Declamation

To declaim publicly is an old dramatic practice that requires of its performer a mastery of communicative clarity and confidence, or at least the appearance of it. The orchestral performance tradition is in many ways analogous to this practice: it is long-standing and inseparably public, and it demands both emotive and technical mastery of its performers to effectively convey the sentiment of the works played. Likewise, the impression of confidence is imperative—there is little room for the timid performer on the orchestral stage. Nor is there forgiveness for the timid composer or for the composer who communicates ineffectively. In this respect, a composition whose musical ideas form a coherent, logical flow is valuable. Declamation's composition is thus in no small part concerned with the logical flow of ideas from one passage to the next—the carefully crafted organization of contrast and similarity that is at the heart of countless symphonic masterworks. To fill the void left by the preclusion of contrasting key areas fundamental to the opening movements of so many staples of tonal symphonic literature, Declamation comprises a fundamental conflict between other dramatically effective parameters: it presents a struggle between the chromatic and the quasi-diatonic, between the densely contrapuntal and the uniquely melodic, between the aggressive and the subdued. As in first movements of tonal symphonies, the narrative shape of Declamation is concerned with the mediation of these fundamental dichotomies. The formal shape that results from these dichotomies and their mediation is not a "sonata form," and to claim it as such would lessen the value of the term. However, the narrative shape of Declamation is one that attempts to recreate the dramatic allure, the inevitable yet captivating resolution of conflict that is the charm of the sonata-form movement, as evidenced by so many magnificent works of the symphonic genre.