Mark Walsen - Two Piano Apple Pie

[Mark W]

Hi MG,

Haydn has a symphony where the orchestra gets up, one by one, and leaves the stage.

That's quite "hip". What "statement" on Haydn's part has been attributed to this?

The abrupt ending doesn't bother me any more; in fact it is a kind of shock that sounds natural because it is expected (if that makes any sense), though to say that it is prepared for seems a bit of a rationalization.

Really, this wasn't a rationalized explanation of what I was doing with the ending. The overall piece moves very slowly harmonically. At about the 80% mark, though, the piece finally turns to harmonic motion to create the feeling of "a lot more is happening now-- we must be getting towards the end." Increasing the harmonic motion, is one of many dimensions of music that one might use-- sometimes several at a time-- to create excitement, especially towards the end of a piece.

After that very brief period of harmonic motion takes place, the harmony comes to a complete stand-still. It stays for measure after measure in D major. It's a complete release of tension in the dimension of harmony. Yet, all the other dimensions-- volume level, texture, rhythm-- keep going on as usual, like there's no end, like we're just in the middle of the piece. The abrupt ending is indeed abrupt. To understand the ending, one must understand that the harmony is over and done-- it has come to a keep halt for the entire last half page of the score, going nowhere. What was to be said has been said and has been completed. We're just coasting to the end at this point. It's a different type of ending. But it has a lot in common with the somewhat dreaded fade-out ending of rock & roll pieces, where nothing changes, except that the DJ (or sound studio producer) keeps turning down the volume level until zero is reached.

I'm not claiming this ending is good or bad. I'm just describing what I was consciously doing when I wrote this ending. Endings with predictable finality are satisfying. Endings with abrupt finality, intentionally or carelessly, leave one wondering; that's so for music, movies, and other types of stories. The listener tends to write out at least few more measures in his head, to compensate for the lack of finality in the ending. It's way of engaging the listener even after the last note... but, admittedly, at the risk of annoying some listeners.

Cheers
-- Mark

[mgj32]

Hi Mark,

You have probably explained why the ending of "...Apple Pie" has come to seem natural. I'm not sure I remember the fade to nothing effect of the Rock and Roll I recall as a teenager, much of which I liked during those years, at least not on juke boxes. But I have heard it enough in later years to think of it as good, bad or ugly, and it's not the first. That may say yours is good. I can intellectually accept the analogy of your ending to the ubiquitous fade in pop music. But the fact is yours doesn't fade. In fact, even though the second chord is unaccented, the final two together sound cadential.

RE the Haydn symphony, the "Farewell" Symphony. I guess the ending was intended to suggest that he and the orchestra should have some time off. That is extra-musical. "Finlandia," could be said to be as it is for extra-musical reasons, as could film music. I am not saying, in any way, that musical thought and instinct are not present during its making. Just that there are many reasons a composition may be started and worked on, some of them purely musical and some not. There is something--I'm not entirely sure what--that has made me want to cull and re-arrange the Fitzgerald translations of the quatrains of Omar Khayyam into a symphony, for many years, because music seems the appropriate medium. Really, the only one.

How many time have I heard in a theater or living room after the show ends, phrases like, "that ended funny," or "what the heck is that ending supposed to mean," or "that just leaves you hanging." In a poem, a story or a novel, the unexpected, sometimes seemingly unrelated ending, should cause the reader to wonder, as you said--to think back and put words and scenes and character traits, etc. together, and he/she will probably find a key insight. Perhaps one won't find so many such endings in music because such a process of wondering is more difficult? But at the same time if music causes the listener to wonder (I suppose "it" should be expanded to mean anything in the music), it could well compel him/her to listen multiple times, whereas a novel, which takes many hours to read, would likely not be re-read--at least not immediately, let alone often. Many poems stand somewhere between, and tend to present some of the same kind of problems as the unexpected in music.

I guess that after the first paragraph, this should have been continued in The Philosophy of Music section. Apple pie smothered in Cool Whip: / The universe scrumptious / And explained.

all best,
mgj

[Mark W]

Hi MG,

I guess that after the first paragraph, this should have been continued in The Philosophy of Music section.

Ok, I'll jump over to that new section of the forum that Sherry set up for us.

Cheers
-- Mark