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"Le bon fossoyeux" (the good Gravedigger) For orchestra


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Krisp was awarded the badge 'Orchestration Buff' and 5 points.

Hello everyone, dear friends !

Here is my last composition for orchestra.

Always in the same spirit, but very happy to get to the end.

I use here a thematic reservoir already used in a previous work, which was written for singing and piano, then orchestrated.

But the development is totally different and I don't take over the structure.

I wanted to favor the whimsical, squeaky side, certainly but not dark, with as much derision as possible.

Thank you for your encouragement and comments that I look forward to! (And a small subscription on my Youtube page would also make me happy).

 

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Hi @Krisp,

I always admire your orchestration colour along with your imagination. Here it's indeed very fanciful.

I also love how you display your score alongside with the sound in the video. It really makes the music more authentic!

-Great horn call for the prelude in C minor! Definitely set the mood of the piece as whimsical.

-It indeed is a sunset in part two with those high woodwinds opening the section.

-The pizzicato in the "Angel's patience" makes it less patient haha! Especially with the ominous woodwind!

-Where's the 6th episode??😜 Is that number too demonic to be hidden? But it's indeed followed by a demonic episode 7.

-Again there's whistle in 4:57! Again the effect is great, like the erlkonig is finding you!

-That rooster is really funny!

I really enjoy this one and as usual the quality is very high. You have the ability to create fantastical world through tone colour and you are very good at mood shaping and expressing it through the right instrument.

Isn't the gravedigger in Hamlet funny too? Seeing all the greats dead and making fun of them as well as the fragility of human being. This piece does give me something feeling of this.

15 hours ago, Krisp said:

Thank you for your encouragement and comments that I look forward to! (And a small subscription on my Youtube page would also make me happy).

I am very happy that you come to join YC as well! I've already subscribed to your channel after your first post here!

Thanks for sharing Jean!

Henry

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1 hour ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Hi @Krisp,

I always admire your orchestration colour along with your imagination. Here it's indeed very fanciful.

I also love how you display your score alongside with the sound in the video. It really makes the music more authentic!

-Great horn call for the prelude in C minor! Definitely set the mood of the piece as whimsical.

-It indeed is a sunset in part two with those high woodwinds opening the section.

-The pizzicato in the "Angel's patience" makes it less patient haha! Especially with the ominous woodwind!

-Where's the 6th episode??😜 Is that number too demonic to be hidden? But it's indeed followed by a demonic episode 7.

-Again there's whistle in 4:57! Again the effect is great, like the erlkonig is finding you!

-That rooster is really funny!

I really enjoy this one and as usual the quality is very high. You have the ability to create fantastical world through tone colour and you are very good at mood shaping and expressing it through the right instrument.

Isn't the gravedigger in Hamlet funny too? Seeing all the greats dead and making fun of them as well as the fragility of human being. This piece does give me something feeling of this.

I am very happy that you come to join YC as well! I've already subscribed to your channel after your first post here!

Thanks for sharing Jean!

Henry

 

 

Hey!!! To be said, I was looking forward to your reaction because I know that you make it a point of honor to thoroughly analyze what you hear. So it's very interesting to read you. I'm super glad you like it. You talk about imagination and I think you make a striking proof of it in your comment! Bravo (especially since I do not provide the edited score, so you knew how to be attentive to the smallest detail of your listening. The visual gives some leads but remains more whimsical than didactic!).

Episode 6 is just a clumsiness! But I can have fun composing one in the appendix (it might be called Episode 6. Oblivion)...

Regarding the whistle, it's always something that amuses me. Which awakens the audience well and can freeze the blood. Not for nothing that he is so popular to call a lost quidam to order.

A few words about the gravedigger mentioned in Jules Laforgue's poem to which I refer:

First, Laforgue calls it "Fossoyeux" and not "fossoyeuR", which is a popular distortion in French, giving a folkloric song color, a squeak, of this country common sense seen with a certain irony. This sets the tone of the poet's intention. It is also often that Laforgue uses a popular spoken with characteristic contractions and elisions. This gives his style a mixture of sublime and derisory, always very inspiring, I find.

