feste productions

A Chime in the Woods

Program Notes

i. Apologia
1. Introductions
2. A growing sense of urgency
3. Things become clear
4. Respect for the path ahead

5. The quest in earnest
6. Conflict and consequence
7. The search for resolution
8. Denouement

apologia - a defense, referring to books 9-12 of the Odyssey in which Odysseus recounts his adventures and defends why he is the sole survivor. Cf. Plato's Apology (the defense speech of Socrates from his trial) and the early Christian Apologists (defending their faith).

quest - The act of seeking, or looking after anything; attempt to find or obtain; search; pursuit; as, to rove in quest of game, of a lost child, of property, etc.
Upon an hard adventure yet in quest. --Spenser.
Cease your quest of love. --Shak.
There ended was his quest, there ceased his care. --Milton.

conflict - 1. A state of open, often prolonged fighting; a battle or war. 2. A state of disharmony between incompatible or antithetical persons, ideas, or interests; a clash. 3. Psychology. A psychic struggle, often unconscious, resulting from the opposition or simultaneous functioning of mutually exclusive impulses, desires, or tendencies. 4. Opposition between characters or forces in a work of drama or fiction, especially opposition that motivates or shapes the action of the plot.

consequence - 1. Something that logically or naturally follows from an action or condition. 2. The relation of a result to its cause. 3. A logical conclusion or inference. 4. Significance; importance.

resolution -
1. The state or quality of being resolute; firm determination.
2. A resolving to do something.
3. A course of action determined or decided on.
5. Physics & Chemistry. The act or process of separating or reducing something into its constituent parts: the prismatic resolution of sunlight into its spectral colors.
9. a) An explanation, as of a problem or puzzle; a solution. b) The part of a literary work in which the complications of the plot are resolved or simplified.
10. Music. a) The progression of a dissonant tone or chord to a consonant tone or chord. b) The tone or chord to which such a progression is made.

denouement - 1. The final resolution of the main complication of a literary or dramatic work. 2. The outcome of a complex sequence of events.

Each piece is given an abstract chart-like value that roughly corresponds to things like emotional intensity, changes in intensity, and ultimately to the changes in the plot of an archetypal tale. As though the reader’s heart rate were predicted first, then charted and followed in order to create another story. If a tale is gripping, it would be a measurement of how much the story has a reader gripped as the story unfolds.

But it is no more specific than that. Characters and themes interact over the course of the program, but what precisely they say or do, or what befalls them, is purely a consequence of the listener’s own internal musical interpreter. If music inspires joy, then at that moment the story is about something joyful, and what exactly that is may not ever be told in words. Likewise suspenseful, ominous, exhilarating, disconcerting, triumphant or despairing. All these can be expressed by music; when and how they appear in the performance is ultimately uncontrolled, but the course of the tale is subjected to the literary laws of its genre, to wit:

Introductions

Characters are introduced as musical motifs. The stage must be set, and the players established, before the story can truly begin. This is the Once upon a time, where the landscape and the weather and the players and their relationships are unveiled methodically.

A growing sense of urgency

Once the world has been created and populated with these imaginary facts, the story begins to show signs of unrest; someone or something is encroaching on the idyllic world. It takes some time for the changes to manifest, as in life – even sudden conflicts often slowly unfold in the mind of the beholder, as implications multiply, making connections and drawing lines that ultimately ensnare the characters.

Things become clear

At some point in the tale it becomes clear that what was once calm and serene is now irrevocably changed. Decisions must be made, some commitment required – to leave what was once comfortable and confront the new world. Inaction is no longer an option; tales do not concern themselves with inactive players, for it is their fate to fade into obscurity. Instead the unknown must be faced, and things become clear.

Respect for the path ahead

Preparations for the quest require solemnity and resolve despite the vastness of the unknown ahead. The action is just around the corner, and a collective and meaningful breath must be taken by all before those fateful steps are taken. It is a moment to be savored by the listener, that sense of the hopelessness of the quest and its bittersweet harmonies formed by urgency and the gathering of elusive courage.

The quest in earnest

With the commitment to motion comes the adventure. The tale presents surprises, twists, setbacks, dead ends, traps and temptations. All encounters are accompanied by the fears of failure and the faint promise of a new peaceful world.

Conflict and consequence

Inevitably all of the threads are untangled and lead to the center of the web. There is too much momentum to stop and reflect; the tale brings all of itself into the center – weariness, fear, desperation, courage, fatalism, hope, and relief that the final task is revealed. The conflict begins and the tale abandons everything except for the moment, as though the listener has taken in a breath and must hold it to prevent tragedy.

The search for resolution

Though some would have you believe otherwise, what once was lost will never return, for the journey and travail permanently alters the characters. Some new order must settle from the consequences, but in the world of tales, that which is good and peaceful always returns when evil has been vanquished, as though the characters know the rule that tales end happily, and they work towards that peace with unquestioning dedication.

Denouement

Resolution is the end result of the tale, and is made sweet by the price paid to achieve it. It lasts beyond the Happily ever after, and lingers into the dreams of children, and into the serenity of their parents as they shut the book and turn out the lights. It even echoes inside the pages of the story, as the characters rest, satisfied, protected from danger while the covers remain closed around them.