The Hatter's Diary
06 Aug 2025
In the latest Hatter post, which covers the compositions for 2025, I explained:William has temporarily proven a dead end. Long story short, a book on William Byrd was eventually deemed "lost in the mail." By the time I got my hands on a copy, I was no longer in the mood to read something drier than a caucus race. You can track that adventure here, where I take notes on much of Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum instead.
Wikipedia tells me that William Byrd married Juliana Birley in 1568, and they had at least 7 children. The only names we have for the children are Christopher, Elizabeth, and Thomas. Thomas Byrd, who was likely the second son of William Byrd, was the godson of Thomas Tallis, another successful English composer from the Renaissance. While "The Son" or "Son William" could be Christopher or Thomas to you, he is very clearly Thomas to me.
To outline the unknowns, I don't know if I'll keep Tommy's verses from the first composition or rewrite
it. At this point in time, I'm leaning towards rewriting it. I know that Father William's verses will not have piano accompaniment, but I'm not sure if the texture will be 3 or 4 voices. I'm leaning towards four, and the four characters would be William, The Caterpillar, Tommy, and Alice.
Byrd's Gradualia Book 1 begins with 32 motets for 5 voices, which I will ignore.
Motets for 4 Voices:
1. Cibavit Eos p. 116
2. Oculi Omnium p. 119
3. Sacerdotes Domini p. 123
4. Quotiescunque Manducabitis p. 124
5. Ave Verum Corpus p. 127
6. O Salutaris Hostia p. 129
7. O Sacrum Convivium p. 132
8. Nobis Datus Nobis Natus p. 134
9. Ecce Quam Bonum p. 139
10. Christus Resurgens p. 143
11. Visita Quæsumus Domine p. 148
12. Salve Regina p. 151
13. Alma Redemptoris Mater p. 155
14. Ave Regina Cœlorum p. 159
15. In Manus Tuas p. 168
16. Lætania p. 166
17. Salve Sola Dei Genetrix p. 169
18. Senex Puerum p. 172
19. Hodie Beata Virgo p. 174
20. Deo Gratias p. 176
Motets for 3 Voices:
1. Quem Terra Pontus p. 177
2. O Gloriosa Domina p. 181
3. Memento Salutis Auctor p. 183
4. Ave Maris Stella p. 186
5. Regina Cæli p. 192
6. Alleluia. Quae Lucescit p. 196
7. Hæc Dies p. 198
8. Angelus Domini Descendit p. 199
9. Post Dies Octo p. 200
10. Turbarum Voces p. 202
11. Adorna Thalamum Tuum Sion p. 205
Gradualia Book 2, if you were curious, contains 19 motets for 4 voices, 18 motets for 5 voices, and 9 motets for 6 voices. So far, I have very helpfully not reviewed my Fux, and gotten distracted by watching the early music video on castrati. I learned that castrati had abnormally long limbs and whiskerless faces, and that "the last castrato " Alessandro Moreschi (1858-1922) was the only castrati to have ever made recordings. My favorite recording of his seems to be Crucifixus.
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The Hatter's Diary
21 Feb 2026
Will you LOOK AT THAT. It is February, and half a year has slipped through my mercury-laden fingers. Since my last correspondence to myself, KLCC has died, my reaction to that was to become a violin studio pianist, I'm currently studying Timani for some reason, a family reunion is coming up in a month, I've committed to baking at the May Market again, and the Cheshire and I have just agreed that I must rewrite William sooner rather than later. So enough with the fancy pants plans and analysis.
I opened the score, and it looks like I had already drafted bits here and there. My intentions had been to put myself through my own counterpoint class, starting with Fux, but instead, I'm just going to start filling in the blanks.
It appears that we will need a soprano for Alice, the Cheshire will be Tommy, and in addition, we'll require two menfolk. It's time for bed, and I've already completed 11 of 21 sections.
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The Hatter's Diary
22 Feb 2026
This thing is writing itself - probably because it was actually already written five years ago. I had been preparing for battle for over a year, when all I needed to do was remember to put a hat on my head and magically transform into a monk with a quill in my hand. Which I did.
And while I was at my writing desk, I changed no more than a handful of notes for an alternate (rather demanding) ending of The Duchess' Lullaby. Until next time.
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23 Feb 2026
There was this whole SATB arrangement composed yesterday, but then the Cheshire steered me back towards more menfolk for a more motety sound. Which is nice. Now I have to rewrite a few more things, is all.
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The Hatter's Diary04 Mar 2026
And now, a letter to the Cheshire!
