Entry 10.

Sooooo....I wasn't able to find what I had already composed which is a bit of a bummer, but seeing as I wasn't a great fan of it anyway, it can stay lost. I'll probably find it some other day while going through my computer and maybe it'll be of use to me then, or maybe I'll find another way to make it more appealing. It had a good few ideas which I can still remember, but nothing that really stood out to me. I'd really like to do a stellar job of this composition now that I'm finally settling into a kind of compositional niche, and right now it doesn't involve what I had written prior to this.

This being said, I've made a few more decisions about what I'm going to write. It will be a 4, possibly 5 movement work inspired by the book "Le Petit Prince" By Antoine Saint-Exupery. The ideas that I have to the movements are as follows with the text that will preceed each movement (sorry, I can't make accents on my laptop so I'll have to do without right now):

1. "Dessine-moi un Mouton!"
Text: "Le premier soir je me suis donc endormi sur le sable a mille milles de toute terre habille. J'etais bien plus isole qu'un naufrage sur un rideau au milieu de l'ocean. Aloes vous imaginez ma surprise, au lever du jour, quand une drole de petit voix m'a reveille. Elle disait:
'S'il vous plait...dessine-moi un mouton!'
Translation: "The first night, then, I went to sleep on the sand a thousand miles from any inhabited country. I was more isolated than a man shipwrecked on a raft in the middle of the ocean. So you can imagine me surprise when I was awakened at daybreak by a funny little voice saying, 'Please...draw me a sheep...'"
Music:
- tonal qualities but with enough ambiguity and movement that it is not quite tonal, tying the listener's ears in (non-painful) knots.
- express the setting- the Sahara desert
- introduce the "Petit Prince," "Serpent," "Renard," and "Rose" themes.
- It will be an overture of sorts but with enough unique elements that it can stand on its own. It wil be predominantly the piece which introduces le Petit Prince and sets the mood for the entire work.
- quiet at the beginning with the desert theme- percussion and use of reed instruments.
- some reference to the magnitude of outer space- brass, use of mallet percussion to make a star like sound.
- "Petit Prince" theme- flute, piccolo and mallet percussion, light, tinkling, melancholic.
- Ends with a quiet question before leading into the next movement after a short pause.

2. "Une drole de bete"
Text: "'Ou sont les hommes?' Reprit enfin le petit prince. 'On est un peu seul dans le desert...'
'On est seul aussi chez les hommes,' dit le serpent. Le petit prince le regarda longtemps:
'Tu es un drole de bete,' lui dit-il enfin, 'Mince comme un doigt...'
'Mais je suis plus puissant que le doigt d'un roi...'"
Translation: "'Where are the people?' The little prince finally resumed the conversation. 'It's a little lonely in the desert...'
'It's also loney with people,' said the snake.
'You're a funny creature,' he said at last, 'No thicker than a finger.'
'But I'm more powerful than a king's finger,' the snake said."
Music:
- dizzying yet lugubrious tango
- slides in the brass section
- chromatic up and down runs in the woodwinds simulating the movement of a snake
- return of the desert motif
- ominous, lots of low brass, hand-held percussion
- tension held then resolved in the chords

3. "S'il te plait...Apprivoise-moi!"
Text: "'Tu vois, la-bas, les champs de ble? Je ne mange pas de pain. Le ble pour moi est inutile. Les champs de ble ne me rappellent rien. Et ca, c'est triste! Mais tu as des chevux coleur d'or. Alors ce sera merveilleux quand to m'auras apprivoise! Le ble, qui est endore, me fera souvenir de toi. Et j'aimerai le bruit du vent dans le ble...' Le renard se tut ey regardera longtemps le petit prince: 'S'il te plait...Apprivoise-moi!' dit-il."
Translation: "'You see the wheat fields over there? I don't eat bread. For me wheat is of no use whatsoever. Wheat fields say nothing to me, which is sad. But you have hair the colour of gold. So it will be wonderful, once you've tamed me! The wheat, which is golden, will remind me of you. And I'll love the sound of the wind in the wheat...' The fox fell silent and stared at the little prince for a long while. 'Please...Tame me!'"
Music: Minuet and Trio form.
Minuet:
- Lighthearted, bordering on being tonal though fluidly lilting from one key to the next, unrelated key like wind through the wheat field.
- Only woodwinds/percussion
- 3/4 time, with two repeats, very short.
Trio:
- Minor key/more melancholic
- bittersweet
- no percussion, just woodwinds
- some rhythmic ambiguity
- return to minuet

4. "Puisque C'est ma Rose"
Text: "'Vous etes belles mais vous etes vides,' leur dit-il encore. 'On ne put pas mourir pour vous. Bien sur, ma rose a moi, un passant ordinaire croirait qu'elle vous ressemble. Mais a elle seule elle est plus importante que vous toutes, puisque c'est elle que j'ai arrosee. Puisque c'est elle que j'ai mis sous globe. Puisque c'est elle que j'ai abritee par le paravent. Puisque c'est elle dont j'ai tue les chenilles (sauf les deuz ou trois pour les papillons). Puisque c'est elle que j'ai ecoute se plaindre, ou se vanter, ou meme quelquefois se taire. Puisque c'est ma rose.'"
Translation: "'You're lovely, but you're empty,' he went on. 'One couldn't die for you. Of course, an ordinary passerby would think my rose looked just like you. But my rose, all on her own, is more important than all of you together since she's the one I've watered. Since she'd the one I put under glass. Since she's the one I sheltered behind a screen. Since she's the one for whom I killed the caterpillars (except the two or three for butterflies). Since she'd the one I listened to when she complained, or when she boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing at all. Since she's my rose.'"
Music:
- very thick texture, despite being quiet.
- quite chordal- soft chords being played, with the melody floating over top of it.
- sensitive yet hardly fragile melody- conjuct and disjunct.
- Not much chromaticism in melody but lots in the chords.

5. Retourne a B-612
Text: "C'est la un bien grand mystere. Pour vous qui aimez aussi le petit prince, comme pour moi, rien de l'univers n'est semblable si quelque part, on ne sait ou, un mouton que nous connaissons pas a, oui ou non, mange une rose...
Regardez le ciel. Demandez-vous:'Le mouton oui ou non a-t-il mange la fleur?' Et vous verrez comme tout change...
Et aucune grande personne ne comprendera jamais que ca a tellement d'importance!"
Translation: "It's all a great mystery. For you, who love the little prince too. As for me, nothing in the unverse can be the same if somewhere, no one knows where, a sheep we never saw has or has not eaten a rose...
Look up at the sky. Ask yourself: 'Has the sheep eaten the flower or not?" And you'll see how everything changes...
And no grown-up will ever understand how such a thing could be so important!"
Music:
- revival of the 'Petit Prince' theme
- elements of all previous movements
- ends in the same way as the first movement.
- tonal ambiguity, but with a clear, ethereal sound throughout


So that's what I've got for an outline of this monster. It should be quite the thing once it's finished, I hope!