NOCTURNES FOR TWO PIANOS
Musical compositions by Kirk Whipple
Poems by Maureen Hurley
A collaboration of music & poetry
Maureen Hurley’s poems were inspired by the two-piano compositions by Kirk Whipple. They collaborated during the creation of the music. Poems & musical selections are copyrighted & may only be downloaded for personal use. They may not be sold, licensed or used without written consent of copyright holders. © The Unconservatory
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Prelude: Undressing The Muse
Overture: Collage Nocturnes
ilá: Deep Ocean Wave
Virginia: The Steady Flame
Uncle Al’s Cloudscape
For The Two Of Us
Michelle: A Patriot’s Dream
Helen: Tanzania Dresságe
Pablo: A Party Of One!
Katie: The Nightingale
Randy: Neon Rain
Randy: Neon Rain
Joe: Sunrise At Occidental
PRELUDE:
UNDRESSING THE MUSE
from Elemental Portraits:
Nocturnes for Two Pianos,
composed
by Kirk Whipple
Late
at night, the composer hears songlines:
nocturnes
for two pianos wrestling
in
the oceanic stillness of the studio.
Without
name, they come unbidden
to
chase the varied moods of evening.
But
the sound of evening has changed
livelihoods,
and the color of its dreams
is
trapped in the engine of this century—
In
the mechanics of the siren call, white noise,
and
the evolution of light—
Where
are the elemental songlines
when
whales no longer hear the melody?
Camera
obscura:
What
exists before the film is developed?
He
is a young child
before
the piano,
confronting
the black notes—
The
teacher metronoming:
The
fingers need to remember the melody.
Over
wine & chocolate we discuss Chopin’s Nocturnes,
night's
lost notes scoring the darkness.
Liquid
music pours from his fingers.
He
learns anew: You don’t choose the music;
it
chooses you. We listen for the
étude:
words
undressing the muse.
OVERTURE:
COLLAGE NOCTURNES
from Elemental Portraits:
Nocturnes for Two Pianos,
composed
by Kirk Whipple
The
beginning and the end of night—
from
sunset to sunrise—
is
a concentration of songlines to whet the palate:
jazz
notes defining the quality of the forest,
a
velvet refugee dressed in marimba patterns,
escaped
blue notes outside the key.
Not
technical études, but the theater
of
neon rain in concentric ripples.
Where does night's
vagary begin and silence end?
We
seek a piano score for modern landscapes,
not
some dreamy ideal of romantic music.
As
if out of oscuridad, a sacred
text rises up,
finds
the first phrases of the moon.
The
vibration of human existence resonates
in
the music walking us out of ourselves,
the
thighbones reminding us
of
the steps taken: syllables in the air.
The
melody lingers deep inside
long
after the overture of the dream ends.
The
nocturnal eye of the nightingale
waits
for further instructions
from
the coda:
what
is familiar
an
endless stranger
inside
the depths of night.
ELEGY FOR KOSAL LONG: SUNSET AT ILSANJO
from Elemental Portraits: Nocturnes for Two Pianos
composed by Kirk Whipple
—Kosal Long: 1975 to June 7, 1989
1.
The end of a classic American dream
confronts
the runner coming over the rise
of
blond hills & dark trees mirroring the lake.
The
drowned laughter of classmates
horsing
around on a summer outing—
Their
blind eyes, and the sun cresting each ripple,
the
silent “O” of empty inner tubes,
punctuated
the end of the sentence.
At
the bottom of the lake a fisherman’s net
cast
a game of cat’s cradle for things lost
and
the sleek young diver—
A
boy who, with his 14-year-eyes
sought
the true identity of light
on
this side of the world:
the
names Refugee &
Cambodia
whispering homeward
in his ears.
2.
The runner’s legs measure
each
step, each breath, bearing witness
as
if life depended on it: systole, diastole.
The
indifferent ground answers, Decrescendo.
No
overtones to clear the ear’s palette.
The
boy left the killing fields for El Verano.
We
survived the war, we saw death and we saw hunger every day.
Now,
the youngest and sweetest of us is taken from us.
I
dream of walking that lake bed clad in citrine light.
A
constellation of bubbles escapes, takes flight.
A
velvet foot upon the blue throat of the California sky,
a
lotus flowering in the mind,
a
journey taking us home.
Home, could he whisper it?
The
long slender vowels of the soul,
no
distant jungles to flee to—
Refugee
camp, the bodycount and the hunger
of
foreign syllables.
The harmony shifted
in the final depths:
an empty raft in deep summer.
ILÀ:
DEEP OCEAN WAVE
—for
ilà Benavidez
1.
