Diferencias

[jeffshuniak]

I am going to write out the melody variation, and try to scan it, email it. I have never seen it written the way I "know" it. so I must have picked up some "particular" version. I like using both parts.

[vkioulaphides]

Please do; I love seeing and hearing different versions of my favorite folk/popular mandolin songs/dances.

My only reservation in responding to your question above was that I doubt whether any one of those myriad versions can ever claim to be "definitive". That sort of thing goes against the grain of any folk tradition.

My priority and modus operandi was not to be "authoritative" in accuracy of text (which I believe to be impossible in this genre anyhow) but to be stylistically accurate, i.e. accurately reflect the aesthetic of the era in which these mandolinatas were "Everyman's Songs".

But I digress. Alex informs me that Ferdinand's cyber-performance of Diferencias will be coming after some technical difficulties are overcome. Let us wish him and his team success.

[Alex Timmerman]

Hello Victor and others,


Well, there was unfortunately no chance to open the CDRom with Ferdinand's performance of Victor´s Diferencias. This was due to the very fact that we could not cut out the five and half minutes of Ferdinand´s mandolin playing from a CD with more than one hour film material. And there was no time to do it over again in the coming weeks. So Ferdinand´s playing will be something for the future. That´s a promise!

Since we all didn´t want to keep you waiting any longer, Sebastiaan recorded Victor´s composition yesterday and we hope you will like it as much as we do! #

You can click here to hear the sound sample of the





# # # # # # # # # #“Diferencias sobre Morenika”


# # # # # # # # # # # # # ##for solo mandolin

# # # # # # # # # # # # # # # #composed by


# # # # # # # # # # # ## # Victor Vkioulaphides



# # # # # # # # # # # # # ## and played by



# # # # # # # # # # # ## Sebastiaan de Grebber






Thanks again Victor, for this wonderful piece of music!
#

Many greetings from Ferdinand, Sebastiaan, Frido (our web-master) and myself.

[vkioulaphides]

Oh, Alex... What a pleasure to hear the piece as played by someone who actually can play the mandolin! Please convey my most enthusiastic congratulations to Sebastiaan— and no less thanks to young Ferdinand!

That is truly a composer's dream come true. The gods may have given me many wonderful things I hardly deserve, but certainly no singing voice So, in compensation for my own, croaky humming, what do I do? Why, turn around and write a dozen operas, choral works, and hundred-odd songs, so that I get to enjoy the experience vicariously, listening to my "inner singing" materialize thanks to people WITH a voice worth listening to. Quite the compensation!

Same thing, I suppose, with the mandolin: Sebastiaan's playing gave me that "sweet pain" I get when I sit in the audience, watching my "babies" play out on the stage. As the great Balanchine would say: "Ah, Art... the great as if"

MY thanks to YOU, dear friends!

[bratsche]

Wow! Bravi! {wild, enthusiastic applause!}

Great work, both by composer and soloist!

bratsche

[vkioulaphides]

Hey, hey... is there a conspiracy going on here? # #

Just got off the phone with a guitarist (who, incidentally, I have not spoken to in years) and who, God knows how, has a copy of my Suite for clarinet and guitar— a commission by a clarinetist/guitarist (married) couple, not the happiest combination projection-wise, to be honest.

Long story made short: He is giving several performances this spring with a fabulous violist. "Would I", he asks, "care to transcribe the piece for this new medium?" Why, of course! Not to mention that the "new" medium will probably sound better-balanced than the original one..

Having just come back from Disney World, I cannot but yell out like Timor from The Lion King: "WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?!?!?!?"

[Mark Levesque]

Wow, great recording, great composition.
I listened to it at least 20 times today, trying to absorb it all.

Thanks,
Mark

[Marc]

Excellent!
Lovely piece Victor, and beautifully played Sebastion.

If the offer of a copy of the music still stands please count me in Victor.

Respect and regards,
Marc

www.belmando.com

[vkioulaphides]

Why, thank you, Mark. On your 20 listenings: Heavens, I could listen to Sebastiaan all day... of course, it would take me 20 or so years to play half as well as he does in his 20's. Didn't I speak of "sweet pain"?

