Another lesson from "Alleluia"

I had a couple of other fun Lichtenbergian lessons I could have shared from my work last week on “Alleluia,” but Monday’s post was already too long. And so I will share them today.

First of all, the paradox of AUDIENCE for creators like Van Gogh or Emily Dickinson or even Charles Ives is a fascinating one to me: They created their works without regard to whether an AUDIENCE would even see them, much less appreciate them.

Why would we do this? Why have I composed music that no one will ever perform, at least not while I’m alive? Why do any of us write that music, scribble that novel, waste that paint — if no one is going to play it, read it, buy it?

All the evidence, of course, points to “because human.” It’s as good as we’re going to get.

The lesson is that the AUDIENCE for whom you create is — first — yourself; and second, those other humans who would play your music, read your novel, or buy your painting, even if they don’t yet exist.

The other lesson is more amusing: STEAL FROM THE BEST, which is what I did for the final third of “Alleluia.”

Starting at rehearsal letter I, m.86, all that music of calm after the maelstrom was originally composed as the finale to One Fish Two Fish: mm.88–100 was “And so good night…” followed by the final “From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere” at m.106.

When the lawyers for the Seuss estate declined to give me permission to create a derivative work, I set all the music I had written so far aside. And then lo! this new piece — “Alleluia” — needed an ending. Truth be told, I may have started with the “Good Night” music and backtracked to the opening “Alleluia.” I don’t remember. The point is that ABANDONMENT doesn’t necessarily mean tossing a project into the trash; you may find yourself recycling more than you thought you could.

So as I wave my baton at the world premiere, smiling beatifically at the chorus who has performed my piece with passion (and accuracy), while they are singing the final Alleluias, serene and grateful, in my head it will still be the immortal words of Ted Geisel: “Funny things are everywhere.”