In the cathedral of the ocean
beneath
a marriage of waves and sky,
ilà
dances tai chi’i with the sea,
the
deep undertow, the movement,
the
voices and vows of long waves,
is
where whales sing the first
and
final notes of the songline.
The
edge of the continent
pulls
the surf over her like a bride,
so
that we may be ready for the wedding.
Gossamer
filaments of the priestess.
What
once was dark becomes light,
night’s
secrets spread beneath the moon.
A
bioluminescent genesis lifts the hem
of
this beach into the realm of the stars.
How
to slow down in this rapidly rising world?
Once
light slept, didn’t know
the
nocturnal soul of the heron,
and
stars were the tears of angels.
Now
city light stains the sky,
upstages
the stars.
Once
we were all islands.
The
weight of who we are in this century
sinks
us knee-deep into the sand
until
we can do nothing
but
walk in time with ourselves.
This
is the first study for breath:
the
burden of air, ponderous
and
precocious.
2.
ilà, I’d want the cool night air
because
the sky is the ocean
and
I don’t know the words
for
the direction the voice takes.
The
struggle is in transcribing
the
right notes in the sand
so
it can find true night.
Gaviota, the sky is your country
and
the sea is your home.
UNCLE
AL’S CLOUDSCAPE
—for
Allaudin Mathieu
“Our
referee, our Uncle Al.”
—Kirk
& Marilyn
One
day, Uncle Al
Walked
up the hill to his studio.
Dreamily,
composing, he looked up—
A
cloud, and nothing else in a blue sky.
A
cloud: a
quarter rest!
He stopped, took a
one-beat rest.
Allowed
in
pause
& further
instructions
from the sky.
Sighed,
took a breath,
took a
step,
&
went on
with the
music
of his
life.
UNCLE AL’S CLOUDSCAPE, TAKE II
A cat’s cradle of music finger-weaves the sky.
The bright wind lifts us from the depths,
carries
us,
cradles
us in this taught stringing of days.
The clouds know the ocean,
it repeats the rocking motion.
Remember to breathe.
Each
step up,
each
thought takes us toward the summit.
The interior of the heart, of the eye,
is related to the weaving grasses.
We are kites tugging the wind,
our arms, wings of angels.
Tell us, tell us, tell us:
climb
up,
climb
the mountains of the sky.
We are flying to the mountains of the sky.
Take us up,
push
our legs down into earth.
Take us up,
so
that we may grow back down to the ground.
UNCLE
AL’S CLOUDSCAPE, TAKE III
Three notes occlude the distance the ear takes
in knowing the melody of night.
Uncle Al referees
the
sky
arranges the clouds to fit the composition.
Ask about harmony and structure.
A composer composes the sky
with a beatific hand to the clouds,
orchestrating the rest stops and black notes
and the wings of cherubs wait their cue in the
wings.
He wears a gioconda smile as clouds direct the
score.
Take a one beat rest. Live in the now
for now is all there is.
PABLO:
A PARTY OF ONE!
—for
Pablo Rodriguez
Comes
the vibrato of human existence
pulsing
with the florid energy of birds—
The
audience in the balcony looks down
on
the crescendo-climbing rainbow
graduating
from the nightclub schools of the world.
¡Eso
es! A savvy voice alights on the
limbs
while
trees tango with the juicy wind.
Liana
vines rub against city streets.
In
the language of skin,
we
climbed out of the trees
to
dance on the land, without caesura.
The
timbre of lime, mango and blue notes
sing
of tropical leaf structures.
The
raucous flight of macaws
parrots,
the jeweled feathers of night
dressed
in fireworks and champagne.
¡Alegre!
Porque las estrellas bailan conmigo!
A
delicious chill—modern fusion.
Oh
yes, deep in the thighs.
He
leans against the wall, cool
familiarity
addressing us tú in the
barrios.
The
sound of night changed the color of its dreams.
The
siren rain finds us so civilized, so convivial,
it
sambas out: Mueve, mueve tu papaya.
On
the androgynous pillow of sleep,
the
pupiled eye of night is restless
as
a blue guitar, for tomorrow will find
the
world young and bright:
a
glistening sun
in
the heart of the mango.
—for
Virginia Cayton
Giving
us the rhythm of your name,
the
voracious hunger of syllables
and
staccato of piano keys,
the
steady flame of she who leads us
from
the darkness of the wood.
Calling
us home, calling you—
Virginia.
I
want to tell you of the rising sun,
of
the specific height of redwoods
by
the edge of the lake,
pulling
us in, playing us from both sides
like
a harp, or a violin fretting us.
The
black keys singing, Virginia.