Oh, and in measure 5, I made "William" three eighth notes because it was funny.
I know you know the general structure of this piece, but in the interest of being thorough, and perhaps to share with our future cast members, I reiterate. There are four A sections (His Son, alto & piano) and four B sections (Father William, 3 part motets & viol). The A sections are varied duplicates of themselves, as are the B sections. As the B sections progress and word painting takes over, things go further awry in terms of proper counterpoint. B4 is filled with blatant parallels.
The timings of your entrances in the A section have changed: the entrance for A1 is on beat 1, A2 on beat 2 (syncopated!!), A3 on beat 3, and A4 on beat 4, which is both the hardest way to do it and the version you already know best. Some of the reasoning behind this edit is the idea of priming the audience to tune into your tritone, which I feel so far has been rather tragically unnoticed.
The timings of your entrances in the A section have changed: the entrance for A1 is on beat 1, A2 on beat 2 (syncopated!!), A3 on beat 3, and A4 on beat 4, which is both the hardest way to do it and the version you already know best. Some of the reasoning behind this edit is the idea of priming the audience to tune into your tritone, which I feel so far has been rather tragically unnoticed.
Oh, and in measure 5, I made "William" three eighth notes because it was funny.
His Son: Alto (G3 - E♭5)
The Ointment: Tenor (C3 - G4)
The Law: Baritone or Tenor (C3 - E♭4)
Father William: Baritone (G2 - D4)
The Caterpillar: Viol or Cello (C2 - C4)
Score:
Musescore Audio:
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10 Mar 2026
It's a fine morning to jot down a few notes for the rest of this year's songs, which are Humpty Dumpty's Poem and The White Queen's Riddle. I'll also map out what remains of our tonal planning, which was largely decided in 2024.
Humpty Dumpty's Poem is in the key of EGG, which is mostly E major, but also in G major and G whole tone. The poem is a duet between Humpty and Alice; Humpty sings all of the verses, which are in E. The recitatives are in G, but Alice, being of the interrupting sort, is stuck in G whole tone.
The structure is:
verse 1 (winter), recit (can see)
verse 2 (spring), recit (thank you)
verse 3 (summer)
verse 4 (autumn), recit (remember)
verse 5 (fish)
verse 6 (sea)
verse 7 (because), recit (understand)
verse 8 (say)
verse 9 (grin)
verse 10 (twice)
verse 11 (new)
verse 12 (thump)
verse 13 (said)
verse 14 (plain)
verse 15 (clear), comment (no recit, but instructions to repeat the previous verse)
verse 16 (clear), but fff
verse 17 (proud)
verse 18 (stiff)
verse 19 (shelf)
verse 20 (locked)
verse 21 (shut), recit (is that all?)
Truth be told, the recits have been composing themselves in my sleep as of late. Can you imagine waking up to that? Meanwhile, the following words, which tell the tale of Humpty Dumpty in note letter names, will somehow present themselves.
bad egg gabbed
bad egg faced edge
bad egg dead
The White Queen's Riddle is much more straightforward. We already know it's in 6 sharps. Because the answer to the riddle is "oyster," it borrows (and transposes) the opening harmonies from The Walrus and the Carpenter, which means we'll be firmly rooted in d♯ minor. The similarity between the two pieces will be largely obscured by pronounced dance rhythms; I'm leaning towards a tango.
Additionally, we shan't forget that the White Queen experiences time backwards, so her melody will most certainly incorporate retrograde.
The finale to Stuff & Nonsense will be written in 2027. It is a suite in 6 short movements, written in the key of G major for "goose." And the rest of that is a cookie to crack for another year.
Once Stuff & Nonsense is completed, all that shall remain are three of the four bookends.
Bookends:
All in the Golden Afternoon
Child of the Pure Unclouded Brow
A Wasp in a Wig (unpublished)
A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky (composed 2023)
2028 will take care of two of them. A Wasp in a Wig will be in C major and A minor. Because A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky was in C major with glockenspiel in G major, Child of the Pure Unclouded Brow will be in A minor with glockenspiel in D minor. There is a symmetry to that.
In 2029, I will at last conclude the series with our opener, All in the Golden Afternoon. It will be a true homage to The Well-Tempered Clavier by Bach, of which he composed two volumes. Each volume presents Preludes and Fugues in the keys C, c, C♯, c♯, D, d, etc., ending in ... B, b.
