This was one of the pieces premiered last Thursday (2/22/2007).

FOUR MARIAN SONGS (1999/2006)
Music by Roger Bourland, Words by William MacDuff

1. Santa Maria

MP3: Play audio file (4marsongs1.santa-maria.mp3)

2. Zdravo Marija

MP3: Play audio file (4marsongs2.zdravo.mp3)

3. Lamentation

MP3: Play audio file (4marsongs3.lament.mp3)

4. The Pilgrims’ Song

MP3: Play audio file (4marsongs4.pilgrims.mp3)

Juliana Gondek, soprano
Judith Hansen, piano

Notes:
These songs were taken from the two-hour ROSARIUM, A DRAMA FOR CHORUS and ORCHESTRA (1999). The work explores two Marian apparitions, the first in Mexico (Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe), and the second in Medjugorje, Bosnia Herzegovina.

SANTA MARIA

Santa María,
madre del mundo viejo,
madre del mundo nuevo,
del indio y
también del conquistador.

Contigo haremos
al Tepeyac un templo.
Contigo haremos
el canto y la flor.

Santa María,
somos el pueblo tuyo,
somos los mexicanos.
Envuélvanos
en la tilma de tu amor.

ZDRAVO MARIJO

Zdravo Marijo,
milosti puna,
Gospodin s Tobom,
blagoslovljena
Ti medju zenama,
I blagoslovljen
plod utrobe Tvoje: Isus.

Sveta Marijo,
Majko Bozja,
moli za nas grjesnike
sada I na cas smrti nase.
Amen.

[Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.]

LAMENTATION

God in Heaven, God in Heaven
Hear my song:
My spirit aches, my mind is torn
And when I should rejoice, I mourn
A world gone very wrong.

God in Heaven, God in Heaven
Hear me pray:
My body breaks, my city burns
If this is what devotion earns
Then let me go astray.

My enemy builds mansions of gold.
He fills his day with drunken celebration
Too galling to behold.
Where is his calamity!?

My family is scattered abroad.
My children toil at menial employment
And love no living god.
Where, then, is my victory!?

God in Heaven, God in Heaven
I am lost:
The night is dark, your Voice is still.
Must I who glorified your Will
Pay such a dreadful cost?

THE PILGRIM’S SONG

I was tormented by shadows,
pursued by whispers everywhere.

I brought my Fears to Mary
And much to my dismay
She wept a sea of bitter tears
And turned the skies to gray.

I clung forlorn to Mary
And begged her for a sign.
She challenged me to be reborn
A sign of God’s design.

Walk with us, talk with us,
Mother of Mercy.
Stay for us, pray for us,
Pray we are worthy, pray we are worthy.

I was blessed with riches,
but I could only see wretchedness.

I brought my Pain to Mary
But Mary merely smiled.
No wonder she could bear my pain
She buried her own Child.

I saved my Hope for Mary
For fear my Hope would spoil.
She sent me out to scatter Hope
Like seed on fallow soil.

Walk with us, talk with us, etc.
I was greedy, I was jealous,
Full of pride, full of malice.

And I brought my Shame to Mary
When I was at a loss.
“Cry out,” she said, “in Jesus’ name
And He will share His Cross.”

I sang my Love to Mary
And this is what I found:
The Sun and Moon and Stars above
Rejoicing at the sound!

© 2007 by Roger Bourland and William MacDuff.
Published by Yelton Rhodes Music

Ralph,

I’ve been watching and listening to your recent scena and before Harmony and I go off to dinner, I need to point something out that will help it. Too much of the scene is the same dynamic. Give us a section that is breathtakingly quiet, and a section with a ear-blasting volume ol’ Berlioz would envy. Apply the same thing to the registral shape of your overall scene. Right now, you are flooding the bass, baritone, tenor and alto range. There is not a lot of highs. Strip away the bass for a while. It can become fatiguing. You’ve done these things before. I’ve heard them in several of your songs. You need to do it to this scene.

Charlie

Despite many friends saying to NOT go and watch BABEL, I went, trying not to be prejudiced against Gustavo Santaolalla, the guitarist, er, composer, who won the Best Original Score Oscar last year for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN. You may remember my groaning about that choice last year. Gustavo’s extremely sparse oud playing was peppered throughout, just as sparse as his “Blackbird” rip-off music for BB Mountain. Well, he got yet another Academy Award for Best Score. Give me a break.

