My last day in F.H. and on the last aria for Eileen. Didn’t get to the finale, but that’s a reprise anyway. And the tense moments leading up to the bomb are only slightly sketched, but that’s only a minute or two of music. I don’t know what came over me–maybe it was Figaro listening–but suddenly I’m totally making fun of the bomb thing with a big ensemble in the style of Mozart/Rossini, with wrong-note harmonies to edge it up. Boy, this piece is going to be a real hodgepodge. But on the good side, it shows everything I can do, and hope to integrate all the different styles.
I’ve been thinking about the instrumentation. Gone thru the entire thing in my head a few times… I’ve made string 4tet indispensible, tpt and horn important, but can’t decide if I should keep clarinet, since I could use the bass cl as a bassoon-type wind, doubling on the E-flat for some biting high notes up to F-sharp above high C (concert). Need a little pungent 4tet for the choir/quartet that sings all these rather inane ditties. I’ve set them in a Stravinskyan way thinking of a few winds and a few brass. Oboe would be good there, but don’t really need the oboe elsewhere. Or rather, it doesn’t seem versatile enough. But maybe I’m wrong about that.
So stg 4tet, tpt, horn, bass/Bb/Eb clar, piano, bass…well, and it’d be nice to have drums in one of the arias, but can do without for this production. And one reggae-influenced groove for the party that doesn’t last long before morphing into a related rhythm (from a Chopin Scherzo or Ballade–can’t remember the exact piece). I’d like to make a different sort of sound for the reggae thing anyway, with strings, or strings and another instrument.