An
unnameable quality,
tracings
of shadows—
To
swing the syllables of the air—
How
distance is minuscule.
Life
is like that measured beat
of
jubiliation. Repeat it again.
Over
the rise, clouds gather
in
your name, Virginia.
Your
feet trace shadows
on
the back roads of the mind.
The
journey forward
must
also contain the past.
For
what is a pianist without a piano?
Arms
punctuate ideas,
strengthen
us, build stairs
until
we sink down into ourselves
and
feel it from the inside of our thighs.
The
wind is calling you
by
the music of your name,
Virginia.
VIRGINIA:
THE STEADY FLAME, TAKE II
As
if someone entered the room
a
draft tickles the flame,
teaches
it the elements of dance;
it
knows how to bend in the breeze.
Like
the roaring stand of pines,
it
sings its eventual death song.
Not
perpendicular right angles
but
the bending of light, of time.
Wave
and particle, quantum mechanics.
Who
holds the room together,
who
shows the darkness how to dance with light?
A
child claps his hands with joy
following
the melody of your name, Virginia.
Oh
Virginia, the sky knows your name.
The
darkness is its brother—or is it sister?
Virginia,
the mountains’ purity
is
composed of ice & rock.
We
learn anew the meaning of sublime
living
in the heart of the flame.
Virginia,
the black notes take hold,
climb
the summit,
seeking
the darkness & the light in one breath.
Chiaroscuro
and contrapunto,
the
flickering flame.
MICHELLE:
A PATRIOT’S DREAM
—for
Michelle Marie
There
is no room for ambiguity in a patriot’s dream.
The
constitution of thought is a sacred text.
Alone,
defining the perimeters of this space,
She
talks to our eyes; nothing is held back.
To
walk in a new land we can only muse
On
the direction the sky has taken us.
Each
dark step makes the road longer than memory.
She
is the strength of a pine tree bending in the storm.
If
she is the solemn hymn of the flower arranger,
The
music is the hand held out to the child.
If
she is the power of the masseuse's hands,
It
is the arms offering shelter to those in need.
If
she was once the bartender pouring the final round,
Music
is the soup bowl offering hope to the homeless.
If
she is the metronome of the dancer’s last movement
It
is the archangel seeking justice for those who cannot fly.
Imagine
the piano’s pledge of allegiance to black & white keys.
No
segregation of sharp & flat; or everything in the key of C.
The
notes make words and find us wanting.
The
melody echoes in the forest, in the street.
We
need the nuances of dark and light
To
show us the way is infinitely more complex
&
vast than we previously imagined.
There
is more to it than seizing what’s left of night.
She
carries the burden of freedom forward.
In
the way light falls on the summits
We
learn there are more mountains to climb.
We
come to the beginning on solid ground,
We
learn anew how her feet measure the way.
KATIE:
THE NIGHTINGALE
—for
Katie Ketchum
“If
I can’t find the perfect man, then…”
The
song of a nightingale comes in
shimmering
in a bright soprano voice
as
if having lived knowing the belly sounds.
The
first few phrases are like that,
clear-crisp,
like bells over snowfields—
Not
only are we observing the nightingale,
we
are testing the air with wings.
The
way the nightingale flies,
how
we view the bird,
how
it views itself is like a concerto—
A
cadenza of towering lines.
The
melody drops out
and
the deeper rhythm comes in—
The
heart of the bird.
Think
of how snowy peaks mirror the sky,
purify
the foothills.
Multitudes
of foothills
&
the song of the nightingale are one.
How
the dancer contracts, lifts up—
defies
gravity for a moment. Fermatta
Slatted
light falls
into the eye of the sun.
I
believe, I believe said the bird
migrating to Africa
where
feathered notes dress the snows of Killimanjaro.
We
flurry over the arpeggio of leaves
you/I/we/yes
to
the night itself singing solo:
a
concentration of notes on the upper spectrum.
Without
legs, the piano won’t resonate.
Notes
won’t nest in the branches to lay small eggs.
Hatching
in our ears, the piano’s children
direct
us to the songlines; her voice,
an
undercurrent of grace notes and rippling water.
A
leaf caught in the wind
takes
instruction from the flight of angels.
HELEN:
TANZANIA DRESSáGE
—for
Helen Tyrrell, “Su-mam”
1.
The path misbehaves at the oasis,
it’s
a long way from the mirrored halls
of
l’Ecole Vienna where a young woman
put
Lippizan stallions through flying paces.
A
vessel tumbles from her head
and
the Tanzanian children laugh.
She
has eight years to perfect this skill,
carrying
water back to the cooking pots.
