The Grove of the Ancients for bass clarinet, flute, glockenspiel, piano, and electronics 2018
[Score]
Declan Siefkas
For Jacob Lane
Instrumentation Bass Clarinet (cantor) Flute Glockenspiel (played with soft mallets, transposed two octaves down) Piano
Notes This is the sounding of a fictitious place.
The notation of this piece is spatial; the relationship between each instrument should be interpreted graphically according to the score.
Coordination between instruments should be done purely by listening rather than by visual cues. Accordingly, placements of notes in the score may be taken as approximate, and thus followed in meaning rather than letter.
The ensemble is broken into two distinct groups: The flute, glockenspiel, and piano form a trio that is metaphorically activated by the wind of the grove. The bass clarinet acts as a soloist, a cantor of sorts, invoking the sounds of the grove through its chant-like gesture.
The trio should be placed on stage and the bass clarinet behind the audience.
The duration of the piece is semi-open. The longest continuous sounding (located on the second system of page four) should last one full breath from the flutist; the rest of the piece should be scaled accordingly.
Dynamics are very quiet throughout, ranging from pppp to p. For the purposes of this piece, ppp should be treated as twice the loudness of pppp, pp twice the loudness of ppp, and so on. These dynamics are strictly individual rather than the sum of the ensemble.
Duration: 6-10’ Performance Notes General An arrow between two techniques indicates a smooth transition between the two. Accidentals apply only to the note they precede. The glockenspiel should allow all notes to decay naturally; the piano should keep the damper pedal down for the duration of the piece.
Bass Clarinet There are four bass clarinet soundings throughout the piece, which each take a similar shape. The duration of each sounding should be one full breath from the clarinetist. Thus, only the entrance of each sounding has been notated in the score, with a breath fermata indicating that it should last one full breath, independent from the rest of the instruments. Each sounding should take the following shape (though pitch will be notated in the score):
Smoothness of dynamic is paramount, as the loudness of the bass clarinet will be tethered directly to the loudness of the accompanying field recording (further explained in Technical Requirements).
Piano Preparation: The strings from Ab3 to B5 should be prepared with ¾ inch or 19mm felt pads. These must be placed between the two rightmost strings of each pitch. This placement will detune the rightmost strings while also allowing the possibility of mixing in the normal tone by lifting the una corda pedal. The pads may be placed at any feasible point along the string, at the discretion of the pianist. The resulting tone should be clear, detuned, soft, and bell-like in nature. The dynamic pppp calls for a half-pressure attack, whereby the first lever of the hammer is bypassed by gently depressing the key partway, and then a normal attack from the partially depressed key generates a distant and thin tone. The una corda staff indicates whether the una corda should be depressed or not. When boldened, the pedal should be down; when not, up.
Flute The flutist should play non-vibrato throughout. The length of each sounding is determined spatially by the crescendos to and from niente (indicated by circles at the ends of hairpins). Noteheads therefore indicate only pitch, and never duration. There are two varieties of multiphonic called for in the piece: Those based on natural harmonics of low frequencies and those based on fingerings of pitches in the chromatic scale. For the former, the fundamental is given as a diamond notehead and the sounding pitches are given as regular noteheads:
For the latter, the fingering is given in addition to the sounding pitches:
The half-filled circle indicates a depression of the key but not a covering of the tone hole. During multiphonics, the flutist is encouraged to oscillate between notated pitches with relative freedom, though maintaining a certain tranquility throughout. The end goal is to sound organic and smoothly nonmusical throughout. This is especially encouraged in the natural harmonic multiphonics. Wind tone, or aeolian sound, plays a key role in the flute part. There are 5 gradations of wind tone notated throughout the piece: pure wind ¾ wind ½ wind ½ tone ¾ tone pure tone
An arrow between two different wind tones indicates an even transition between the two. Multiphonics are always executed as pure tone. Whistle tones should be performed as natural harmonics originating from a given fundamental. A diamond notehead is given as the fundamental, and random lines are drawn above not to be followed directly, but merely to encourage a fickle and quasi-random selection of overtones.
Technical Requirements The electronic portion of the piece functions as follows. The bass clarinet, placed behind the audience, must be miked* and connected to a Max patch. The patch tethers the loudness of the bass clarinet to the volume of a field recording, linking them 1:1. The following setup is required for the performance of the piece. • One microphone, preferably a condenser with a switchable polar pattern, hooked up to the bass clarinet behind the audience. o Some tinkering may be necessary to determine which polar pattern is most effective for a given venue. o The microphone should be routed through an interface and into a laptop: • A laptop with Max 7 and the Grove of the Ancients Max patch. o This laptop must be near enough to the bass clarinetist that they may initialize the patch at the beginning of the piece. • Into a set of stereo speakers placed onstage, in front of the trio. o The total output of the speakers may, at times, cloak the sounds of the trio. This is intentional. A soundcheck before performance is necessary, and should accomplish the following things: • Ensure that the microphone gain is tuned to pick up the bass clarinet but not any potential ambient noise from the audience. • Balance the bass clarinet and the speaker loudness so that a p from the bass clarinet evokes a p from the speakers.
Contact For the Max 7 Patch and accompanying field recording, as well as any and all questions, please contact me at [email protected]. All that is required to use the file is a licensed copy of Max 7 and a laptop with approximately 2GB of free space.
* Note that the pitch material has been selected so that the lowest register of the bass clarinet is used, but never the lowest note. Thus, miking the bell of the bass clarinet can be avoided altogether, and an even pickup can be achieved by miking the lowest tone holes.
T G A D S
B C
F ● ◕ ◑ ◕ ● L.V. G P U C
◑ ○ ◔ ↑ F . ( ) G . P . U C.
Copyright by the composer 2018 Unauthorized Reproduction is Illegal All Rights Reserved 2 The Grove of the Ancients
; . F . ◕ ◔ ● G . P . U C.
◑ ◔ ◑ F . G . P . U C.
B. C . & E . F . ◔ ● G . P . U C. The Grove of the Ancients 3
● ◔ ◕ F . G . P . U C.
B. C . & E . ○ F . G .
P . U C.
( ) F . G .
P . U C. 4 The Grove of the Ancients
B. C . & E . ↓ F . G . P . U C.
↑ F . ↑ G . P . U C.
↓ F . G . P . U C. The Grove of the Ancients 5
↑ F . G . P . U C.
B. C . & E . ↑ ○ F . G . P . U C.
F . ○ ◑ ◔
G . P . U C.