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Song cds: A Composer's Journal entries December 20,26 & 27, 2004 by composer & pianist Laurie Conrad.
Monday, December 20
2 a.m.
Colder today. Wrote a very tonal row for St. Michael, for the opening section. Filled in the matrix while Shaun brought in wood & coal - three buckets of coal & enough wood for at least a week. It’s below zero F outside, Shaun does not look happy. Bob & I put corrections in the printed score of the Quintet tonight, for several hours. We managed to finish almost two thirds of the corrections & plan to finish it up Sunday night or early next week.
Wrote the opening theme for St. Michael.
Sunday, December 26
Cold & clear, a little snow. Worked with Bob for five hours or so tonight, & put the last of the corrections in. Got home about 10 p.m. The score is 81 pages long printed up - almost 20 pages longer than my handwritten score.
His music program has a feature that allows you to play the music back, once it’s been typed in - it rather sounded like a skating rink organ or a calliope ... Just terrible.
The next step is to get the score to the players. The concert has been put off until April 13th.
E-mailed reviewers & radio stations last week & over twenty have already responded. Will mail their review copy cds out this week. (I mentioned in my messages to radio stations that WQXR
has been broadcasting my music for years, from tapes ...) Four different countries responded. I only have 5 cds of "Visions" left & must order another hundred.
Diana is still working on the layouts of the new books, they should arrive by the end of the week.
One review already arrived & is very positive. I’ll contact Serge & ask him to post it on my website.
I’d much rather be working on "Prayer to St. Michael" for choir & orchestra, but this work must be done. Must call Shaun to bring in more buckets of coal.
Monday, December 27
Carolyn & the children came tonight. Opened presents; Ian wore his new red cowboy hat the entire evening. Carolyn & I listened to the "Early Songs" cd in the living room while Elisabeth & M. watched ice skating upstairs. At one point Carolyn said "It’s taken me about ten years to be able to listen to these songs without crying." I said: "I still cry."
We listened to the tonal tune "Dreams" & I said "Well, that sums up your childhood in a nutshell" (Dreams - let’s bring them here/ into our lives / play in them / walk through them ...) We listened to the tonal tunes at the end of the disc several times & then Carolyn asked to hear "The Glass is Breaking", her favorite 12 tone song. I told her that she attended the premier of that song & other early songs & she looked surprised. "Your whole family was there, including your great grandmother". But she didn’t remember, she was too young.
It was getting late, & as they were leaving I said: " "Morning" with clarinet was the first song I wrote, & it was your mother’s favorite & mine as well. Do you want to hear it before you go?"
I put it on, all of us listening to that beautiful voice of beautiful Louise. We got a bit sad, so I told them about one of our concerts, at the Hangar Theater. "We hadn’t practiced for weeks & weeks. As I took my clarinet out of the case & put it together I said: "Can you still sing?" I took out my old, cracked reed & put it on the mouthpiece - I had used the same dwindling reed for years - & quickly played a few notes. The sound was still there, it was all there. We looked at each other & laughed and went out onstage. It was a very large & excited crowd & it was a great concert. That’s how it was", I said, & Elisabeth giggled. Elisabeth is now thirteen years old. Both Carolyn & Elisabeth have wonderful voices, & perhaps one day they too will sing my songs in concert. When Carolyn was seven or eight years old, she would sing my songs around the house or in the car when we were traveling somewhere. She used to fall asleep under the grand piano at 113 ½ while Louise & I rehearsed. For a child to sing 12 tone songs is no small accomplishment.. The professional singers I used for concerts in NYC couldn’t find the pitches ...
The thought of Louise’s voice being broadcasted all over the world on radio stations from this remastered cd (instead of the old tapes) - makes all the work Al & I have done worthwhile. Al’s remastering skills are impressive. We never found the Master, so instead we worked off about ten different copies that I still had on the shelves in the back room. We tried to get as close to the original Master as we could, but it wasn’t always easy to tell which copy was what or when... It was quite a project, & took almost a year to complete. But now, listening to the cd, I can just sit back & bask in Louise’s beautiful voice & phrasing - & Presence.
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