All in the Golden Afternoon Tonalities
Notice that we begin and end in the same key like a real song instead of a series, but because of the looking glass aspect of it, we stay on b minor, the ending key of WTC, for not one, but two lines. (This point of reflection occurs in the middle of verse 4, which speaks of the dream-child moving through a land of wonders.)
It's my hope that the song will feel "beautifully unsettled," directly opposite the feeling of the quadrille, in which we are violently thrust into nearly random tonalities. It will drift, weaving through chromatic shifts and falling in and out of modalities. I am reminded of the time Dormie told me that hypnagogia is the transitional state between consciousness and sleep.
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12 Jun 2026
With the deadline of June 30th descending rapidly upon us, I opened up musescore and organized some spaces for Humpty's verses, putting in time signatures, key signatures, and a few other structural things. I proudly presented my blank score to the Cheshire to let her know the project was up and running on time, and she very helpfully told me that my own deadline is actually July 31st, not June 30th. So I have plenty of time! Where, oh where, would I be without my Cheshire?
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16 Jun 2026
A few notes and updates. The poem is more about the interruptions and the ending than anything else; the verses are nothing more than a nonsensical nursery rhyme, and they sound like one.
Let's begin with a review from March:
Humpty Dumpty's Poem is in the key of EGG, which is mostly E major, but also in G major and G whole tone. The poem is a duet between Humpty and Alice; Humpty sings all of the verses, which are in E. The recitatives are in G, but Alice, being of the interrupting sort, is stuck in G whole tone.
As usual, Carroll bosses me around, and I diligently take orders. Through no choice of my own, we must turn our attention toward two vocabulary words: sprechgesang and sprechstimme. Both sprechgesang and sprechstimme mean something between speaking and singing.
Sprechgesang is recit as we know it, which means it maintains pitch but gravitates towards spoken rhythm. Every time Humpty's poem is interrupted by dialogue, it's sprechgesang. I needn't elaborate on this, for I know my audience.
Sprechstimme, on the other hand, maintains rhythm and gravitates towards speaking in terms of pitch. After two measures, Humpty interrupts himself with, "only I don't sing it," describing this performance as sprechstimme. (I suppose I could have also chosen not to write this piece on account of that, but what a lost opportunity that would have been. After all, that's already where we stand with The Aged Aged Man, the melody of which was composed by Sir Thomas Moore. But not all was lost in that venture, which somehow produced the Victorian Singalongs.)
Sprechstimme is represented rather well by Richard Harris' performance of the very first song I ever learned all the words to, "I Wonder What The King Is Doing Tonight." Yes, as a small child, I was exceptionally proud of myself for accidentally memorizing King Arthur's monologue concerning the fear of bedding his own wife, Queen Guinevere, on his wedding night.
The internet seems to demonstrate sprechstimme with Berg and Schoenberg, and while that's nice and all, how many of us know what to listen for when we're out drifting, with scarce a hint of the anchor that is tonality, as far as the eye can see? Let us instead point our our steeds towards Camelot.
Richard Harris: I Wonder What the King is Doing Tonight
Sprechstimme isn't new to the set; from the top of my head, I can say the Cheshire uses it in William, Walrus, and 'Tis the Voice of the Lobster.
There aren't too many other notes.
The top line of the accompaniment spells out the story of Humpty in pitches:
egg
bad egg gabbed
bad egg faced edge
bad egg dead
egg
These lines are punctuated by four little chimes I call "egg timers," which of course spell the word "egg" themselves.
Alice is not only always in whole tone, but her harmonies are, too. Her scale is used a little differently in each of her 6 recits and creates:
1. Some blatantly wrong chords from what Humpty has established.
This is especially funny because Alice's melodic notes are expected in G major (GAB).
2. An open quintal/quartal sound, showcasing the tritone that takes over the final verse.
Alice uncomfortably thanks Humpty with an upwards line, which sound like a question.
3. A high rolled cluster that creates a mysterious and magical backdrop for Alice.
This is one of their most conversational moments.
Humpty loses patience and leads us to G minor.
4. More of a functional sounding harmony with the bones of a G7.
Alice doesn't sound so out of key in this one; Humpty cuts her off in a hurry.
5. A low grumble for Alice to whisper over.
6. A triadic stacking, creating an augmented sound.
As with the first recit, Alice's notes are the common tones GAB.
