I finished another movement of the Sax Concerto this afternoon. It’s the slow movement, and I tend to have a very hard time with slow music, so it was a tough slog. I don’t know that it’s as good as I’d like it to be, but it’s as good as I know how to make it right now, so it’s time to move on to another movement. Three movements are done (in short score) now:
2. Felt
3. Metal
4. Wood

These three movements run about 15 minutes. Movements 1 and 5 will be very short, and will be halves of the same idea, bookending the entire concerto. Whereas the above three movements will be limited in their instrumentation (as I wrote about here), the outer two movements will be tutti. (I did end up cheating a little on “Metal,” which includes 1 clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, and contrabassoon. Still, it’s definitely metal-focussed.) I’m trying to decide if all of the musical material for those outer movements comes from these three middle movements. The challenge would be in not letting those outer movements become medleys. It would give the whole piece some rock-solid structure, though.

You can see a few pages of “Metal” on this PDF. Tempo is around quarter=90, but you’ll see lots of little “q=84,” “q=74,” etc., indications, which were my attempts to get Finale to play with a little rubato.  You’ll also see several things that aren’t possible — like lightning-fast 4-mallet glockenspiel, 5 trombone parts, and three bass clarinet parts, but this is all short score stuff.  The trick, as always, will be in the real orchestration.  That happens in August.

Go see Ratatouille, the new Pixar movie. I loved it — and not just because it was about food (with Thomas Keller serving as a consultant!), but the food didn’t hurt. I even got a little misty a few times, not because it was sad, but because the whole film was so brilliantly done. (You ever get that? The “I am not worthy” tears?) Oh, and Michael Giacchino’s score is perfect.