Agrippa's 3 Books: II. The Black Lodge (bass clarinet quartet)

• published: 25 Jun 2015
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Movement two (II) of Agrippa's 3 Books written for bass clarinet quartet by Cornelius Boots, commissioned by Chamber Music America. Edmund Welles, live at Old First Church in San Francisco, September 18, 2005. Find the album here: https://www.cdbaby.com/edmundwelles This piece was commissioned by a New Works Grant in 2004. It was premiered and an album featuring it was released in 2005. Stay tuned for the release of the full original, handwritten notation for four bass clarinets, plus bonus materials... www.corneliusboots.com/agrippas3books_sheet_music www.edmundwelles.com At that time the players in Edmund Welles were: Cornelius Boots: bass clarinet Aaron Novik: bass clarinet Sheldon Brown: bass clarinet Scott Hill: bass clarinet Agrippa’s 3 Books by Edmund Welles This multi-movement piece delves into the expressive and rhythmic extremes of the four bass clarinets and is primarily inspired by occult philosophy and heavy metal music. Each movement draws inspiration for form and content from some tangent connected to these topics. By focusing on the themes of duality and interconnectedness, the musical direction of each movement becomes generally a union of two genres, or at least abstractions of genres, in which the bass clarinet has been historically and conspicuously absent. With the dawn of the Single-Reed Conspiracy, this will no longer be the case. II. The Black Lodge [swamp trance blues vs. uptempo swing blues] FEAR & SUFFERING The title is from a legend presented in the David Lynch/Mark Frost television series Twin Peaks. “We each chose how to react: if the choice is fear, then we become vulnerable to darkness.…you may be fearless in this world, but there are other worlds….There is also a legend of a place called the Black Lodge, the shadow-self of the White Lodge. The legend says that every spirit must pass through there on the way to perfection. There, you will meet your own shadow-self. My people call it The Dweller on the Threshold. But it is said: if you confront the Black Lodge with imperfect courage, it will utterly annihilate your soul.” “I think that the Black Lodge is what you have referred to in the past as ‘the evil in these woods.’ There’s a source of great power there . . .These night creatures that hover on the edge of our nightmares are drawn to us when we radiate fear.” Whereas cause & effect is a basic illustration of duality, the doppelganger or shadow-self is an extreme example. The Self appearing in two opposing personages. Figuratively, we oppose ourselves almost constantly, and this may be born of Fear: Fear of death, fear of suffering. It is a logical progression from basic survival instincts and self-preservation. If we are to live beyond fear, we must face ourselves and the inherent fear and contradiction that dwells within us: the emotional manifestation of the inevitable transition from life to death. This subject has spawned a lot of dogma and theology, some of it less than illuminating; nevertheless, this conflict remains inexorable. “Repetitions are magic keys.” (Eco, p. 376) [...edited for space, more in the liner notes of the album from 2005 and the Companion release August 2015...] The musical contrast of this movement is in the shift to the uptempo swing blues---this section is intended to be the most comfortable part of all four movements. It is a style with which most of us are intimately familiar since the basic 12-bar blues has been the backbone of rhythm & blues, swing, jazz, rock and popular music for just under a century now. The soloist is allowed the freedom of roving through familiar territory, but eventually the Unknown forces its way back in. Three Books of Occult Philosophy by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (1531) Seeking to categorize and explain all of the elements of the whole. Searching for mysteries and hidden truths. Exploiting the power of ideas, numbers, and harmonies. Bringing together disparate extremes and placing them in the same compendium. Dispensing Knowledge through creative expression and the ability of breath & air to move the soul. “The single most important text in the history of Western occultism.” This is the prevailing description of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy. I discovered this work when exploring the simple & profound views of music held by occult philosophers in the Renaissance. “Musical Harmony also is not destitute of the gifts of the stars; for it is a powerful imaginer of all things, which whilst it follows opportunely the celestial bodies, doth wonderfully allure the celestial influence, and doth change the affections, intentions, gestures, motions, actions and dispositions of all the hearers, and doth quietly allure them to its own properties, as to gladness, lamentation, to boldness, or rest, and the like; also it allures beasts, serpents, birds, dolphins to the hearing of its pleasant tunes.”