Content Dictates Form

I'm can't remember exactly when the notion came to me, but I do remember the aspiration.  Maybe it's because I was in the midst of an in depth study of forms in classical music; perhaps the series of unfortunate event in that year of my life were operatic in scope and required music of that magnitude to be expressed properly;  maybe it's even my own pretentious beliefs in the inherent beauty of art with layers that can withstand in depth analysis and my own selfish wants to create art of that caliber; in any case, I knew that the show I was going to create from my experiences in the Corporate American Retail world would be sung.

Originally, the plan was to glimpse very specific moments of that year through a series of songs that re interrelated, and held together by some larger tonal scheme, but not dependent on each other: essentially a very traditional, Liederkreis based in the traditions of Schubert and Schumann. with some contemporary harmony, counterpoint, and a touch of leitmotif thrown in for good measure.
Essentially, it was supposed to be a dramatic piece that told my story with little tidbits and goodies that appealed to my innate nerdiness: both music and theater.  As the writing actually happened though, it got complicated.

The forms of classical music have been around for hundreds of years and evolved from the very base natures of music and the physics there in.  They also directly reference hundreds of years of innovation, imagination, and the genius of various practitioners.  The results are incredibly expressive, incredibly diverse, and unpredictable yet satisfying music.  The more I wrote, the more I realized that various forms throughout western musical history, have very interesting and expressive options when paired with aspects of my story.  So far I have a mass, a fugue, a rondo, a waltz and am in the middle of a theme and variation.

When this thing is finally performed, I may have to have a "How Many Forms Do You Count" competition in the playbill just for fun.