Hands

www.CreativeSpiritOnline.com: "Like all of Brooks’s works, 'Airs & Recitations' is a virtuosic construction of densely complex rhythms and rigorous, dissonant pitch combinations. The marvel of it is: there’s tenderness and expressive lyricism packed into his highly organized musical language."

“Airs and Recitations” was completed in December, 2022 in Fairview, TX. The work is in three movements: Andante con moto, Largo espressivo, and Andante con brio.  Performance time is about 18 minutes. Printed and electronic copies of the score and instrumental parts are available for purchase from www.CreativeSpiritOnline.com.

About this recording:
The present virtual recording was produced using Finale 27.3 and the Garritan
n Personal Orchestra 5 virtual instrument library. For the best listening experience, high quality headphones are recommended. This recording was mastered by EMastered. EMastered.com/profile/robtjbrooks

"Airs and Recitations" is an approximate transcription of the composer's seventh piano sonata, also posted here on SoundCloud.

Instrumentation:
    Flute, Oboe, English Horn, Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Bassoon, Horn, Trumpet, Bass Trombone, and Strings

Performance notes:
•	Tempo, expression, and dynamic markings should be strictly observed.
•	There is no key signature. Accidentals apply to the end of the measure or to the note or notes tied over the measure, and only to notes of the same pitch class, in the same octave.
•	Hairpin pairs (e.g.: mp <>, mf ><) indicate a temporary volume change of one dynamic level.
•	Passages marked  fff  or ppp  indicate playing as loudly and as quietly as possible, respectively.
•	Double-bass “C-extension” is required.

Contact information: 
Robert John Brooks,  Fairview, Texas USA
Email: robtjbrooks@yahoo.com
Web: www.CreativeSpiritOnline.com
Web: eMastered.com/profile/robtjbrooks

Engraving by the composer
Artwork by the composer
Copyright 2022

View/Buy Score

Airs and Recitations - Fantasy for 9 Soloists and Strings (Now published at Creative Spirit Online)

We welcome your feedback!

Composed, produced & performed by Srouly Frank
(Inspired by Maurice Ravel)

Interval

As each November approaches I try to make my own little Remembrance-time tribute.  Seems more relevant as each year passes...

Following the huffing and puffing empire lunacy in the summer of 1914, the next four years would see 40 million casualties, half of them deaths and of those, half were civilian.  

40 million.

40 million tales of poignancy, pain, grief and human tragedy, through times that can often seem littered with coincidence, symmetries …. bookends and mirrors.

In the Military Cemetery of St Symphorien near Mons rests John Parr.  At only five foot three inches and several years under age he (amazingly) managed to enlist in 1912 - hoping to see the world, and get the advertised “two square meals” a day.  He was the first British Army casualty, killed in the battle of Mons aged just 17, his body left behind, fate unknown until much later in the conflict;  the army unable to answer his mother’s letters of enquiry about her “silent” son.

By pure coincidence, John lies just a few yards from the last British soldier to die in the great war.  George Ellison served for four long years including at the same first battle of Mons as John, and most of the famously grinding, attritional infantry battles of the conflict.  His working life bookended by military service, George had first enlisted in 1902, leaving the army in 1912, just as John joined, he became a coal miner, re-enlisting at the outbreak of war to dig mud not coal and fight from trenches he helped excavate.  George was killed just 90 minutes before the armistice took effect at 11:00 on the 11th day of the 11th month.  The futility of the conflict was cruelly illustrated by the fact that George’s war had started and ended at exactly the same place, Mons in Belgium.  They had literally gone nowhere.

As a postscript to progress since "the war to end all wars" the human race is currently reckoned to be engaged in 7 major wars, 15 significant ongoing conflicts and 21 “minor” conflicts (the latter defined as up to "only” 1000 deaths per year).  By way of another macabre bookend, the longest of these has been going on, unbelievably, since the year .... 1918.

As always, this simple ballad is offered as a live one mic one take effort - please excuse the fluffs and gaffes.
_______________________

Bookends and Mirrors

Sun turned cold ‘cross every sky in the summer of ‘14
The Good Lord shook his head, and he placed it in his hands
Braided declarations flying, whose like was never seen
Lunatics in feathers stockpiled lead, bagged their sand.
Slapstick Mephistopheles, unleashing of his flame
Spiral minds lobotomised in the waltz of the insane
Simple lives unknowing of the mud that would become
A mirror in the resting place of two Holy Mother’s sons.

Signed the line, five years young, fingers crossed behind his back
Chance to see the world, grab a future, two square meals.
At 17, John’s angels sung, first to fall in dawn’s attack
Abandoned and forgotten, deaf to all his ma’s appeals.
Never knew the miner, his bookend pal to be
Fighting down the line, many battles that he’d see
Full four years in trenches, George’s hell lived through them all
Cruelty was smiling wide at England’s last to fall.

In service time they travelled nowhere, nothing to achieve
Embracing 40 million weeping mothers left to grieve
The crime of puffing chest bravado beggared to believe
Hall of mirrors seeping others’ blood of the innocent naive.

Now John and George lie facing each to seek their mirrored peace
Raise my eyes and brim a tear for the lessons never learned
Pray God, don’t ever let them know man’s insanity but increased
The war to end all wars a mere sequel oft’ returned 
By comedies of leathered fools stuck on infinite repeat
Bemedalled and bejewelled, they prosecute their moral defeat
But here, on sallow turf twixt heroes, broken mirror in my broken hand
Met by my own broken eyes, I still fail to understand.
_________
Photo by Michael Yuan on Unsplash

Bookends and Mirrors

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