Certainly, Marc (with a "C"). Just zap me your full name and address and I will put a copy in the mail for you today. And, I hardly merit your respect; I will, however, take your regards any day

Cheers to you all. I've got to sit down and transcribe the clarinet & guitar piece into its reincarnation as my new-fangled viola & guitar suite.

[Eugene]

I downloaded this in my office yesterday morning. I have forced it into the ears of my two student employees and any hapless graduate student to have stumbled into my office (I do believe it was a relatively pleasant "forcing" for the art-music uninitiated). I really like this...and it sounds so much better here than when I've scratched at it in my typical ham-fisted, I-wish-I-was-a-real musician fashion. Given its accessibility and rich, wistful mood, I wouldn't be surprised to find this making the rounds and generating a wee storm on the recital stage, comparable to the guitar storm caused by Domeniconi's "Koyunbaba" a few years back. Of course, relative to their respective sizes, storms generated on the mandolin recital stage tend to be a touch smaller. Too bad!

[John Zimm]

Thanks for the recording, and thank you again Victor for sharing this piece with us. I have been working on this and making progress, and in the near future I hope to have it memorized. I play for my coworkers from time to time, so maybe one day I will be able to share a performance of this with an audience. Thanks again, it sounds great.

-John.

[Alex Timmerman]

Hello Victor,

That sounds wonderful! An arrangement by the composer of his "Suite for clarinet and guitar"!
Since you mentioned that your guitarist friend asked for a ´new medium´ to perform that Suite with a violist, I wondered if the latter also plays the Viola, because you mention to re-write
this Suite in a 'new-fangled' viola & guitar composition.

Anyway it all sounds great! The more new contemporary pieces for guitar (and mandolin) the better, and a viola- or violin part is only one step away from taking up the mandolin for it...

Could that be an idea?


Cheers, #

Alex

[vkioulaphides]

Ehm... Alex, I presume you are asking whether the violist also plays mandola, right? Well, that I don't know. If , however, you are interested in trying out this piece on mandola and guitar, please let me know and I will gladly send you a copy, once the transcription is finished.

I wrote this piece a few years ago, on commission from Argentinian guitarist Gabriela Mangini and Venezuelan clarinetist Daniel Granados (formerly of the Quintet of the Americas); they were recently married at the time, and about to move to La Coruña, Spain. Quite obviously, this piece has a very prominent Spanish flavor. In fact, I could have easily called it Spanish Suite but I have a bias for generic titles. You know me...

The range (for the other-than-the-guitar instrument) is two octaves (plus or minus a step outside this tessitura) , from E, three ledger-lines below the treble staff, to E on the top space of the staff; essentially all (potentially, at least) first position on a viola/mandola.

Well, Alex, (and bratsche, and dolamon, and all you of alto-clef affinities), I will let you be the judge. If you want a copy, its yours for the asking. I am just delighted with the viola & guitar opportunity, as the piece had languished for years on my catalogue. Sadly but frankly, I knew the reason: clarinet and guitar are SO hard to balance... #

So, a new life for this still-crawling baby!

[John Zimm]

Victor,

If you don't mind, I would love to have a copy once it is finished. Just let me know if I can send you an envelope with postage paid or anything. I play the classical guitar as well, and I am currently building a mandola just for the fun of it. Thanks.

-John.

[vkioulaphides]

Certainly, John. Just please remind me your address, as I did not hold on to the names and addresses of all those I sent the Diferencias to. But no, no need for you to pay the postage.

You don't, err... suggest that you will be playing both the guitar AND the mandola you are currently building at the same time, are you? (ongoing Café joke)

The transcription should be ready by some time next week.

Cheers,

Victor

[vkioulaphides]

Oh, incidentally— and this applies both to John and Marc: If the MC-messenger fails (as it has on occasion), please drop me a note with your full name and address at my home e-mail (in my usual love for the generic, thus): vkioulaphides@earthlink.net

[Alex Timmerman]

Hallo Victor,

Well I found it strange that you were first talking about your friend the guitarist who now wanted to play your Suite with a violist, and than you were indicating to re-write it in a 'new-fangled' VIOLA & guitar Suite. So I presumed that the violinist is able to play the viola. I wasn´t thinking that he could play the mandola, but if he can: great !