Water
outwits the thirsty African earth
in
a merry chase to the river,
it
becomes a dusty mercurial snake
seeking
the source of the Nile,
it
finds wings, transcends air.
Lake
hungers for sky,
swimming
stars take flight,
approach
the caravan of the storm,
&
the shimmering sands of Zanzibar
harbor
an illusion of water.
Billowing
clouds return to the Serengeti
where
riderless horses solemnly waltz
against
the feast of sky.
Hooves
against stone—
Sidestep
to go forward.
Passage on the diagonal.
Once
the ballet of dressage
—the
lunge, the cabriolet—
were
movements for the dance of war.
2.
Kirk screws on the legs of the piano,
leads
it into the concert hall.
Frees
his music from the belly
of
the wooden horse for this Helen, this mother
of
orphans whose mothers have abandoned them.
His
arms are snowfields,
an
avalanche of notes crescendo
under
the equatorial reign
of
watermusic to slake us.
The
ceiling of the sky
is crowned with thorns.
On
the slopes of Kilimanjaro
the leopard, asleep, dreams
the eland is his lover.
HELEN: TANZANIA DRESSAGE, TAKE II
I stood in front of the Hippodrome Palace in
Moscow, the frozen sky the color of bread, gawling at a frieze of horses—like
the ones in Vienna and Budapest—taxis swerving to avoid me in the midde of the
street. As a child I couldn’t take my eyes off those horses. I have seen the
ones who no longer care to dance, pulling fat tourists from one cathedral to another.
I patted a sorry nag, the coachman snarled, Claudia intervened, saying it’s
all right. She knows her horses.
The horse was too weary to respond. Distant music caught its ear—a flicker of
life. In front of the monuments to the Plague, the Holocaust & innumerable
cathedrals of venerable age, I have seen them listening to their own kind of
music, briskly trotting the cobbled streets. I worry about their legs. This
rough magic. In Hungary they can no longer afford to feed their dancing horses,
the lucky ones become street artists: they con coins and beg bread from easy
tourists. Better off than those on the menu or those destined for the glue pot.
FOR
THE TWO OF US
—for
Marilyn & Kirk
Soft
tracings of shadows on the sill,
late
afternoon in the unconservatory.
A
chocolate stillness inside
the
voice rises up in place of speech,
small
nuances, a brass color-note,
flared
nostrils, the contact of skin.
Four-handed
improv: foreplay on the keyboards.
Two
pianos discuss familiar phrases,
like
the long-married, finish each other's thoughts,
sometimes
in chorus, sometimes in tandem.
You're
the yell in the forest, & I'm the echo, (echo)
Kirk
says to Marilyn as they play it again.
Imagine
Casablanca & Havana in a red wedding dress.
A
strange marriage of classical & jazz
shape-shifting
into music for the end of the millennium.
He
is a sailor leaning into the open octaves
of
a turquoise melody: bluebirds learn slant rhyme.
She
is the swimmer in pastoral snow fields.
Everything
reduced to black and white
cleanses
the palate & the roses bleed onto the piano keys.
A
melody escapes, anneals the heart with opposites:
day
& night, diamond & onyx, ebony & ivory.
Each
seeks the other’s eyes through corbelled pianos.
I
can’t tell where one leaves off and the other begins.
Poco
a poco, an echo in the forest
lifts
the timbre from the pool's depths.
At
the bottom of the well, cross-currents,
a
vibration in the water, like electricity
when
the wall comes up duet—
Both
are one and one is all there is.
RANDY:
NEON RAIN
—for
Randy Frary
An
echo in the darkness—
The endless stranger
inside the depths of night.
Each
step paints a jazznote in the forest,
a
path of low registers & signatures—
Three
dimensional music
weaves
the sky into ambiant patterns,
new
nocturnes for this dragstripped century.
Trees
bow to an audience of tinted leaves
in
the asphalt jungle.
What
color, the trees? the leaves,
or
the sky for that matter?
Who’s
reading the score?
The
neon side of night, bits & bytes
in
the dark forest paint alternate realities.
A
hawk circles the field
for
yesterday’s mouse
hidden
in tall grass, spirals
against
the well of a digital sky.
Orphan
rain falls in colors,
patterns
the cathode sea.
Eclipsed
notes hug the shoreline.
Cross-
and counter-currents
seek
the beginnings of innocence
just
before dawn.
A
child plays with his own hands,
an
unending puzzle of fingers.
Neon
rain, dyslexic writing
needs
water as a mirror
to
admire its own beauty.
Falling
rain, steady rain on the piano,
a
vessel to carry us from the past.
The
simplicity of stones in the stream
both
beautiful and plain.
