There were many variety/performance/music series in downtown Manhattan in the ’90s.  This one was hosted by that excellent cartoonist, R. Sikoryak.  I sang my songs, with Carol Benner playing obbligati on the viola; we were bracketed with that excellent writer, David Sedaris.

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The second string quartet consists of four rounds: two that were originally vocal, and two that weren’t. Bass lines and other niceties are sometimes added.

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A clangorous sort of chorale, from 1992.

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A piano reduction of a score I wrote for a dance by Naomi Gruen, long ago.

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I’m always interested in music written by writers.  And so, when I learned that Robert Louis Stevenson had written music for flageolet, I had to seek it out.  And I had to harmonize it.

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I found this scathing verse by Jean Richepin, and did my best to translate it.  I intended to set it to music, but discovered that Georges Brassens had already done that.  So, I illustrated it instead; and have projected and recited it in various theaters. Philistine, you copulate With your lawful wedded mate, Dreaming, Dreaming, […]

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Ah, there’s nothing like a violin duet.  I wrote six of them in 1990; here’s how the first begins.

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“Spang” is an abridgement of a score I wrote for a dance by Virginia Mathews, back in 1978.  It was purely diatonic, all derived from the seven note set that begins it.  And here’s the first part of it.  

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“Stumbling Block” is an essay in awkwardness: wrong-note harmonies, recapitulations that peter out, a right hand motif that gets stuck while the left hand moves on.  I played this countless times in shows with Bill Irwin, particularly to accompany some clown and trunk business in The Clown Bagatelles. Here’s the first part of it.

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