The book and other projects

This week I’m working on my Richard III project for next week’s author conference in New York for the OUP Handbook for Music & Disability, and back on Talma chapter 4.

For the New York conference, I’ll be presenting my research on the Walton score for Olivier’s film adaptation of the play. Originally I had included material on the Loncraine/Mckellen adaptation as well, but I think that focusing on just one film, at this juncture, will easily fill up the words I’m allowed and will present a more tightly constructed chapter in the end. So I’m revising some as I got.

For Talma chapter 4, I need to analyze two movements of her oratorio The Divine Flame and one or two of the songs from the period I’m writing about, which is mostly the 40s and early 50s. Then it’s on to serialism and the string quartet in the mid-50s. There will be three more chapters after the one on serialism: the one on The Alcestiad is essentially complete, and then I’ll have two more to write by my October deadline. I’m pretty much on schedule.

 

Upon returning to the US….

Sometimes I wish this blog was still mostly pseudonymous. Because I’d really like to vent about some things, but can’t.

Anyway.

My trip to the UK was fantastic. I got a lot of good research done at the BL both on my current R3 chapter project and on a different project. London was cool and spring-like and wonderful, and my flights were easy and only halfway full, so I got to spread out and sleep in both directions. I ate well (I love you, Tas Pide!), saw two excellent performances of Shakespeare at the Globe, saw stormtroopers and Darth Vader at Forbidden Planet, and even got in a day of leisure on the Bank Holiday.

Yesterday I rested and caught up on things, and then slipped in the kitchen and broke my nose, and tore up stuff in my knees. Actually, all of me hurts. The dogs were worried. I was in shock for about 20 minutes. But I did manage after a while to get up off the floor and put ice on my face, and then clean up and tape my nose. I have two spectacular black eyes.

But what had my fabulous husband done while I was away? He’d installed a grab bar and cleaned the jacuzzi tub, so it was ready and waiting for me after my trip. And that’s where I spent part of the evening. I’m so happy to be home.

New poem published

My poem “Professor Medusa” has been published at Haggard and Halloo. I’d reprint it here, but the publishers there added a great photo you shouldn’t miss: http://www.haggardandhalloo.com/2013/04/23/professor-medusa/.

Chapter 4 update

I’m still working on Chapter 4, which will cover Talma’s works from 1943-51, including Piano Sonata no. 1 and the Toccata for Orchestra, the song cycle Terre de France, the oratorio The Divine Flame, and some of the songs eventually collected into Seven Songs. I’ve spent the last week or so analyzing the Piano Sonata no. 1, a fascinating piece, and writing about it from a theoretical point of view. Now I’ll examine what it represented in terms of Talma’s career.

Chapter 4 word count to date is 6,775, bringing the total to 52,400. I think I’m about 1/4-1/3 of the way through Chapter 4. Chapter 5 is written, as it served as the basis for an article coming out later this year, but will need a little revising.

I’ve recently given talks on song and women in music at a couple of colleges and universities, including the University of Cincinnati-Blue Ash College, Youngstown State University, and the University of Richmond. If you’d like to to come talk about these or other topics in which I work at your school, either for a special lecture or just in class, please let me know. I’d love to do it if I can.

Book blogging

The last two weeks or so were so filled with travel that I haven’t blogged. I went to the SAM meeting in Little Rock, and then went to the University of Richmond, where I gave a talk on women opera composers. I introduced students to Talma, Judith Weir, and Paula Kimper, and the students were an engaged bunch and seemed to enjoy the talk.

On the book front I’m working on Chapter 4, and the big news today is that I managed to locate a copy of Talma’s motet In principio erat verbum, which is not in the LC of any of the obvious places. A copy turned up at Juilliard; in the 1950s the work had been recorded for radio by a Juilliard group. But the Juilliard Library needed permission from the MacDowell Colony to make a copy of the score for me. Permission arrived today, and I’m looking forward to analyzing the score when I get it from New York. I’ve also been working on Talma’s Carmina Mariana and writing that up; next up I’ll tackle the first piano sonata and some other works composed before 1952.

In other projects, I’m working on a draft of my article for the OUP Handbook of Music and Disability Studies. My article focuses on Shakespeare’s Richard III and the musical representations of both the title character’s physical disability and “twisted mind” in adaptations for the cinema. Amazon just delivered a copy of the 1912 Richard III with a new score by Ennio Morricone, and I’ll also be writing about the Olivier and McKellen adaptations. I also just got a copy of the Arden 3rd R3 and love it that the editor, James R. Siemon, cites Jasper Fforde’s Rocky Horror-like interactive/audience participation version of R3 from his novel The Eyre Affair. It’s a genius idea that I’d actually love to do one day.

In other news, it’s snowing, and the dogs are happy. I have a new carry-on bag for my trip to the UK and a big long list of things to look at in the BL once I get there.

Words, words, SAM

Chapter 3 is 11, 829 words, bringing the total word count so far to 45, 625. Chapter 4 is  now titled “‘A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep’: Independence.”

I don’t expect to get a whole lot done this week because I leave for SAM on Wednesday and am pretty much booked there non-stop. But on Friday afternoon–I’m not going on any of the excursions–I may work on the two encyclopedia entries I have coming up and begin some other work for which I don’t need my whole score library, etc., with me.

If you’re going to SAM, don’t forget the Academic Ronin no-host party Thursday night! Email or FB me for details.

Blogging the Book: Chapter 3

Chapter 3 was going to be 90+ pages if I included everything in Talma’s output and life between 1934 and 1952, so with the help of some excellent friends I’ve decided to break it into two chapters. Chapter 3 remains “Conversion and Sublimation;” Chapter 4 will take a title from Auden, probably, and will pick up around 1943, when Talma went to MacDowell for the first time. Onward.