Moreover, in the poem, all the happy world is pulled sooner or later by this good gravedigger who appears like a horrible scarecrow under the moon.

 

Here is the text by the way and an automatic translation (excuse me if it's too little poetic)...

Complainte de l’oubli des morts

Jules Laforgue

Mesdames et Messieurs,
Vous dont la mère est morte,
C’est le bon fossoyeux
Qui gratte à votre porte.

Les morts
C’est sous terre ;
Ça n’en sort
Guère.

Vous fumez dans vos bocks,
Vous soldez quelque idylle,
Là-bas chante le coq,
Pauvres morts hors des villes !

Grand-papa se penchait,
Là, le doigt sur la tempe,
Sœur faisait du crochet,
Mère montait la lampe.

Les morts
C’est discret,
Ça dort
Trop au frais.

Vous avez bien dîné,
Comment va cette affaire ?
Ah ! les petits mort-nés
Ne se dorlotent guère !

Notez, d’un trait égal,
Au livre de la caisse,
Entre deux frais de bal :
Entretien tombe et messe.

C’est gai,
Cette vie ;
Hein, ma mie,
Ô gué ?

Mesdames et Messieurs,
Vous dont la sœur est morte,
Ouvrez au fossoyeux
Qui claque à votre porte ;

Si vous n’avez pitié,
Il viendra (sans rancune)
Vous tirer par les pieds,
Une nuit de grand lune !

Importun
Vent qui rage !
Les défunts ?
Ça voyage….

Jules Laforgue, Les Complaintes

 

Complaint of the forgetfulness of the dead

Jules Laforgue
 
Ladies and gentlemen,
You whose mother died,
He's the right gravedigger
Scratching at your door.
 
The dead
It's underground;
It doesn't come out
Hardly.
 
You smoke in your bocks,
You're soldered some idyll,
Over there sings the rooster,
Poor dead outside the cities!
 
Grandpa was bending over,
There, the finger on the temple,
Sister was crocheting,
Mother was mounting the lamp.
 
The dead
It's discreet,
It's sleeping
Too cool.
 
You had a good dinner,
How is this case going?
Ah! The little stillborn
Don't pamper each other!
 
Note, of an equal stroke,
In the book of the cash register,
Between two prom fees:
Interview falls and mass.
 
It's cheerful,
This life;
Huh, my friend,
O ford?
 
Ladies and gentlemen,
You whose sister died,
Open to the gravedigger
Who slams at your door;
 
If you don't have pity,
He will come (without grudges)
Pull you by the feet,
A night of great moon!
 
Troublesome
Wind that rages!
The deceased?
It's traveling...
 
Jules Laforgue, Les complaintes

I had composed a melody for voice and piano, being young, orchestrated recently (version on my Youtube page, on this poem, of which I take up here thematic elements, but which go here in different directions.

Thank you in any case for your visit. It gives me great pleasure!

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12 hours ago, J. Lee Graham said:

Fantastic!  Very imaginative and colourful, great orchestration, flows very well.  Dividing the piece into so many short parts without any break whatsoever - that's very unique.

I'm very impressed!   Well done!   

 

Thank you for your visit !

I am always curious about the reactions of listeners, and I know that often the listening is very brief and superficial (just look at the statistical tools offered by YT to see that it rarely exceeds 1'30 in my case...); it is a frustrating aspect to deposit your compositions on YouTube, a bit like throwing a bottle into the sea hoping that it is found and that your message is read

I know here on the contrary that each listening is much deeper and attentive, by thin ears. And so it's a great pleasure.

Regarding the continuous aspect, in fact, for these recent orchestral pieces, these are moments that are close to 7 minutes, which is rather long. But I choose not to specifically develop this or that part. I focus on one or two motifs or themes that will be my leader and will undergo mutations and transformations, such as evolutionary characters. The scenery they go through in their journey, on the contrary, are in perpetual metamorphosis, either by sliding or by contrast.

 

With this in mind, I have therefore composed four recent pieces, each with a favorite solo instrument. It is also the challenge to manage to give the maximum of realistic to the whole that interests me.