JOE:
SUNRISE AT OCCIDENTAL
—for
Joe Hoffmann
“We’ve spent a few nights
squeezing out our ‘day’
recording in the Sherwood forest of
Occidental.”
—Kirk & Marilyn
1. Still lake waters, the swelling melody
of other times
when
the renaissance man walked in a trembling mist.
On
the other side—the twain
world—the sídhe
swallowed
the butterfly to beget the muse.
He
finds her in dreams amid the fiddleneck ferns.
Bluebirds
in the air weave arabesques and musical notes
until
only the pattern is left; night’s curtain luffs,
is
drawn aside, and on the wet grass, imprints
of
a waltz where one already knows the steps.
Cumulative
memory tumults from the past.
A
dark harmony gradually lightens into a lyric.
Morning
meets the tail of night in the hallway.
2. A cleft in the hills, quaking ferns
witness
the breathing of fog,
where
wild orchids bloom,
where
we found the end
of
the stream, the edge of night.
Only
the birds know
the
taut stringing of days,
the
melody that lingers deep inside,
taking
us down to the valleys,
where
we find ourselves again,
strung
beside the days of our lives.
There
are no accidents.
In
each of us, every branch, every leaf
leads
to the center of the heart.
The
path always widens—
There
is room for more, for more.
3. In the lemon thick light,
dew
stirs, learns the rainments of flight.
Over
the night hills she comes,
bearing
flowers for the sun.
Morning
wears a dress of honeyed air
and
carries her head high
for
she’s proud of the sun’s accompaniment.
Everywhere,
the renewal of day and scrubbed sky.
The
harmony brightens
like
a gentle aubade over the ridge.
The
music begins as it ends.
Each step,
each breath
brings
us closer to the light.
ILA,
TAKE TWO, GAVIOTA
Seagull,
I’d want the air
because
the sky is the ocean
and
I don’t know the words
for
the direction the voice takes.
The
mountain sleeps with the sea
and
the horizons of Alba
struggle
to transcribe the notes in the sand.
Your
fish are grinning, light is asleep.
The
moon and the sun dance on the sea
because
the children of the air
don’t
know the solitary soul of the gull.
Seabird,
seabird, the air is your country
it’s
your fortress, it’s the heart,
and
the sea, your house.
Gaviota
quisiera el aire
porque
el cielo es el mar
y
no conozco las palabras
para
esta dirección de la voz toque.
Las
montaña duerme con el mar
y
los horizontes de Alba
la
lucha discribien las notas en la arena.
Tús
peces sonreian, la luz está durmiendo.
La
luna y el sol bailan en el mar,
porque
los niños del aire
no
conocieron la alma solitario de gaviota.
Gaviota,
gaviota, el aire es tú pais,
es
tú castillo, es tú corazón,
y
el mar, tú casa.
Mother’s Day, 5/8/1994
ELEMENTAL PORTRAITS
from
musical compositions by Kirk Whipple
POSTLUDE:
Portrait of sunset,
ocean cloudscapes dreaming
a dressage of neon rain over the keys,
a party in the other room
the nightingale singing,
a steady flame,
the two of us at sunrise
walking in starry clusters of sand
and the burden becomes another
Silencio de negra.
grace notes outside the key edible.
the patterns on a lake,
we forget the paths.
what we’ve lost touch of.
We have nothing but ourselves
In our circuituous wanderings
we carry the burden of freedom forward.
because she is the light to guide us,
teaching us to begin again.
arpeggios of water waltz
cusp lean into the wind
trust it to hold you
crisp bells before the storm
the hills, come to the sea, wave
rocks flight of
birds across snow
clear message before the storm
the breath to sing
sighting land like Columbus
the clue of birds on the horizon
riding out the tune cresting each wave.
cross-rhythms like a shiver of ear candy.
Return to first field
stepping up each measured step
As this rhythm bubbles up
the parched earth
Those things deep inside
step up, fall back, begin again.
chill of spine, chickenskin
syncopation of the pianists,
short burst rearranges.
the pulse finding us deep inside
he's growing surer but also more faint
as the path becomes clear
deep beginnings the end of stuttering colors,
a free beginning, creating the concept of
darkness, of sound
Dark to light/lyrical matter-of factly,
no big swell or crescendo like in the movies.
no big swell or crescendo like in the movies.
(What
would a patriot dream of,
or
is she a patriot’s dream dreaming a person?)
I am the endless stranger inside the depths of
night.
Written 1992-1995ish.
Published at The Unconservatory website in January, 2001
Revised a bit in 2004
Published at The Unconservatory website in January, 2001
Revised a bit in 2004
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