Gazing at the Night Sky - Composition Walkthrough Pt.5 - Bars 50 - 69

After the more low energy B section, we return back to the A theme of the piece, effectively following a quite common ABA structure for the first half of the piece.

You can read the other parts of this walkthrough here.

As usual, the complete recording, score sheet and midi file are attached below while we're working with short scores in the article to make things a little easier to follow.

Here's the recording of the section that we're looking at today:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/gatns-bar49-69/s-n7ZuHLL5k8G

And a playback of the Piano Reduction:

https://soundcloud.com/robin-hoffmann/gatns-bar49-69-piano-reduction/s-epdglyr1BJ4

Structurally speaking, I could have repeated the A section as it is in the beginning of the piece (except for the modulation) but I generally always try to avoid exact repetitions of entire sections as it prevents the possibility to develop the material further. Here, I also wanted to raise the energy level compared to the first two statements of the theme for a more exciting dramaturgic arc which would have remained quite flat if I just got back to the level of energy that we had already.

Bar49-53

As mentioned in the last part already, bar 49 serves as a rhythmic segway into the new pulse structure. Up to this part, the rhythmical grid was based on 16th notes which I now switch to triplet eights for reasons of variety and triplets generally creating a more "rolling" rhythmical flow.

In order to provide a plausible rhythmical switch, I use the trumpets to establish the triplet rhythm. Notice how also the pickup rhythm of the theme get's adjusted to the triplet grid. It used to be dotted eighth+sixteenth and now becomes first and third triplet of an eighth note triplet group. The theme is once again played by the horns which reach quite high registers with the high sounding Db in bar 52 which if executed confidently sounds very exciting but could also be problematic to get a good take as it is not reached stepwise but by a leap.

In bar 50, I use a "tension rest" which I already mentioned in an earlier post which basically means to delay the revelation of some musical information into later in the bar. As you can see, the downbeat is rather empty and effectively only has the horns and the high strings rhythm. Leaving that free has two advantages:

1. Making it more exciting to hold back some information

2. Clearing up the downbeat for the horns to have a chance to cut through. If I concentrated a lot of instruments on the downbeat, it would have been tricky for them to be audible. You can see that also in the following bars, I try to avoid downbeats and move the accompaniment in inactive spots of the theme.

I establish a rhythmical figure in the high strings that is present throughout the length of this section which keeps creeping gradually upwards which of course increases the perceived level of energy. Bars 50-52 employ tremolos by flutes and clarinets. It is a conscious decision to not include the oboes into it as their trills/tremolos are not as fluid sounding as the ones on flutes and clarinets, however, in this loud section it would probably not make much of a difference. Other than that you can see that the harmonic material is spread out between low strings, low woodwinds and low brass.

Bars 54-57

Here, I let the trumpets take over the melody. It would have been possible to leave that in the Horns and push them to the high sounding Eb several times and if I had recorded that piece in London or LA it might have been possible to do that but as I knew when writing the piece that it's not going to be recorded in either of the two, I decided to hand it to the trumpets. This doesn't mean that the horn players I had wouldn't have been able to play that note but if you don't have top class players, these notes will start to sound very forced and "squeezed" (let alone the danger of slowing down the sessions due to retakes), particularly as it's not just a one time Eb but occurs several times.

So as a consequence I handed it over to the trumpets which of course are not yet in their brilliant register in that range but it seemed to me like a better compromise.

I tried to counteract that by pushing that string motive in bar 56 and 57.

Other than that, not much changes compared to the preceding bars. Bars 54/55 with their call and response quality between melody and accompaniment are quite helpful here to break that throughgoing rhythmic flow and provide some variation.

Bar 58-65

I would consider this section as the climax of the piece and I try to push everything here to the energetic limits. A particularly challenging moment happens in bar 60 for the first trumpet asking the player to play the high sounding Db and reaching it by leap. I was thinking quite a bit about whether to push them as far as the "official range" for trumpets usually ends at the sounding Bb a minor third lower. It was also absolutely clear that if I ask for that Db, I could only do so from the first player. In the end I decided to risk it (again, I wouldn't have though twice about this if it was a London/LA player) and the player nailed that note quite well (while struggling a bit on the intonation in the descent in the rest of the bar).

Notice that I spread out the trumpets in chords in this passage as it would have been too much to ask the 2nd and 3rd player to also play that high. Besides that, it provided a nice new textural quality.

I use one of my favourite chords in bar 58 which is the tonic with the third in the bass plus a prominent added ninth in the harmony. I use the horns to provide that ninth and give them a stepwise moving sideline in half notes which also create a nice new musical gesture.

As we're hearing this theme now more or less in the same way for the fourth time, I felt that some sort of reharmonisation was necessary. I didn't want to go too wild with it though as I wanted to keep that straight forward quality that the theme had. One way that I really like to make things more intersting is to change the bass notes of chords to other notes than the root. You can see that there is quite a bit of bass note movement going on which I also tried to place more on weaker beats (again in order to avoid too much rhythmical stiffness). I felt that this variation really helps to "ramp it up". 

Towards bar 61 I concentrate more and more instruments on the theme, also in quite high registers as I really wanted to squeeze out the last bit of possible energy before culminating into the softer epilogue of the piece. In general, my target was to move every instrument into a register where it would be able to add to the high energy that was going on here. 

Pay particular attention to the piccolo which is pushed into its very highest register. This instrument is a very delicate matter as these really high notes can be extremely piercing and earshattering loud as they are pretty tricky to control. This is more problematic in smaller recording spaces than in larger as this one but can very often lead to requests to play it an octave lower. In this case, it all went well and I got that high energy quality without piercing through everything else. But if it wasn't for such a high energy section, I would have really been more cautious with this register.

Bar 66-69

In order to contrast to that super high and bright register that we just had, I wanted it to finish with a loud low note. I would have wished for an even bigger accent on it but the part before was too taxing to save up more energy for that downbeat. Still I felt it was a satisfying payoff moment. In order to segway to the next part without losing too much rhythmical momentum I brought in an alternating Abadd9 chord in the strings as well as a flute motif that is based on the B theme and introduces the lydian #11 (d) into the harmony which of course again has this "space" quality.

In the next part we will have a closer look at the brass chorale.