Name: Hommage A Martin Jenni Excerpt (multum Amas) Excerpt by Curt Veeneman
Duration: 2 min 28 s
Description: Combining the many things (multum amas) loved by an admired teacher, the piece includes Phrygian chant material from von Bingan's "Ordo Virtutum," isorhythms, canon, and soggetto cavato ('carved subject' -- patterns derived from assigning notes to letters)of Jenni's name along with many translations of the word "love".

Pneuma is a Greek word that denotes a blast of wind, breath, divine inspiration or spirit. Used in the New Testament to indicate the spirit of God, the word is connected with the word 'neumes' -- symbols intimately linked with breath in chant notation. 

The overall architecture is informed by the Serie Evangelique, a number sequence drawn from accounts in the Gospels of the miracles of the loaves and fishes, constitutes the essence of the music, which then produces a generalized Fibonacci series, found in pine cones, stock market quotations, classical architecture, the reproduction of bees, Roman poetry and the pattern of branching on trees.

Pneuma Excerpt

A gradual transformation of what is initially a triangle wave into two mathematical constructs employed as a means of instilling order to the growth of the music: the triangular number series and the Triangle de Pascal, in  an exposition (thesis), a development (synthesis) and disintegration (antithesis)with the remaining acoustical energy absorbed into nothingness.

Essai Pour Les Triangels Excerpt

Combining the many things (multum amas) loved by an admired teacher, the piece includes Phrygian chant material from von Bingan's "Ordo Virtutum," isorhythms, canon, and soggetto cavato ('carved subject' -- patterns derived from assigning notes to letters)of Jenni's name along with many translations of the word "love".

Hommage A Martin Jenni Excerpt (multum Amas) Excerpt

Recorded by the Sophia Symphony Orchestra, a paean to the hypnotic dance meters heard on either side of Bulgaria's Mt. Vitosha, Mountain Thyme takes us from one village performance to another while introducing us to pungent harmonies riddled with minor seconds, glottal stops, glides and quavers. You'll be tapping 7/8 (2+2+3), 11/16 (2+2+3+2+2) or even 25/16 (3+2+2+3+2+2+2+2+3+2+2) meters.

Mountain Thyme Excerpt

Utilizing hammer dulcimer and all other stringed instruments ad hoc with various irreverent means to make them sing and speak, the composer found that they could produce a rather surprisingly harmonious statement!

The Wiry Concord Excerpt

Fraying out sounds of the heartbeat of his firstborn daughter before she was born and combining with the voice of his wife, this piece is a celebration of the unimaginable change that happens when gifted with a new life!

A Song For Sarah's Birthday

Driving from the valley to San Francisco we would fly by gargantuan monoliths of steel churning out energy. One day we stopped and wound our way up to the base of one of these monsters. We were allowed to poke out heads in. Our brains vibrated and this is the music to commemorate it.

Windmills

Mr. Toad is an irresistible character in Kenneth Grahame's book, Wind in the Willows, which I read to our three very active young children to help them tuck in bed night after night. Mr. Toad found the new-fangled motorcar an object of obsession and would do anything to drive one -- anyone's -- and his adventures ensued! This is the soundtrack I imagined as he bumped down the road.

Mr. Toad's Shiny New Motorcar

A paean to the struggles of life on planet earth, whether they be with man-made concepts, organizations, or machines, River was drawn from the frantic beating of pencils on various parts of water-filled goblets and then splayed out to swirl and mix, flowing into our collective subconscious where all music touches.

Hommage A Martin Jenni Excerpt (multum Amas) Excerpt

Curt Veeneman

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