{"id":787,"date":"2018-07-20T18:03:22","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T16:03:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/?p=787"},"modified":"2018-09-04T22:20:27","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T20:20:27","slug":"plier-tree-revisited-odin-at-the-spring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/?p=787","title":{"rendered":"“Plier Tree Revisited (Odin at the Spring)”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Albumleaf 136: July 3, 2018 (Bologna)<\/strong><\/p>\n

If ever a title required explanation, this is it.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Back in November 2012, I began writing an Albumleaf inspired by Mooney Warther\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wooden sculpture \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Plier Tree\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (pictured below).<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I quickly became mired in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153masterpiece mode,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d completing page after page of sketches, throwing away music, starting and restarting, and so on.\u00c2\u00a0 At a certain point, I threw in the towel.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than build upon all the work I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d done, I artfully stitched together a few passages, recorded them<\/a>, and moved on.\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Since then, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve often tho\"\"<\/a>ught my \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Plier Tree\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was a respectable failure\u00e2\u20ac\u201dtoo bogged down in its low-bass opening and lacking a rewarding follow-through and climax.\u00c2\u00a0 Recently I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been preparing performance scores for the Albumleaves, and I came upon old number 92 and decided to dive in again.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Plier Tree Revisited (Odin at the Spring), number 136, is the result.\u00c2\u00a0 At ten minutes in length, it is easily the longest Albumleaf I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve written, and, frankly, probably the longest I will ever write.\u00c2\u00a0 (These pieces should be short.)<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

One \"\"<\/a>problem I had in 2012 was a surfeit of inspiration.\u00c2\u00a0 Soon after beginning the piece, I hit upon the idea of portraying Warther\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plier tree as Yggdrasil, the world tree from Norse mythology.\u00c2\u00a0 In addition to having the roots and the trunk and the branches, I then had to have the spring.\u00c2\u00a0 And once I had that, I needed the birds.\u00c2\u00a0 And then\u00e2\u20ac\u201dthen, I needed Odin, who, in the quest for knowledge, drank from the spring and was attacked by the birds, losing an eye.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Plier Tree Revisited (Odin at the Spring)\u00e2\u20ac\u009d portrays all of these images and events.\u00c2\u00a0 But it is also inspired by personal history.\u00c2\u00a0 I vividly remember as a child visiting the Warther Museum in Dover, Ohio, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s one of the first places I took Gabriella when she came here.\u00c2\u00a0 I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t help but be taken with the thematic overlap between childhood\u00e2\u20ac\u201dwhere a person starts to learn\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand Odin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own desire for knowledge.\u00c2\u00a0 So in a way, this is a piece about childhood, too\u00e2\u20ac\u201dboth of an individual and of (for lack of a better word) mankind.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Back in 2012, I couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hold it all together.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, I hope to have done so.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Buon ascolto!<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

–Granville, Ohio, July 20, 2018<\/em><\/span><\/p>\nhttp:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/Plier-Tree-Revisited-136.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Albumleaf 136: July 3, 2018 (Bologna) If ever a title required explanation, this is it. Back in November 2012, I began writing an Albumleaf inspired by Mooney Warther\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wooden sculpture \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Plier Tree\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (pictured below). I quickly became mired in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153masterpiece mode,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d completing page after page of sketches, throwing away music, starting and restarting, and so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-787","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-albumleaves","category-felsina"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.albumleaves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}