I can’t fault Mr. Santaolalla. He is a tasteful guitarist and the music he provides for these films is effective. But what the hell is the Academy telling us that it wants in film music??

As I see it, the implications from these past two years are as follows:

1. Orchestral music is out. It’s too old world.
2. To hell with melodies. It’s just too sentimental. We’re tougher now.
3. Producers can save HUGE amounts of money now. They don’t have to hire orchestras, and pay the musician royalties for years to come. They can cut down on composer’s fees as well, seeing as how great film scores can just be make with solo guitars and a good microphone.
4. Electronica is out. We want to return to the good earthy sound of new acoustic guitar strings, tastefully strummed from time to time.

You ask: Who is the Academy? Well, only composers who are in the Academy can make nominations, but EVERYONE votes, whether they are expert in the field or not. It doesn’t matter. The majority of the voting Academy has spoken. This is the kind of music THEY want.

Who were the competitors?

Philip Glass provided a full orchestral score and did an excellent job on NOTES ON A SCANDAL. He even wrote some tunes.

Thomas Newman wrote brilliant orchestral music firmly rooted in the tradition of Bernard Hermann for THE GOOD GERMAN.

Javier Navarrete, although still a novice composer, provided an effective (ok, I gave it a B+) score, and left us with a tune that is hard to get out of your head.

And my own favorite was Alexandre Desplat’s score for THE QUEEN. Witty, beautifully composed and orchestrated and the real thing.

But who got it? The Argentinian guitar player.

Am I sounding bitter? Just old-fashioned I fear.

Much of mankind throughout history has honored alleged communications from “beyond” whether that beyond be from God, Satan, long dead Saints, angels, or other creatures big and small. Although Christians don’t like to fess up to this, the Bible has a lot of channeled material in it. Anything out of the mouth of a prophet alleges someone or thing else using them as a mouthpiece–usually “God.”

It is perhaps no surprise that having come from that Judeo-Christian heritage, that I might at some point ask that question that Miss Peggy Lee asked us: “Is that all there is?” and look for other sources that aren’t 2000 years old. And I did.

Some of the first channeled stuff that attracted me was the complete works of Emmanuel Swedenborg. This dude had long discussions with angels all the time, and transcribed them all. I couldn’t get enough of him. He was even a respected scientist and scholar. But then I read the part where he described Jews as living in the “muddy” part of heaven (or was it hell?) and most of them devoted themselves the the jewelry industry, I closed the book, never to return.

My next heroine was H.P. Blavatsky who seemed to be devoted to esotericism for esotericism’s sake. She had access to several beings that passed through, or channeled “information” that helped her write her magnum opera, ISIS UNVEILED and THE SECRET DOCTRINE. Her successor, Alice Bailey, wrote at a stunning pace and continued promulgating the Theosophical doctrine, whatever that was. I read a whole variety of lesser known channels–The Great White Brotherhood, Elizabeth Claire Prophet (oy!), Edgar Cayce (yawn), the Ultimate Frontier group, and more. The best cosmology and philosophy of them all was The Urantia Book, although the book was “tainted” by an overzealous power hungry leader who allegedly tampered with most of the book. My last gasp of open-minded channel-surfing was the Kryon series, an entity around the size of a large house whose purpose was to adjust the earth’s magnetic poles and our awareness along with it. Wow!

In music there have been some composers associated with mystical traditions: Cyril Scott, Dane Rudhyar, Gustaf Holst, and Alexander Scriabin to name a few. Arthur M. Abell wrote, or made up his book TALKS WITH FAMOUS COMPOSERS and interviewed composers about their spiritual views and compositional habits. I have always loved what Brahms said about his inspiration in this book. The accusation that Abell’s book is pure fiction didn’t tarnish my memory of the book in the way that MADAME BLAVATSKY’S BABOON bruised my respect for theosophy, and how Martin Gardner’s URANTIA: THE GREAT CULT MYSTERY, and the 4-volume set of the SHERMAN DIARIES elucidated the corruption I hadn’t been aware of.

I came away with the realization that power corrupts. People control others through ignorance, power, and fear. Sheer steely will can make you powerful, regardless of how smart you are. We can and do believe anything. I know because I have. Not only that, but we love to persuade others to believe what we do.

