A Wind Ensemble Wishlist

Recorded in the mid 1970's, composer W. Francis McBeth discusses interpretation.

W. Francis McBeth - Interpretation Lecture

To purchase score and parts for Innsmouth, Massachusetts - 1927, please contact Roy directly at: roymagnuson@gmail.com

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” - H.P. Lovecraft

Like so many, I have been fascinated by the writings of H.P. Lovecraft for a long, long time. Innsmouth, Massachusetts - 1927 is the first part of a planned triptych Three Places in (Lovecraftian) New England. The piece is an homage, of sorts, to both Lovecraft and my other favorite curmudgeonly, New England writer, Charles Ives.

The result is pulpy horror music which, loosely, depicts a night in Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Suffice it to say, things don’t go well that night. From The Shadow Over Innsmouth:

“I thought I was prepared for the worst, and I really ought to have been prepared considering what I had seen before.

And yet I saw them in a limitless stream - flopping, hopping, croaking, bleating - urging inhumanly through the spectral moonlight in a grotesque, malignant saraband of fantastic nightmare. And some of them had tall tiaras of that nameless whitish-gold metal ... and some were strangely robed ... and one, who led the way, was clad in a ghoulishly humped black coat and striped trousers, and had a man's felt hat perched on the shapeless thing that answered for a head.

I think their predominant colour was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. But for all of their monstrousness they were not unfamiliar to me. I knew too well what they must be...their number was past guessing. It seemed to me that there were limitless swarms of them and certainly my momentary glimpse could have shewn only the least fraction. In another instant everything was blotted out by a merciful fit of fainting; the first I had ever had.”

Though the “monsters” are evocative and terrifying, it is the atmosphere of Innsmouth, Massachusetts that scares me most. The collapsed, rotting buildings, the overwhelming stench of dead fish, the constant, looming sound of the tide, whose waves are bringing in terrors from the deep, dark places of the world - this atmosphere is what I have tried to capture musically.

Innsmouth, Massachusetts - 1927

Pale Blue On Deep - Aaron Perrine

The plants we fill our houses with are beautiful in their simplicity, and simply beautiful in their complexity.This music comes from my sincere desire to create art that, like house plants , does a thing and does it well. A simple statement of something simply thought.   

Illinois State University Wind Symphony, Martin Seggelke, Conductor 

House plants in terracotta pots

Tears Of St. Lawrence

By David Maslanka. CBDA All-State Wind Symphony, Mallory Thompson, cond. Premiere Performance, 13 February 2016.

Maslanka: California

California (2015)

Score and more: http://www.stevenbryant.com/music/catalog/nothing-gold-can-stay

Nothing Gold Can Stay was commissioned as a surprise gift for Kevin Sedatole in honor of his first ten years at Michigan State University. His conducting students spanning that decade, led by Jamal Duncan and Armand Hall, banded together and approached me at the 2015 College Band Directors National Convention in Nashville about writing the work, and I knew immediately that I couldn’t refuse this special project, made all the more appropriate because my wife, Verena, was one of Kevin’s very first students at MSU.

The music is my deliberate attempt to write a chorale – something simple, beautiful, and familiar. The deceptive surface simplicity of Robert Frost’s poem seems to coincide with this music, particularly the paradoxical descending of dawn to day, all embodying the concept of felix culpa, or “lucky fall” – the idea that loss can bring greater good, and is in fact necessary.

Nothing Gold Can Stay (MSU World Premiere)

A Glimpse of the Eternal

“A kill screen is a stage or level in a an arcade game that stops the player's progress due to a programming error or design oversight. Rather than "ending" in a traditional sense, the game will crash, freeze, or behave so erratically that further play is extremely hard or even impossible.” –Wikipedia

This piece is largely about addiction to video games, but also is meant to evoke an exciting and terrifying urban legend.  Back in 1981, a select few arcades near Portland, Oregon received a new 8-bit game (similar to the fan favorite Tempest) called Polybius.  The game was said to be extremely popular, almost to the point of obsession.  Just a short time after it’s release the game disappeared without a trace of its existence.  Polybius enthusiasts were said to have experienced several psychological side effects, including horrific nightmares, amnesia, and even suicidal thoughts, according to the myth.  

This piece strives to infuse the listener in the experience of playing such a game, as described in each segment.  The first section, “Insert Coin”(m.2) is fierce and eager, as a potential Polybius gamer would be.  Next is “Nocnitsa’s Dance”(m.19), a demented, off beat scherzo that refers to the Polish mythological spirit relating to the scientific phenomenon known as Hypnagogia, or visions occurring during the transitional state between wakefulness and sleep.  The following section, “Psychogenic Fugue”(m.116) is slower and more opaque than the rest of the piece, and refers to the technical term for a form of amnesia involving memory and personality.  In keeping with the musical meaning of the term “fugue”, this segment features extensive use of imitative counterpoint.  From this we move into “Sense Deletion”(m.170), a reprise of the dance tune, this time with even more drive and force.  The title refers to the English translation for the game’s supposed creating company, Sinneslöschen.  The piece ends with a chaotic bang in the short coda, “Game Over”(m.223).  

Kill Screen for Wind Ensemble

For Large or Medium Wind Ensemble Fixed Media, Horn Solo and Melodica (or Accordion), and guided improvisation

Dedicated to all those who have lost a loved one without a chance to say goodbye.

Death’s thin melody too…is a set of variations that began with the sound of a squeaky
escalator in Arezzo, Italy. The sound itself seemed to be reminiscing about the days when a lone monk wandered the hillside dreaming of a way to help people remember melodies. There is a hidden simple chord progression in this squeak, and yet, there are tones that rise beyond that simple progression into a harmonious other world: they belong, even if they do not fit. Death’s thin melody too…returns to Arezzo, in the footsteps of Guido of Monaco, and invites musicians to let go of notation and return to using their ears as a primary instrument for music-making. This work asks something different of the musicians: that they make music in community using all of the skills they have developed on their instruments, but guided by their unique sensitivities of each person as a listener.

Death’s thin melody first appeared as “Up/Down” in a Kansas City multi-media dance production called WE! (Jane Gotch and Mark Southerland, Spring, 2012), and as part of my epic series called 2012 Stories in live performance and appearing in forthcoming CD No. 7, Chanes. This version invites other instrumentalists to perform along with the haunting, simple tune that I originally improvised along with Arezzo’s escalators. Death’s thin melody too… was commissioned by Joseph Parisi for the UMKC Wind Ensemble.

Death's thin melody too...

Stonewall : 1969

Graduate Conducting Fellow at the University of Miami, Frost School of Music

A Wind Ensemble Wishlist

Craig McKenzie