Ratingen, 8 October, 20:00. 
Trevor Grahl, "Of Ancient Days": Prelude
Trevor Grahl, Hyperorgan

Prelude: Unda Maris

Sebastian Kemner, Vincent Van Wijk, babblers. (Trombone, Oboe)

BaBbeLboX

Written for ASKO|Schönberg Ensemble.
Ob, Cl, Tpt, Vla, Vc, Pno, Perc

We are dreamers, but dreams are what we breathe...

Written for the Ives Ensemble.  John Snijders, org.
fl/picc, ob, clar/bs clar, 2 perc, 2 vlns, 2 vlas, 2 vc, bass, organ

Composed for the Noorderkerk.  Performers seat themselves spatially around audience and throughout the church, co-ordinated by stopwatches.  The acoustic of the church, with its characteristic long reverb time, fuses the lines into texture.

Metaxa

Chamber Orchestra.  McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble, Samuel Tam, Cond. Julia 
den Boer, piano.


Mechanical Miniatures (2005)

(Way) Over the Rainbow

Four pieces for choir, piano, and harmonium, set to (Dutch) texts by Micha Hamel.

Codicil takes the idea of the belief in the sanctity of the human body, and the violation of this sanctity as its central conflict.  Does one believe that the body is a temple, and therefore, must not be altered in anyway?  Would this belief then necessarily prevent one from sharing all or some of his body in order to sustain another?  The music reflects this in that it is a re-assemblage of various ‘sewn-together’ fragments (organs!) from other pieces, and styles.  Thus, for me, the conflict here is transposed to an attitude toward (musical) creation in general.

Levenslied begins as an esoteric dialogue and slowly devolves into a banal argument. 

Zo Laat, a contemporary re-telling of the Goethe poem Der Erlkönig is my own take on the angst-ridden sound environment of Schubert’s setting. Just as the horror of the poetry comes from the father’s casual parental dismissal of the child’s fears, the horror here comes from the immensely and grossly over-characterized nature of this setting.  Certain elements of the 19th century have been exploded, others imploded, to create a sort of parodic cartoon-like version of the piece.  

Meer is a piece about leaving, but also about arriving.  As in Zo Laat, we hear the choir here as a unit, but also as a collection of individual persons and lives.  A soft voice in the distance invites the music forward, slowly disappearing, and ‘kissing’, as it were, the music to sleep.  

Codicil 0:00 - 6:30
Levenslied 6:32 -9:18
Zo Laat 9:19 - 14:55
Meer 14:55 - 23:30

Musica Vocale, under the direction of Rob Vermeulen; Rik Helmes, piano, Dirk Luijmes, harmonium.  Première 13/10/14.

Levensliederen

Written for the Ligeti Academy, 2010.

Written for the Ligeti Academy, 2010.
13 players: picc, fl, ob, cl, bs. cl, sop sax, hn, perc (x1), pno, hp, 2vlns, vla


Upon initial viewing of Rembrandt's famous, albeit, wonderfully corny "De Nachwacht", most visitors are curiously surprised to learn that the painting's peculiar shape owes to the fact that a considerable amount has been cut away from the original, so as to "properly fit" in its environment, when it was hung a few centuries ago. Even more surprising, numerous people have tried (and succeeded!) to attack the work with various acids, knives, etc., though no lasting damage was incurred. But what if it were, or what if more of the work were simply "cut away" to better accommodate a new location? People who don't know the original seem to spend time pondering in front of the massive work trying to figure out how much of the painting is missing, and what they can't see. It's this "cutting away" or "obscuring", in a sense, that interests me here. These issues of damage, alteration, eradication, obscuration, and of course, creation, were among those that seemed to recur to me as I wrote this piece. Since, to destroy the painting requires that the painting first exist, we have a balance: the act of destruction depends on creation, which, interestingly, is very much the operating principle of a palimpsest. This piece is akin to my own musical palimpsest, not only because I changed my mind so many times while writing, but certainly for other reasons, and is dedicated to my friends who performed it.



Palimpsestic Fancies (2010)

Olivier Latry plays an improvisation based on a 'theme' (I guess 'moment' would suit more here) from my piece "We are Dreamers".  Begins with an incipit of the 'real' theme, followed by the improvisation. Recorded February, 2015 in the Orgelpark. 
(Sauer Organ, 1922). 

