or, 2) allowing the pedal to quickly knock upwards against the mechanism before coming back down. In any case, the basic movement will be quick and loud as possible, with a percussive intent.

Clusters (always black and white keys) are notated by filling in the cluster area with all black. ------Diamond noteheads in the soprano’s part are always sung with an almost closed mouth, the singing equivalent of a mumble. X noteheads are always sung with un-pitched breath, the specific kind is always notated (ssss, tuhh, etc). Arrows beneath the soprano’s staff refer to the direction of air, either Inhale (left-pointing arrow) or Exhale (right-pointing arrow). This applies to both singing (inward and outward) and non-pitched breathing, hissing, etc. ------ X noteheads in the cellist’s part refer to a completely (or nearly completely) pitchless sound, created by muting the strings with the left hand.------Dashed lines connecting one part to another refer to either simultaneity (a simple vertical connection) or reaction (a vertical line which dodges slightly forward)

Timing, in seconds, is to be observed naturally, never with the aid of a timekeeper.

Performance Notes for Piano (2015)

Pages 1-4 (four-stave notation) - From top to bottom, staves indicate: Physical Keyboard Staff for hand movement on keyboard -White or Black circles indicate white or black keys -Contact should be made with the keyboard, clicking and friction sounds are welcome, as is the occasional accidental pitch -Filled-in black shapes indicate silently depressed clusters, sometimes using the arms. Piano (Treble/Bass) Clef for more traditional notation -If no dynamics are indicated, no sound should be heard -X noteheads indicate where to place hands on keyboard without depressing any keys -Tremolo indicates grabbing the edge of the key and shaking it for a rattling sound. Occasional pitches are fine.

Pages 5-9 - On these pages, each member of the 2015 ensemble is playing pre- memorized material. This material (and the material needed for pages 9-12) is included at the end of these notes. The material for each performer is organized into short fragments labeled A, B, C, and D. The score indicates which fragment or series of fragments to play, and that fragment or series is repeated until disrupted.

(An effort should be made by each member of the ensemble to have a unified tempo, though some rhythmic messiness is to be expected.)

Disruptions include: Cut-outs in the score. When reading the score, a performer may encounter a cut-out over their part, and should always cease playing for approximately the duration of the cut-out. Page Turns. Page turns are often notated, indicated by a boxed ‘P’. Often times, though not always, the playing of fragments is interrupted during a page turn. Tracing with your finger. At certain points in the score, cut-outs are numbered (1,2,3,etc) and connected by dotted line pathways. These numbers indicate the order that a performer should trace the

dotted line pathway. The performer doing the tracing will have a bullet-point-sized dot on their score which is also numbered. These dots indicate the point in time that the performer’s finger should be at the given cut-out. Often times, though not always, the playing of fragments is interrupted during finger tracing. Flattening the music stand. At certain points in the score (only for Viola and Male Voice), a pictorial diagram will indicate that the performer flatten their music stand so that it is parallel with the floor. Redirecting the gaze. Diagonal, solid arrows indicate when the gaze should be redirected off of the score and towards the Female Vocalist. This should happen slowly and deliberately. Often times, though not always, the playing of fragments is interrupted while redirecting the gaze.

Sometimes, most often during one of the afore-mentioned disruptions, the score will indicate that the performer continue playing the fragments in a reduced way. This is often to allow for continued sound production when the performer’s hands are tied up in one of the afore-mentioned disruptions. Other times it is used as a way to reduce the overall sonic density. These ‘reduced’ (and hands-free) ways of playing the fragments are given at the end of these notes. ‘Reduced’ sections are indicated in this Study Score with a dotted, instead of a solid, line.

*** While the performance or expression of these fragments are disrupted, MENTAL CONTINUITY SHOULD NOT BE DISRUPTED until page 10. That is to say that regardless of any other activity during

pages 5-9, the 2015 Ensemble should be continually IMAGINING the performance of the indicated fragments, even when this imagined music is not being externalized in any way. Slight rhythmic body-

movements to maintain a consistent ensemble tempo are not necessarily discouraged, so long as they are not overly distracting. What is encouraged, however, is any subtle sense that the 2015 ensemble is tracking

time in a way that is completely distinct from the 2011 ensemble.*** Pages 10-12 - On these pages, each member of the 2015 ensemble is applying pre- memorized rules to (very minimal) pre-memorized material. These rules, and this material, is included at the end of these notes.

