Early in the first COVID lockdown, guitarist friends took part in a musical challenge: learn and record one of Brouwer's Estudios Sencillos each day. I did the same, but with Segovia's classic monument to guitar technique, the 20 Studies of Fernando Sor. One a day, each day!

Attempts at 8-bit classic video game soundtracks

This has always been one of my favorite arias from the St. John Passion of J.S. Bach (for biased reasons--the obligato lute accompaniment also works as a prelude à la BWV 999), and all I've done here is consolidate the grand staff of the lute part into guitar notation. The only change I've made to the part is the transposition of one bass note, which is noted in the score. A wonderful performance of the work can be seen here


Betrachte, meine Seel, mit ängstlichem Vergnügen,
Mit bittrer Lust und halb beklemmtem Herzen
Dein höchstes Gut in Jesu Schmerzen,
Wie dir auf Dornen, so ihn stechen,
Die Himmelsschlüsselblumen blühn!
Du kannst viel süße Frucht von seiner Wermut brechen
Drum sieh ohn Unterlass auf ihn!


Contemplate, my soul, with anxious pleasure,
with bitter joy and half-constricted heart,
your highest Good in Jesus' suffering,
how for you, out of the thorns that pierce Him,
the tiny 'keys of Heaven' bloom!
You can pluck much sweet fruit
from his wormwood;
therefore gaze without pause upon Him!

Charles Ives’ Central Park in the Dark is a work from the fruitful period that followed his self-imposed exile from professional music-making. During the years 1898- 1906, Ives more and more removed himself from the German-Romantic harmonies which had dominated his earlier works, instead concentrating on the development of his own personal idiom derived from experimental technical procedures and an emphasis on quotation. The work, whose first title was “A contemplation of nothing serious,” serves as a companion piece to “‘A Contemplation of a Serious Matter’,” or  The Unanswered Question.” In the work, we find Ives as a young man in a light-hearted contemplative mood, observing the goings-on of the Park while sitting on a bench by one of its ponds. This sort of immersed, nature-inspired reflection was just one of the ways in which Ives’ transcendentalism-- the set of ideas, attitudes, and questions espoused by thinkers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau-- reared its head. By first examining significant elements within the score, and then by examining some those aspects of Transcendentalism which most immediately relate to music generally, this paper intends to broadly convey Ives’ musical translation of philosophical ideas. Foremost among these ideas are those concerning the importance of a communal, emotional language which can be accessed through quotation of popular materials; that the contemplation of Nature is essential to the well-rounded and dynamic life; and that harmony exists between elements which appear to be opposed to or at odds with one another.

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February, 2016: New videos of my arrangement of Richard Wagner's "Elsa's Procession to the Cathedral" and Fernando Sor's Fantasie for his students, Natalie Houze. CLICK HERE
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January, 2016: You can see performing Andrew York's "Quadrivial Quandary" me in Scott Tennant's Pumping Nylon DVD: or click here
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