Anyhow, yes you know me: I would love to have a copy of your Suite. Both in the original setting for Clarinet and guitar and in the setting where the Clarinet part is transcribed for Viola (Mandola) accompanied by the Guitar (if I may ask).

If it´s all right with you I´ll compensate for it ´in kind´ (surprise, surprise...).


Best,

Alex

[vkioulaphides]

Certainly, Alex. As regards whether the suite is scored for "other instrument" & guitar or rather guitar & "other instrument"... well, the piece is a true-to-form dance-suite, complete with traditional binary forms (spelled out and varied, i.e. NOT with exact repeats), so both instruments are perfectly equal in importance— they essentially play the same material in different guises. Only the visual aspect of the score places the guitar part on the lower staff, pro forma.

But, as you know, guitarists are usually the pro-active party suggesting and supporting the composition of new works. A salute, then, to guitarists!

[vkioulaphides]

As of 10-or-so minutes ago, the transcription of the "Spanish" Suite is complete. I will proofread it over the weekend and send it to you, John and Alex, early next week.

In the course of this transcription, however, I also made some minor but still significant improvements in dynamics, articulations, etc. In fact, I am far happier with the viola version than the original one for clarinet & guitar. Whether the "viola version" would #be workable and effective on a mandola, well... I leave that to the experts.

Cheers,

Victor

P.S. Alex: After the brief "interlude" of this transcription, I return full-force to the Concerto per orchestra a pizzico. All sketched, as you know; now I am "filling in", starting from the 3rd movement (i.e. backwards). I will let you know about Estimated Time of Arrival, to speak in business terms.

[bratsche]

Hi Victor - music for viola? Count me in, of course! ;-) I'll send my address privately. Unlike Alex, I have no hope of compensating 'in kind'; I might one day send you a short mandolin/mandola duet for laughs, but it surely falls into the "ditty" category, rather than a serious composition such as yours. It's the first thing I've ever attempted to write, for that matter...

Now a silly question - how do I download Sebastiaan's recording of 'Diferencias' to my computer? I hate to keep going back to the site to listen, but haven't figured out another way.

Thanks,

bratsche

[vkioulaphides]

Sure thing, bratsche. As requires compensation, you know I require none; all the wonderful materials Alex has sent me on several occasions are more testimony to his own generosity than to any demands of mine.

And, I would love to see what you are writing. I am firmly of an 18th-century persuasion (NOT age! ) that, given some application, any competent performer can compose an effective piece of music: starting from mere arrangements, to works for one's own instrument, then perhaps duets for that one plus some other instrument, etc.

I am ipso facto very skeptical about the alleged "special" talents handed down by some mysterious deity to composers alone, as I am (obviously) DEAD against the ridiculous bias of certain schools of 20th-century composition who view themselves as poets and us as typists. , I say.

As regards downloading: Hmm... when you listen to it, doesn't Sebastiaan's performance leave a copy of itself, alias a little icon, right on your desktop? Curious...

[bratsche]

No, Victor, sorry to say there is no desktop icon, and no immediately obvious way of downloading, as with an image, for example. Perhaps someone else knows how to do it?

As to your other comments, I somewhat agree; however, while many people will put the notes in their head onto paper, very little of it really qualifies as "art", imho. I suppose that is true of all forms. I guess it shouldn't dissuade a dillettante such as moi from trying, though. ;-)

bratsche

[Mark Levesque]

hi bratsche,

Here's what should work:
do a single RIGHT click on the link
then, double left click on "save target as..."
then, at the top of the download box that appears, you can choose where on your computer to "save in"
The desktop is the easiest place to find it.
The mp3 will be saved on your computer desktop.

Cheers,
Mark

[bratsche]

Thank you Mark - For some reason, I didn't try looking for any save options before clicking on the link, but was trying to find a way to do it once I was already at the soundfile location! But your way worked, so now I have it!

bratsche

[John Zimm]

As of 10-or-so minutes ago, the transcription of the "Spanish" Suite is complete. I will proofread it over the weekend and send it to you, John and Alex, early next week.

Thank you very much Victor, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

-John.