Olivier Latry - Improvisation on a theme

Written in 2008 for my friend and colleague Alexandra Fol, this work was an investigation in using the organ as a vehicle to explore aspects of writing music in a large space, for a large instrument.  In the filter of such a large acoustic, the rapid interchanging figurations (especially the pulsations!), all blur into a non-discrete, yet identifiable soundmass. Given the fact that organs are very much 'spatial' instruments, like an orchestra, with groups of pipes grouped together by timbre, and further, by pitch (organs are frequently separated into two 'sides', each having 6 whole-tone pitches), the piece also becomes an exploration of illuminating a space with sound.
The form of the piece was inspired by a film which I had just seen at the time: Synecdoche, New York, (hence the graphic). 
One motive meets another, and they together form a new one, which in turn meets another and creates something new, and so on.  The ideas of this piece were further explored in Metaxa, from 2010.

Jan Hage, organ
Recording: April 17, 2015, het Orgelpark.
Sauer Organ (1922), with 3-manual digital console, equipped with a MIDI-driven setzer system.
Registrants Felipe Mora and Maarten Havinga


Music For Organ Solo

Performers from the University of California, San Diego. 

Sacred Emily (Excerpts) 2008

A deep, vivid, memory of something you have never experienced, yet, you’re certain of its legitimacy. Its content, often banal, intrudes on our thoughts during the the strangest and most unpredictable of times. A bowl of ice; a lamp burning out; the tail of a bird stuffed in your mouth; such memories, we can feel, are charged with…something.

And what about music? How often does a similar act of unintentional musical ‘graffiti’ occur in our own memories, and who is the perpetrator? Or are we ourselves the perpetrators, but its just that we remember incorrectly? Can we even ‘wrongly’ remember, or does our unconscious know better, veering toward something else that we can’t understand in the moment, leaving a trail of crumbs for us to follow, to somewhere? 

The first moment that came to me when setting out on this journey, was a huge dominant thirteenth chord, screaming and shuddering, slamming its way like a train into a scherzo, but weighted down, almost drowning and oversaturated with Pollock-like splashes of colour, the orchestra gradually building into a frenzy, then relaxing, maybe taking a bath, trying to clean itself, with singing whales in the tub. I don’t know when, where, or why this particular moment was born, or even what it means, but certainly, by making it and those like it manifest, surely I can gain even a partial understanding of something that’s underneath. 

The title also points to something else: a half-nod to the musically lush film soundscapes from the ‘50s and ‘60’s: undoubtedly subliminal sources of raw material containing moments which, though not explicitly perceived, bear an uncanny familiarity to something deeply felt.  

Live recording from the Doelen, Rotterdam with the Dutch Student Orchestra. Bas Wiegers, conductor, Lena Lefringhausen, solo violin.         


Screen Memories

Performance of Hussy by the Ereprijs, recorded September 2011 as part of Gaudeamus music week in Utrecht.  I prefer this performance :)

Hussy Gaudeamus 2011

Concerto to Percussion and Wind Symphony (2008). Written for Gina Ryan and the McGill Wind Symphony. Alain Cazes, conductor.

Concerto for Percussion and Wind Symphony

sop, vln, offstage piano, offstage singer 



This piece was inspired by a Warner Brothers cartoon I watched in my youth (Looney Tunes Duck Amuck, 1953) which remains this day a potent source of inspiration. Wikipedia’s summary of the cartoon is best:

It stars Daffy Duck, who is tormented by a sadistic, unseen animator who constantly changes Daffy's location, clothing, voice, physical appearance, and even shape. Pandemonium reigns throughout the cartoon as Daffy attempts to steer the action back to some kind of normality, only for the animator to either ignore him or, more frequently, to over-literally interpret his increasingly frantic demands.

In the case of this piece, we have three ‘characters’ – the soprano, rather akin to Daffy’s role in the cartoon, who simply wants to sing Robert Frost’s poetry in some kind of traditional manner; the composer, analogous to the role of the “sadistic unseen animator” who constantly frustrates her efforts, and the violinist who acts as a sort of ‘go-between’ carrying out the wishes of either the composer, singer, or sometimes, both.

As in the cartoon, the piece commences routinely, though as both the composer and violinist ‘interfere’ with both the process and the soprano, the work spirals out of control – it becomes a tug of war between the three characters, all vying for power.

