Modern classical music composer Laurie Conrad lives in Ithaca, NY. Some of her honors include: Who's Who in American Music & Marquis' Who's Who in America. Cds of her works are now available at www.figarobooks.com

A Composer’s Journal Entry November 23, 2004

2 a.m.

Began filling in my sketch of Mt. III today. I am about half way through, & new themes & motives & counter subjects are running around in my head & on the ms pages. Sometimes composing is more like a jigsaw puzzle than architecture ...

I faced big gaps on the ms paper, the sketch had only main themes & motives - & often a third of the page or more was entirely empty, a few note stems here & there, scattered around like headless chickens or andirons, only rhythms pencilled in. (Andirons because I looked up to think of an image & there they were by the coal stove.)

I had to choose between keeping up the intensity & volume of Mt. II - or shocking the audience with a sudden, quiet start to Mt. III. After a weekend to think, I decided on the quiet beginning. This was brave (& perhaps foolhardy) considering there was a yellow post-it note on the score which said: "keep up the intensity, do not let up" with a rhythm scribbled on it.

I also had to abandon my initial conception for the third movement in another way because my feelings of profound grief have inserted themselves into my writing in spite of my intentions. As a result, the sections I had completed before the tragedy are lighter & more whimsical - & the newer sections are more intense. The dance (Mt. III) was meant to intensify to the end in any case, but now there are antiphonal moods throughout the beginning pages that were not in my original plan. This actually adds more tension and interest and, as always, I trust the timing & events of Life in these matters. As I thought about this unexpected contrast in moods, the first image that came to mind was the image of earth vs Heaven, human suffering vs the joy & beauty of the higher realms - in any case the listeners, on a deep level of their beings, will each respond & understand in their own way. Music, being thankfully wordless, can reach the deepest recesses of our beings, like light shining through a prism. Each listener will bring their own soul to it, & the various & changing sounds & combinations of melodies & motives & structures & form will permeate & light each soul in its own unique way. When we listen to music, we are surrounded by something larger, more infinite than our personalities, and it somehow reminds us that we are more than just the sum of our personal history here on earth. I had that feeling when I first saw the Alps, on that small train platform in Grindelwald, the mountains towering above & around me. The same laws that arrange the atoms & geometries of the Alps also arrange the geometries & patterns that are Music.

When I was in college, I cried when my orchestration professor drew the spacings, the spacial arrangement of chords & inversions that Mozart most frequently used, on the blackboard. It would be difficult to put my reaction into words, but the simplicity & clarity & humility of those fragile chalk lines seemed to express a mystery of the universe, a truth we cannot ordinarily see. Perhaps it was a glimpse into Mozart’s soul.

Now, in the midst of writing music, I am again struck by the differences between being an interpreter, a pianist - & a composer. As a pianist, whatever mood I am experiencing when I sit down at the piano soon dissolves into the music I am practicing or performing. And the moods of a piece of music change quickly, sometimes every few measures or even every few notes. So one is brought out of the personal very quickly & immersed in the composer’s thoughts & life & vision.

As a composer, this is not the case. Even if a piece is brought to us composers by the angels themselves, we are the filter, the vehicle. And therefore our soul & our struggles are somehow indelibly imprinted on the score. As an interpreter, every facet of our being & thought & life is brought to our playing - but we still must work within the framework given to us, that we must not change. The notes are fixed on the score, & they trace the journey as clearly & intricately as the most detailed map in my atlas sitting nearby, on the upright piano. As a composer, the map is being drawn as we proceed, inwardly & outwardly, onto the page.