Edited by Krisp
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10 minutes ago, Krisp said:

I am always curious about the reactions of listeners, and I know that often the listening is very brief and superficial (just look at the statistical tools offered by YT to see that it rarely exceeds 1'30 in my case...); it is a frustrating aspect to deposit your compositions on YouTube, a bit like throwing a bottle into the sea hoping that it is found and that your message is read

The statistics in YT is for sure unreliable. But I don't know whether my works are great here as well since they often don't attract much attention either. Maybe they are unartistic or unattractive or so.

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3 hours ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

The statistics in YT is for sure unreliable. But I don't know whether my works are great here as well since they often don't attract much attention either. Maybe they are unartistic or unattractive or so.

 

I don't think so at all! What is real is that everyone comes here and wants to make their music heard, as everywhere. There may be no time to immerse themself in the world of others. Sometimes it is enough to start not to force ourself to do so to enjoy it, but often, as all these bottles at sea float according to the currents, they fall through the fishing islands.

It is easier to impose listening on a captive audience, locked in a concert hall, who will have no other way out than to wait for the end of the concert or to To feign a malaise... To finally applaud with relief when the time for liberation comes! Haha.

We therefore have more merit than these composers who have the pleasure of being played in theaters. Because our listeners are only consenting beings.

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For the curious, here is the pdf link of the manuscript (written on 3 litters and of which some transition measures are missing that I added during the transcription). It is especially indicative because it is not a piano writing.

Sorry for not being able to show you a real clean orchestra score without erasures!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18zP0Hwan-6O8S5nD8xNNcBfQTmMAM2uq/view?usp=sharing

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Hi @Krisp,

15 hours ago, Krisp said:

For the curious, here is the pdf link of the manuscript (written on 3 litters and of which some transition measures are missing that I added during the transcription). It is especially indicative because it is not a piano writing.

I love this very much. It really show how authentic the piece is when a manuscript is shown. I'm always fascinated with your working process: you have a handwritten manuscript, and you make a wonder out of it with your senstive orchestration and finally making such wonderful and fascinating videos. You are an artist for making your videos, not only as a composer. That's what remind me of everytime I look into your video.

 

17 hours ago, Krisp said:

I don't think so at all! What is real is that everyone comes here and wants to make their music heard, as everywhere. There may be no time to immerse themself in the world of others. Sometimes it is enough to start not to force ourself to do so to enjoy it, but often, as all these bottles at sea float according to the currents, they fall through the fishing islands.

It is easier to impose listening on a captive audience, locked in a concert hall, who will have no other way out than to wait for the end of the concert or to To feign a malaise... To finally applaud with relief when the time for liberation comes! Haha.

We therefore have more merit than these composers who have the pleasure of being played in theaters. Because our listeners are only consenting beings.

Thanks so much! I really have to learn this from you. I am always forcing myself to do something even though it may pressurize myself on that. Maybe that makes my composition better but sometimes it will make me overburdened.

Henry

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On 5/24/2023 at 3:04 PM, Krisp said:

For the curious, here is the pdf link of the manuscript (written on 3 litters and of which some transition measures are missing that I added during the transcription). It is especially indicative because it is not a piano writing.

Sorry for not being able to show you a real clean orchestra score without erasures!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18zP0Hwan-6O8S5nD8xNNcBfQTmMAM2uq/view?usp=sharing

 

 

58 minutes ago, maestrowick said:

Score?

 

Here !

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18zP0Hwan-6O8S5nD8xNNcBfQTmMAM2uq/view?usp=sharing

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Good evening.

 

Here is an exported version for piano alone (with 4 hands) I initially wanted to adapt it for 2 pianos, but it was far too much work and I was short of time.

The writing is not very pianistic and would have deserved to take up a few passages (to adapt, for example, a roll of timpani or outfits that here seem dead spots).

But hey, some effects may be interesting to listen to on the piano, to hear things from another angle, without having fun with the timbres of the orchestra.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ymuc04k37f60gj5/Bf piano V3.mp3?dl=0

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