My thoughts at the time were greatly focused the whole idea of setting a text to music, the how and the why, thoughts which I still frequently experience (when going to a new opera, for example). The piece ends with a solo recitation of the poem from the violinist who, without any 'artful' singing, brings the piece to a close in a clear expression of the poetry, perhaps rendering the efforts of the soprano (and the composer, somehow) all in vain. While certain aspects of the piece worked very well, I found others didn't work at all, and thus the piece is a long-term work in progress.

Stephanie Aston, Soprano
Mark Menzies, Violin

The Road Not Taken (2007-8, rev. 2009-10) Excerpts

2 performers with 'resobows', perc. solo (1 player) electronics

The Resobow, engineered and designed by Cooper Baker, is a small, wearable object using a system of induction and resonance to emit a signal, causing metal resonating objects to resonate, without the aid of mallets, or a bow. Sort of like an EBow but then for instruments without strings. Working together in UCSD in 2008, Cooper came up with the idea, and we decided to run with it. I ended up writing a piece for percussionist Brian Archinal, and two extra performers playing Cooper's Resobows, with Cooper doing electronics. The piece is based on three different motives, all which are slightly different from each other. As in Music for Organ Solo, a compositional tool was to explore the idea of letting these musics modulate each other; producing child-variations based on a combination of dfferent parent themes, and so forth. 

Cooper's patch took the constant 'screeeech' of the Resobows and modulated this according to what Brian was playing, how loud, and how fast. Certain spatialization decisions in Cooper's patch were also based on the ratios of the planets in orbit. 

Brian Archinal, percussion solo
Ian Power, Trevor Grahl, Resobows
Cooper Baker, Resobow conception and electronics

Splattering Resonance (2009)

Cavafy’s text speaks of loss but also remembrance, by listening with our memories to those absent voices which we can still hear in our mind’s ear. The soprano appears embedded in and surrounded by an emulsion of such voices in the orchestra. They are asking, sighing, groaning, calling out, pleading, uttering, or simply being. Among them, she is many characters at once: she appears as a narrator, a storyteller, recounting and communicating. However, she is also the embodiment of the heart of the text and her own voice becomes lost in a great centripetal sound-storm, laying to waste the fragile crystalline texture of the first moments of the piece. Emerging in a new form, she finishes her song which, almost like a benediction, gives birth to a new voice, sounding out its short life in the night, before it too, fades amongst those same voices in which she began.

Φωνές (Καβάφης)
Ιδανικές φωνές κι αγαπημένες
εκείνων που πεθάναν, ή εκείνων που είναι
για μας χαμένοι σαν τους πεθαμένους.

Κάποτε μες στα όνειρά μας ομιλούνε·
κάποτε μες στην σκέψι τες ακούει το μυαλό.

Και με τον ήχο των για μια στιγμή επιστρέφουν
ήχοι από την πρώτη ποίησι της ζωής μας —
σα μουσική, την νύχτα, μακρυνή, που σβύνει.
(Από τα Ποιήματα 1897-1933)

(Translation)

Ideal and dearly beloved voices
of those who are dead
or of those who are lost to us like the dead.
 
Sometimes they speak to us in our dreams;
sometimes in thought the mind hears them.
 
And with their sound returns for a moment
the sound of the first poetry of our live -
like music, at night, faraway, that fades.

RKST21, Clark Rundell, Conductor
Caroline Cartens, Soprano
Bart Leliveld, Accordion
Recorded February 25, 2018, Stadhuis, Apeldoorn.

Κάποτε

Organ Improvisation - Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig

Teaser, New Organ Piece (Day 5)

Of Ancient Days is a creation story, a slow building of a world in seven day-movements, interleaved with Bach's partita, Sei gegrüßet, forming the 'nights'. 

The new Utopa organ of the Orgelpark was used in two different ways for this concert: as an authentic Hildebrandt instrument (for the Bach) and, for my piece, with the digital console and technology developed by the Sinua firm of Dusseldorf. 

Live recording, November 23rd, 2018, Orgelpark 

Johan Luijmes, (Bach) Trevor Grahl, organists. 

Prelude: In the Beginning (Unda Maris)
(Bach) Chorale, Variation I
The First Day: Filament
(Bach)Variations II, III, IV
The Second Day: Echo Sphere
(Bach) Variations V, VI, VII
The Third Day: The Prolific Tale of Callithamnion Roseum (a Primordial Alga)
(Bach) Variation VIII, IX
The Fourth Day: Tourbillon des Etoiles
(Bach) Variation X
The Fifth Day: Au Fond des Bois...
(Bach)Variation XI
The Sixth Day: Ecce Homo

Of Ancient Days (2018)

Music for Hans-Ola Ericsson and Malmö's new organ of St. Petri's church. I made the map, and Hans-Ola took us on the journey, as it were. 

