Duration: 18:00
Completed: 2017
Instrumentation: 2+picc,4(min)+E.Hrn,4(min)+contrabsn,3+bass cl. , 1 sop. sax, 2 alto sax, 1 bari. Sax. / 4321 / 4 perc., pno. /00000

Program Notes

Dear Reader, Given that my name appears on the right side of the opening page of the score and next to the copyright information for Hardscrabble, it would be understandable if you thought that this was original, postmodern music, efficiently composed by a living composer and amenable to mechanical reproduction and to be traded within our sacrosanct contemporary-music markets. However, this message is here to disabuse you of that notion; despite the fact that I am currently collecting thousands of dollars in royalties from this hot composition and that the work is registered with ASCAP, which is collecting royalties with supreme efficiency on my behalf, I did not write this music. Rather, this music, every note of it, was written by the well-known English 16th-century composer (merry, gay l’orgue freed) Rick Hamdle, who after working as an organist in London for many years, a vocation to which he did not feel called, was able to escape into teaching the clavichord and composition to orphaned children, founding his monumental Rick Hamdle Music School, the students of which were universally known as the Hamdlechins (a play on the word urchin and Hamdle’s name, obviously!). As is probably so universally known that I am wasting your time by even mentioning it, the unfortunate price of Hamdle purchasing his escape from indentured servitude was the loss of nearly all of his original compositions, which the grossly-obese bolt-merchant Händel purchased from him at an astoundingly low price, a completely obscene price, a price so low that the sum total of Hamdle’s compositions, inscribed on exceedingly rare paper with extraordinarily fine ink, compositions of the highest quality with the cutting-edge technology of thoroughbass chords were clearly accounted for as nothing in the eyes of the merchant Händel, who, so I have read, clearly enjoyed the torment of Hamdle as he was forced by his artistic passion to pass his pearls to swine. Händel clearly enjoyed that his mercantile calculations had so completely carried the day against this creative mind and his passions, even the implication that his passions were self-defeating and stupid, even saying “I would have hoped that this would teach you, Mister Hamdle, that there is no such thing as artistic value or achievement, that the so-called arts are, even in sum, completely worthless, but you choose to up the ante on irrationality by not just entering a totally worthless profession, namely teaching, but teaching something so utterly worthless and unprofitable, namely music, which does not bring any physical good into existence, which dissipates the moment that it is played. I would be tempted to call it an item of negative commodity value, but there is no item to speak of!” However, just after Hamdle had arrived at the New World to start his new music school, he was again thrown into debtor’s prison on trumped-up charges created by the bolt-merchant Händel because the bolt merchant, who could not bear that any physical material that he owned could not be transformed into a commodity and went to great lengths to have his bolts installed, made from lead and other materials known to be highly toxic to mankind, as he put it, within many buildings such as orphanages, through nepotistically-obtained contracts, had become obsessed with the idea that this paper (by which he meant Hamdle’s music) must also be transformed into a commodity. Händel even went so far as to threaten that he would have all of your Hamdlechens, as he put it, thrown into debtor’s prison as well if Hamdle did not do me this one favor. This favor was that Hamdle must arrange his original compositions into so-called Royal Fireworks Music to fulfill an extremely profitable contract, playing original music supposedly composed by the bolt-merchant Händel within a fantastic structure designed by Giovanni Servandoni. Händel, who could not manage to play less than the span of a major second with even his smallest finger, demanded that Hamdle accompany him to the rehearsal in the fantastic structure, hiding inside his capacious clothing with only his arms protruding, with which he was to play the keyboard. Unfortunately, Händel had botched many details in the specifications for the arrangement that he demanded of Hamdle, which resulted in a surfeit of violinists, violists, and violoncellists appearing within the structure to rehearse and play and for whom there were no parts because Händel had not asked that Hamdle create parts for these instruments, largely because he had no idea what a violin was, and in point of fact had difficulty distinguishing them from bolts, which he had encountered in a physical way extremely rarely. Anyway, Servandoni’s fantastic structure, which already would have had difficulty accommodating the bolt-merchant Händel in the best of circumstances now needed to contend with a deluge of bassoonists collecting parts in addition to the surplus violinists, violists, and violoncello players. Hamdle had difficulty suppressing his cries of pain as he was squeezed up against the wall during the performance, struggling to play the unseen keyboard, flailing about in every way, and knocked over several candles onto the harpsichord constructed of rare gum tree wood, imported from Australia with the greatest care, causing the instrument to explode, tossing flaming debris throughout the orchestra of wind instruments and surplus, tacet strings. The bolt-merchant Händel and his wind orchestra were lucky to escape from the fiery death trap that Servandoni had constructed, although not before Hamdle was inspired by the highly original music that the orchestra played as they attempted to keep time with Händel’s flailing arms and song-like shouts whilst he attempted to extinguish his capacious formal jacket. Hamdle many years later thanked Händel for this inspiring artistic display, a comment which sunk like a dagger into Händel’s heart, but unfortunately not before Händel had solidified his practice of consuming the music of other composers and selling paper in a highly profitable fashion. Yes, although Händel’s habit of consuming and profiting from e.g. Telemann is well documented, the bolt-merchant Händel has largely receded from view behind the mythological figure of his creation: the great-composer Händel. As time rolled on, the Hamdlechins achieved an illuminati-like status as a secret society of musicians, existing without social security numbers, etc., carrying a deep hatred of the Händel myth within their core, as it were, as well as of mechanically reproducible music that would have been favored by the odious bolt merchant. Needless to say, while the Hamdlechins wanted to give the music that Hamdle was inspired to compose by Händel’s fire flailing to the world, they were on the horns of a dilemma because they could either attribute the music to Hamdle, in which case it would fall into the public domain and be consumed and transformed into highly profitable commodities by the cost-benefit-analysis-worshipping Händels of our day, or placing the work under copyright by claiming that it had been composed recently. Given that the Hamdlechins could not own the copyright to this ostensibly new work, seeing as how they, in a bureaucratic and more importantly (at least by contemporary standards) a mercantile sense, do not exist, they needed a so-called vessel. There are passages here, certain distortions of this narrative, as well as of the music, which had to be introduced to satisfy certain legal requirements and put the music, as it were, beyond the grasp of the contemporary Händels. However, in sum total, this narrative and music, which is absolutely true although ever so slightly distorted due to certain legal requirements is inspired by Rick Hamdle in a particular way, although in what specific way I am afraid I am not at liberty to disclose.