'POSTLUDE' AND OTHER NONSENSE

by JENNIFER PAULL

'Sky poets paint the sheltered curve to find' is a (double) rondo. This implies that my subject(s) return at regular intervals. It is the most 'round' of all musical forms as its title suggests. Mine is a double rondo with two recurring themes (rainbows [or curves] and pivots).

Between each (re)statement I expose my theme, link it to a second subject or slightly modified pivot angle of itself, and thus argue it through to a relative degree of the scale. The strongest is the fifth or the dominant. Should I compare two equal weights, I use the formula, dominant/tonic (V-I). The tonic key is home base, that of the rainbows (or curves) and pivots. The sub-dominant (fourth degree) is obtuse, the second (supertonic), is weak -- a sort of en passant flavour etc. Each degree of the scale (there are seven) has a tonal 'mood' rainbow of its own, and a relative minor expression of itself.

Sometimes, I argue a theme and then work the subject backwards as with Marcel Marceau's 'are words really necessary to communication?' I also argue for and against linguistic/folkloric elements. Positive/negative: forwards/backwards. This is not question and answer it is question and anti-question.

I expose three subjects simultaneously (Burgess, Justice, Bowles), with cross-references to multi-artistic talent. I envisage this as a three-part fugue within the boundaries of a three part invention.

In this instance, I introduce a relative minor (which is a minor third lower than the tonic major) with the Bowles/Calder link. Calder is linked to Bowles through two themes.

1. Obituary, (hence my introduction of the tonic minor as in an implied Funeral Mass).
2. Autobiography (dominant major's relative minor) -- in that I criticise Calder's present (not past) expression, not head on (as a tonic minor would be), but at a distance and with retrospection (the dominant major's relative minor is far removed, somewhat remote): 'projected upon a screen of celestial muslin'. Past illustrations of Calder's work (poetry, creativity etc), flash by transposed into related major key rankings.

I also introduce greatness in a minor key -- van Gogh and Satie (through their inner anguish).

I use three leitmotivs: travel, language and Cage's presence as a mountain echo.

Cadenzas are the composer's own themes (mine in this case as author), re-quoted in a different place and context in a reworked setting of their thematic content. Again, in an attempt to keep to roundness, I do this three times.

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