The console can not only control the new Klais organ (pictured here) but also the Marcussen from 1951, and both altar and echo organs. The entire building becomes an instrument, with the possibility acoustic surround sound. 

The new Klais organ is the manifestation of some dreams in organ making: among one of the most special is a dedicated harmonics division, with all pipes tuned justly to the overtone series, up to the 11th.

Music For Malmö (Hans-Ola Ericsson)

Based on Zweig’s novella, Brennendes Geheimnis is a recollection-journey back to the time of childhood and all of the encompassing emotional states: naiveté, extreme innocence, the magic of the unknown, the excitement of play, yet also despair, fear of the dark, monsters in closets, and extreme unchecked anger. It’s a cross-section of the joys and pains of growing up, of transforming, of learning, and experiencing, of understanding human nature. We all know and have experienced the eponymous secret from the first page, but as we read, Zweig transforms us with his wizardry: we all become young Edgar and feel again the mysterious burn along with him. The secret here is represented in sound, a buzzing, vibrating, energetic sensation sounding from the back of the orchestra, standing at odds to its surrounding sound-world – a foreign strange sensation, yet with a certain curiosity and fascination inside. We only experience it for seconds at a time at first, as the music swerves and ramps around it, simply trying to ignore it, or avoid it, with all the energy, sudden mood changes, and tantrums of a youngster. But certain forces cannot be ignored: this mysterious sound swells and grows from within, until at last, it’s everywhere, unescapable, like a black hole. The yearning to experience the future turns back on itself and affects even the past. One of the most beautiful and heart rending moments in Zweig’s work is what happens during the last few pages: a curtain suddenly drops, and Edgar experiences this omnipresent buzzing dissonance as a part of a complex natural network, and in an instant, understands its nature. Rather than a work about the petulance and wanton paroxysms of children, Brennendes Geheimnis is about hopeful futures: a Bildungsroman in sound, celebrating both the joys and intense tensions of the unknown on the path to maturity, leaving the door open for a bright futures which all youth deserve.

Live Recording, Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, August 8, 2019
Jeugd Orkest Nederland, Jurjen Hempel, Conductor

Brennendes Geheimnis

Concerto For Trombone And Orchestra - Intermezzo - Cortège (2017 version)

Het Klassiek Collectief
Konradin Herzog, Conductor
Jörgen van Rijen, Trombone

Concerto For Trombone And Orchestra - Intermezzo - Cortège (2017 version)

Mechanical musical instruments have always fascinated me, especially mechanical organs with their vast repertoire of marches, gallops, foxtrots, cake-walks, waltzes, overtures, love songs, and even newly-commissioned pieces.  My piece, Pierement Parade (Dutch: Barrel Organ or Mechanical Organ Parade) is a tribute to such instruments, and their idiosyncrasies: their characteristic registrations (organ "orchestrations"), harmonic progressions, and of course, repertoire, with particular attention to the idea of the musical march in this case.  The sound-world of the piece is designed to reflect the clunky, the raw, and the hooting-fluty-reedy-shuddering voice with which these instruments so beautifully sing - a fact I found ironic during the process of composition as I strove to make a band of real instruments sound like their mimetic air-driven counterparts: an imitated imitation.

This piece is meant to be the first in a diptych of pieces dealing with marches.  The second, Trauermarsch Szenen (link below) should immediately follow Pierement Parade.  

https://soundcloud.com/trevorgrahl/trauermarsch-szenen-evening-of

Continuum Ensemble, Brian Current, Cond.

N.B. - The speed of two short sections in the middle has been increased by 10 BPM in this version of the recording.


Pierement Parade

I grew up in the small town of Rankin, Ontario, and can always remember being fascinated by music. I began composing on my own while very young, and then formally studied when I was in university.  I studied in Montréal, San Diego, and finally Amsterdam.  Something that's been of great interest to me lately in the last few years is the idea of allusion and reference, and the functions that memories and emotions play in our minds and hearts while we listen to music, and creating a meaningful musical experience while exploring these ideas.  In a strange way, cartoons often supply some sort of raw material for this journey, and I often look to them for inspiration.  I live in Amsterdam where I work as a freelance composer, teacher, and as the floor manager of the Orgelpark, a concert venue dedicated to the organ and it's place in (contemporary) music.   

TrevorGrahl

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