Each performer in the 2015 ensemble will memorize a hierarchy of four different techniques, that is, four different filters through which any musical material could pass. Each performer will also memorize rules for how to transition from one filter or technique to another. On this score, these four filters are symbolized as the four lines of the staff (page 10), and later as the four staves (page 11). On both of these pages, a pathway through these filters is indicated in asterisks. On page 10, each instrument is given a different pathway, while on page 11 the entire 2015 ensemble is using the same pathway.

While each 2015 performer is applying these rules (and externalizing them), they are also redirecting their gaze towards and away from the Female Vocalist (notated as white peaks) and slowly closing and opening their eyes (notated as black peaks).

All of these physical movements take place at a constant pulse, which should develop naturally from the previous material (pages 5-9). On pages 5-9, the fragments slow down and simplify to a point where each

repetition should feel like a slow, wave-like inhalation or exhalation. It is in this spirit, and at this rate, that these physical movements should transpire. This rate also dictates how long each repetition lasts.

Performance Notes for Viola (2015)

Pages 1-4 (four-stave notation) - From top to bottom, staves indicate: Bridge Clef for lateral bowing, left hand movement, bowing on bridge. Lateral bowing includes ‘perforated’ notation, which should be scratchy, inconsistent, yet continuous. Alto Clef for traditional notation. X noteheads indicate a completely (or nearly completely) pitchless sound, created by muting the strings with the left hand. Treble Clef for sung material Neutral Clef for breath Inhaling/Exhaling indicated by Left/Right facing arrows Shape of notation indicates relative mouth-shape

Pages 5-9 - Refer to Performance Notes for Piano

Pages 10-12 - Refer to Performance Notes for Piano

Performance Notes for Male Vocalist (2015)

Pages 1-4 (four-stave notation) - From top to bottom, staves indicate: Whistle Clef for whistling Octave changes may be made as needed. Wobbly or inconsistent pitch is acceptable, and to some extent is preferred Falsetto Clef Everything on this clef must be sung in a falsetto, in the octave notated. Bass Clef for traditional notation X noteheads indicate singing with un-pitched breath Neutral Clef for breath Inhaling/Exhaling indicated by Left/Right facing arrows Shape of notation indicates relative mouth-shape

Pages 5-9 - Refer to Performance Notes for Piano

Pages 10-12 - Refer to Performance Notes for Piano

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Staging

Audience

Movement at end of work

Audience

Set-up for next movement, The Young Son

Audience

ViolaCello

F. Vox M. Vox

Piano

ViolaCello

F. Vox M. Vox

Piano

Viola

Cello

Clarinet

Flute

Piano

Perc.

Lighting and Dress

Lighting and Dress should serve to highlight the conceptual distinctions of the work.

As such, lighting for the 2011 side of the stage should be somewhat ‘heightened’, perhaps at a more severe angle or using a soft filter, and more clearly lit than the 2015 side of the stage. The lighting for the 2011 side should not change during the performance.

The female vocalist and cellist should wear somewhat formal dress, as if performing as a soloist. Simple block colors are preferred over patterns.

A more ‘realist’ approach should be taken to the lighting on the 2015 side. It should be less clearly lit than the 2011 side, and without any strong dramatic implication. Color filters should not be used. Changes to the lighting of the 2015 side during the performance are possible, though not necessary, and should follow the 3-part form of the work. Abrupt changes in lighting should not ever occur.

A possible lighting plan for the 2015 side of the stage might entail the very gradual movement of an overhead light-source so that the shadows of the performers gradually rotate from being dissimilar to the 2011 performers’ shadows, to without shadow (completely overhead), to a point where all performers on stage are casting similar shadows. These three points (dissimilar, without, similar) should correspond with the three large sections of the piece (p.1-4, 5-9,10-12).

The 2015 ensemble should be dressed simply in black or grey.

Another possibility for the lighting of this work would be the inclusion of the pattern pictured on the cover of this work in lights, as if it were a constellation of stars, overhead.

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For Katie

Memorized Fragments for p. 5-9

Memorized Rules/Material for p. 10-12