Nowadays I keep my bullshit filter on high.
Speaking of which, Rosemary Brown’s lovely LP issued by Phillips came into my hands through some cosmic connection about 25 years ago. My friends and I have giggled over whether this “really” sounded like Schumann or not, or Liszt, or Beethoven, or Chopin. I learned only this year that she died in 2001. This seemed a perfect opportunity to have her return as a bossy manager for stranded composers in purgatory, or fermata-tory. And so now after Hector Berlioz has offered Rufus Wainright composition lessons for the past year, he has turned over the responsibilities of training Rufus to Charles Ives. The two are not getting along terribly well, but stay tuned.

I told Kevin about this new drama on my blog, but admitted that I wasn’t really channeling it. Kevin, who is spiritually open-minded came right back with “how are you so sure that you AREN’T actually channeling those composers?” I wasn’t sure what to say, except “well, I’ve done my homework on these people. I know what they’ve said and done and can extrapolate and imagine their opinions without too much effort.” To which Kevin only folded his arms, nodded his head, smiled and said “mmhmm, see?”

Four Apart Songs (2005)
for voice and piano
by Roger Bourland

1. Endless night (Francisco X. Alarcon)

MP3: Play audio file (4apartsongs1.endless_night.mp3)

2. My Mind’s Eye Sighs (Roger Bourland)

MP3: Play audio file (4apartsongs2.mymindseye.mp3)

3. It isn’t Christmas (William MacDuff)

MP3: Play audio file (4apartsongs3.it_isnt_xmas.mp3)

4. Farewell (James Patrick Kelly)

MP3: Play audio file (4apartsongs4.farewell.mp3)

Juliana Gondek, soprano
Judith Hansen, piano

I just watched NETWORK, a terrific film written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. In it, a washed up anchor man, Howard Beale(Peter Finch) finds new sky-rocketing ratings after he threatens to commit suicide on the air. He becomes increasingly honest, or mad, no one is quite sure. The writing is superb, one terrific scene after another. My favorite has to be Ned Beatty’s demonic scolding of Beale:

JENSEN:

You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations! There are no peoples! There are no Russians. There are no Arabs! There are no third worlds! There is no West! There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multi-variate, multi-national dominion of dollars! petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars! Reichmarks, rubles, rin, pounds and shekels! It is the international system of currency that determines the totality of life on this planet!
[…]
You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen, and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and ITT and A T & T and Dupont, Dow, Union Carbide and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state — Karl Marx?
[…]
We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably deter-mined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale! It has been since man crawled out of the slime, and our children, Mr. Beale, will live to see that perfect world in which there is no war and famine, oppression and brutality -one vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock, all necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you to preach this evangel, Mr. Beale.

HOWARD
(humble whisper)
Why me?

JENSEN
Because you’re on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday.

If none of this is sounding familiar, this is the film where Beale encourages the world to go to the window and yell at the top of their lungs “I’M MAD AS HELL AND I’M NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE!” and they do.
The film is interesting musically because there really isn’t any. We only hear 1970s style TV news intro type music scattered throughout the film, and there are closing credits, but otherwise there is no underscore at all. The dialog is so powerful that it really didn’t need any emotional amplification.

Faye Dunaway and Robert Duvall deliver searing roles. Watch NETWORK. Even though it is a thirty year old film, everything it touches on is current and will likely always be.

Hey! Wanna bone up on your 1960s dance steps? Here’s a groovy video of the most famous trumpet music of the past 50 years, “Tijuana Taxi” by Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

I’m just back from hearing FOUR MARIAN SONGS and FLIGHT INTO EGYPT premiered by Juliana Gondek and friends. I’m still very high from it. Juliana sang with great authority, expression, passion, and musicality. How did I get so lucky to have her fall in love with my songs!

The Marian songs were powerful as a set. Lots of tears around where I was sitting. I took it as a compliment that you could have heard a pin drop between songs. No coughing, shuffling, whispering, just in a state. As I like to say, music is a drug and I’m fairly certain that people liked the drug of the piece.

FLIGHT went by like a whirlwind for me, so I can’t really judge what the perception was. People laughed where they were supposed to, and the piece was performed well. It’s a multisectioned piece that IS a lot to take in on one hearing, and I think we’re still figuring out “how it goes.” Violinist Lorenz Gamma pointed out that I had scored his part too loud, it interfered with the voice. Most of the mezzo fortes in his part turned into mezzo pianos and pianos. Listening to performers is the most important thing a composer can do. I don’t take all their advice, but I always take it very seriously.

