From sketch to full score
QUESTION How does a composer of a symphony write each instrument’s part in the score?
BY THE late 18th century, music had evolved from liturgical chant to operas and great symphonies in which more than 100 instruments played together.
When J. S. Bach was composing, music was often written without detailing which i nstruments should play the various parts. A fugue could be played by any combination of i nstruments, assuming they were able to play within a given musical range.
Subsequently, composers began to specify settings for instruments. This added complexity to musical composition; the combination of instruments was considered, and the dynamics and ornamentations were represented in scores.
While each composer had a unique process of composition, it invariably involved the production of a musical sketch. Much like a painting, this was the bones upon which a more complex composition could be hung. Composers would lay out a melody on a piano or harpsichord and then build up instrumentation layers on paper.
Johannes Brahms burned his s ketches once a work was completed. On the other hand, Ludwig van Beethoven would struggle with an idea, putting down fragments of sketches in notebooks, only to realise the full form of the music years later.
W. A. Mozart was famed for being able to compose an entire piece of music in his head and then write it down fully formed – though this was not always the case.
Unlike Beethoven’s messy scrawl, he produced beautiful, semi-formed sketches on which to construct his work. D. B. Lewis, Goring-on-Thames,
Oxfordshire.
QUESTION Has anyone won a big prize from a lottery ticket or scratch card that had been given to them as a gift?
IN 2018, Irish footballer Kevin O’Connor was given a lottery ticket for the Christmas Millionaire Raffle as a present.
His parents urged him to check it because the winning ticket had been sold locally in Co. Wexford.
O’Connor, who was playing for English club Preston North End at the time, checked the numbers and realised he had won the €1million jackpot.
His uncle and godfather, Peadar Murphy, had bought the winning raffle ticket in Flanagan’s Supermarket in Castlebridge.
Despite recommending scratch cards and lottery tickets as gifts, the British National Lottery cautions: ‘Giving National Lottery tickets as gifts is a great idea if it is completely understood that once you have handed the ticket to your chosen recipient, any winnings derived from that ticket belong to them and them alone.
‘If they choose not to give you any of the winnings, then that is their prerogative, a gift is a gift.’
Marjorie Holme, Lyme Regis, Dorset.
QUESTION
Is it true Anthony Burgess disliked his dystopian masterpiece A Clockwork
Orange? Have other authors hated their own works?
ANTHONY BURGESS regretted writing A Clockwork Orange, claiming it was ‘too didactic to be artistic’ a nd t hat he was ‘nauseated’ by the violence it could be seen to glorify.
Many other great writers have been known to dislike at least some of their books.
Franz Kafka, author of 20thcentury masterpiece The Trial, loathed his work so much that at the end of his life he asked his friend Max Brod to burn his unpublished manuscripts. Brod did not do so.
Peter Benchley hated the phobia surrounding sharks generated by his blockbuster novel Jaws and devoted his l ater years to protecting endangered species.
The James Bond story told from a female perspective, The Spy Who Loved Me, was not popular with critics and its writer Ian Fleming tried to suppress it.
Also, Arthur Conan Doyle rued the fact that Sherlock Holmes became more famous than he was – to such an extent that he actually tried to kill off his creation.
Fortunately, the public wanted him saved.
It seems that for a variety of reasons, many writers come to view their greatest creations as Frankenstein’s monsters.
Ian MacDonald, Billericay, Essex.
ANTHONY BURGESS dedicated much t i me a nd effort to denigrating A Clockwork Orange in his later years.
The story centres on Alex DeLarge and his band of ‘droogs’, who spend their evenings committing crimes. After being betrayed, Alex is incarcerated and is forcibly conditioned to become physically ill in violent and sexual situations. Its 21 chapters match the age of human maturity. By the end, Alex is growing out of his taste for violence and looking forward to a settled future as a family man.
However, the final redemptive chapter was cut from the US edition. The 1971 Stanley Kubrick film adaptation, based on this version, gained notoriety when cited as the inspiration for several violent copy-cat gangs.
Burgess renounced his novel after seeing the film. He said the 21st chapter gave the novel the quality of genuine fiction, an art founded on the principle that human beings change.
In a recently discovered poem, A Sonnet For The Emery Collegiate Institute, Burgess gleefully insults A Clockwork Orange and advises students to read the classics instead: ‘Advice: don’t read A Clockwork Orange – it’s a foul farrago Of made-up words that bite and bash and bleed. I’ve written better books… So have other men, indeed. Read Hamlet, Shelley, Keats, Doctor Zhivago.’
Emilie Lamplough, Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
QUESTION What is the story of Cork Dry Gin and is it sold abroad?
FURTHER to the previous answer, regarding the gin market in countries across the world, the Philippines is the largest, followed by the US. Pernod Ricard, which owns Irish Distillers, is considered to be the third biggest producer of gin on a global scale. This is thanks to its brands, such as Beefeater gin, distilled in the UK; Seagrams, distilled in the US; and, of course, Cork Dry Gin, which goes no further than our Irish shores.
The UK is the world’s largest gin exporter and many of its gins are now distilled in London. However, Plymouth Gin is made in Devon, in the oldest working gin distillery in the UK
It’s a very old drink – three centuries ago, London was gripped by a gin craze. Today gin enjoys similar popularity over here as our third most popular spirit.
But while older drinkers prefer traditional gins, such as Cork Dry Gin, many younger drinkers prefer the newer and more exotic flavours that are being produced by new and smaller distilleries around the country. This includes gin infused with blackberries, made by the Glendalough brand at a mini-distillery in Co. Wicklow, and Wexford strawberry gin.
Apart from Cork Dry Gin, more than 50 gin brands are now produced in Ireland by almost 30 different producers.
Producing gin is much quicker than making whiskey, which has to be matured for a minimum of three years.
A batch of gin can be produced in as little as 24 hours.
■ IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Irish Daily Mail, Embassy House, Herbert Park Lane, Ballsbridge, Dublin 4. You can also fax them to 0044 1952 510906 or you can email them to charles.legge@dailymail.ie. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.