violin works of ezra pound

my list of goals for 2008 is increasing of its own accord. in addition to working on 3 new cdrs of original material, i will also record the sayyid & dervish music of gurdjieff/thomas de hartmann as well as the violin works of ezra pound. this journal is meant to house all of the background work that has gone into these pieces.

tonight i have been working on the violin works of ezra pound. i have been using the material from "complete violin works 1923-1933 of ezra pound" as edited by robert hughes. this evening i have also been reading "patria mia and the treatise on harmony" by ezra pound.

this has been my first attempt at playing anything by pound. though they are obviously meant for violin, the majority of pieces are perfectly suited for harmonium due to the ease of hand movements. from a quick glance, at least a quarter of the pieces appear suitable for harmonium. the ones i know i will definitely be working on:

"plainte pour la mort du roi richard coeur de lion"
"fiddle music first suite I, II, III, IV."
"folle e colui che vole amare altra dona a che gentile (incomplete)"
"homage froissart"
"sonate 'ghuidonis' pour violon seul I lirico, II larghetto, III allegro, IIII maestro"
"frottola"
"al poco giorno"

while sight reading for the 1st time "frottola"," i felt that there was something missing from the piece. perhaps the following will confirm that there are is indeed something awry:

"i discovered that a number of the pieces existed in multiple versions generated in an accrued creative process toward a definitive 'final version...establishing definitive versions (not always possible) was both aided and mystified by the profusion of sketches and minute fragments appearing everywhere-on the front and reverse sides of unrelated pieces of music, upside down on the corner of a completed page, interspersed on sheets of pound's vivaldi arrangements, on practice sheets devoted to improving his music script, on miscellaneous this and that." (hughes, iv)

"like most composers working with a personal shorthand under the impetus of inspiration, haste, or deadline, pound left an abundance of dilemmas for the editor. these included: ambiguous pitches, the correct application of 'floating' accidentals, rhythmic dichotomies (diverse rhythmic stems appended simultaneously above an below common note heads), and procedural process (does the accidental apply to a specific note or throughout the bar,...does it apply to the octave?). (huges, iv)

i have already determined that i will be allowing a bit of improvisation into the mix. this will only occur when playing segments i can feel are not at the place they are intended to be. if this will be within pound's framework or mine own i cannot say yet, but i will attempt to use it sparingly in order to bring out as much of the original intention of the pieces as possible.