The balance of this ensemble is tricky to be sure: piano trio, 2 sopranos and a baritone. I’ve written for piano trio and have written tons of chamber music, but when you put three voices in front of this ensemble, the reality changes. My instrumental parts were busy and not at all oom pah pah accompanimental parts. They are satisfying parts, typical of chamber music.

The louder the violin is, the louder it’s overtones are, and the more those overtones interfere with the sopranos. Lorenz brought the volume down to the right level and the blend was right. The only problem was that the strings didn’t carry as well to the back of the auditorium. You could hear them, but the presence was not strong.

All in all I think the piece is a success. A strange bird for sure, a 15 minutes musical playlet, but hey, an evening of them could prove interesting. Thornton Wilder’s somewhat irreverent and funny story worked. The play has a “dot dot dot” ending to it that I reflected in the music. There is no big orgasmic finale.

A piece like this could “invade” the chamber music world and bring a whole new element to their programming options.

—–

The night before, I drove to downtown LA to a church where Vox Femina was rehearsing the piece they commissioned from me, ALARCON MADRIGALS, Book 3. Iris Levine is brilliant, and demands the most from her 30-some member women’s chorus. They sang through my music–music filled with hard rhythms, strange meter changes, tonal but disjunct harmonies, and articulated the beautiful Francisco X Alarcon poetry in both English and Spanish. How did I get so lucky to have one of the best women’s chorus in the world enjoy singing my music?

We made several changes in the first couple of movements. Some of the women seemed amused that we could actually change the music–permanently. And we did, and made it sound better.
I was in sheer ecstacy hearing them sing through the pieces, still on book but unaccompanied, with passion and sounding just as I hoped it would. All the piece needs now is a reverberant room which it will have for the premiere.

The phases of giving birth to a piece of music are all satisfying to me. My biggest weakness is getting my music out into the world. After the premiere, my blinders go on and I become obsessed with the next piece, having forgotten the previous one. As I tell my students, “you can’t expect the world to come knocking at your door looking for your music if they don’t know that it exists.”

About the Composer Michael Kaulkin writes about music.
Alex Ross The ever effervescent music cricket of the New Yorker magazine.
Aworks Robert Gable offers bite-sized comments about contemporary Classical music.
Blognoggle Jerry Bowles’ labor of love; this RSS feed “Shadows the Top 100 Classical Music Blogs”
Bourland.com My brother Andy’s blog; he’s been blogging since the beginning. One of my heroes.
East of Eden My Dad has a new career, post-minister, post-potter: mega blogger. Be sure to visit his There’s Always Something blog as well.
Eric Edberg Cellist, wise and witty, and old bud from Tanglewood, 1978.
Kenneth Woods Conductor; music, opinion, and life as a performing musician.
Loose Poodle A wide ranging blog by composer, Peter Kaye. His links are a great resource for music and film music.
Moonbug Belgian Swiss artist, pal, and Zappa enthusiast.
Musical Assumptions Elaine Fine writes about music and reviews books and CDs.
Musical Perception Scott Spiegelberg’s model blog on music, music theory and composerly stuff.
New Music Reblog Jeff Harrington’s terrific culling and reblogging of [classical and not] music blogs.
Notes From the Kelp Alex Shapiro’s Malibu Camelot with her music.
OboeInsight Patty Mitchell’s popular music blog about the oboe, music and her life.
On and Overgrown Path The author is Pliable, and this is a popular and well written blog.
Renewable Music Daniel Wolf’s thoughtful music blog.
Sandow Greg Sandow on the future of classical music.
Secret Society Darcy James Argue’s witty and full featured music blog.
Sequenza 21 Great resource for contemporary music community.
Think Denk Jeremy Denk’s blog.
Ursi’s Blog One of my favorite blogs on the blogosphere.

Soprano, Juliana Gondek and pianist Judith Hansen, will premiere my new FOUR MARIAN SONGS, with lyrics by William MacDuff, culled from ROSARIUM, tonight, Thursday, Feb.22, 2007 at 8 pm in Schoenberg Auditorium, on the UCLA campus.

On the same concert, Daniel Cummings will conduct the unstaged premiere of FLIGHT INTO EGYPT, a 15 minute chamber opera based upon Thornton Wilder’s playlet. Juliana Gondek, Michael Dean, and Angel Blue are (respectively) the donkey (Hepzibah), Joseph, and Mary in the work.

For information