After the "bad egg faced edge," things begin to take a slightly sinister turn. Verse 9.1 is what we might expect on the word "bad." The next word, "egg," shifts from E major to harmonic major with a lowered 6th scale degree. The final verse's accompaniment, "dead," showcases the naturally occurring tritone in E major. To make matters even more foreboding, the left hand borrows from Alice's palette for the first time, walking up the entire whole tone scale in a series of tritones (Hello, William!). Diabolus in musica!
After the abrupt ending between Alice and Humpty, the piano ends with a brief moment of E harmonic major. And that C really must stay lowered, for we all know that all the king's horses and all the king's men are on their way.
Score:
Musescore Audio:
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20 Jun 2026
And so we come to the last song of this year, The White Queen's Riddle.
Today, I shall list 6 things about our 6th song:
1. Its placement in Stuff & Nonsense is this.
Mouse's Tale - 7/8, energeticThe Duchess' Lullaby - 6/4 lyricalThe Lobster Quadrille - 6/8, 2/4, squareThe White Rabbit's Evidence - 6/8, narrationHumpty Dumpty's Poem - 12/8, interruptedThe White Queen's Riddle - ?Mother Goose Suite - another compound meter
2. It's in d♯ minor, 6 sharps.
3. The poem is a riddle, and the answer is "oyster."
To answer the riddle musically, we'll borrow harmonies from The Walrus and the Carpenter.
And would you believe it? That's the 6th song in Outgrabe!
4. The White Queen experiences time backwards, so her melodies use retrograde.
5. The song is marked by dance rhythms.
Strong contenders musically are tango, polka, bolero, minuet, or waltz.
I'm also partial to the rhythm of the pizzicato from Sylvia by Delibes.
However, we're a slave to the meter of the poem, which is pretty irregular.So.... this might not go too well.
6. The poem is:
"First, the fish must be caught.”That is easy: a baby, I think, could have caught it.“Next, the fish must be bought.”That is easy: a penny, I think, would have bought it.
“Now cook me the fish!”That is easy, and will not take more than a minute.“Let it lie in a dish!”That is easy, because it already is in it.
“Bring it here! Let me sup!”It is easy to set such a dish on the table.“Take the dish-cover up!”Ah, that is so hard that I fear I’m unable!
For it holds it like glue—Holds the lid to the dish, while it lies in the middle:Which is easiest to do,Un-dish-cover the fish, or dishcover the riddle?
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The Hatter's Diary
23 Jun 26
The time has come, the walrus said, to speak of tangos, boleros, and polonaises, for since we last met, I have woken to these rhythms vying for my attention. This is what they're like:
Tangos, Boleros, & Polonaises, Oh My!
The tango (which originated between Argentina and Uruguay in the 1880s) has a dotted rhythm into the second beat. This, along with some harmonic patterns, is so extraordinarily exciting that momentum propels us from one irresistibly magnetic measure to the next. And "irresistibly magnetic rhythmic patterns" suits the demands of our very strong opening words, "First, the fish." If the White Queen in my Wonderland is going to begin anything with "First, the fish," she won't be mumbling. Additionally, I adore the thought of opening a tango immediately after cooing like a pigeon. Here's the riddle in context, through the arched doorway marked "QUEEN ALICE," and after we've filled up our glasses with treacle and ink.
"Do you know, I’ve had such a quantity of poetry repeated to me to-day," Alice began, a little frightened at finding that, the moment she opened her lips, there was dead silence, and all eyes were fixed upon her; "and it’s a very curious thing, I think—every poem was about fishes in some way. Do you know why they’re so fond of fishes, all about here?"
She spoke to the Red Queen, whose answer was a little wide of the mark. "As to fishes," she said, very slowly and solemnly, putting her mouth close to Alice’s ear, "her White Majesty knows a lovely riddle—all in poetry—all about fishes. Shall she repeat it?"
"Her Red Majesty’s very kind to mention it," the White Queen murmured into Alice’s other ear, in a voice like the cooing of a pigeon. "It would be such a treat! May I?"
"Please do," Alice said very politely.
The White Queen laughed with delight, and stroked Alice’s cheek. Then she began:
"First, the fish...”
First, the Fish: A Tango
But unfortunately, it's not that simple.
The White Queen presented the Hatter with a rhythmic riddle, and the answer was three beats. Look at how three beats preserves the spacing of the first two lines. And also, it's just better.
First, the Fish: A Bolero
The bolero (which originated in Spain in the late 1700s) not only carries strong rhythmic momentum, but also grants me the third beat I so desperately need. The rhythm of the polonaise (which originated in Poland too long ago for anybody to care) is so closely related, and much more practical in faster tempi, that they're considered nearly interchangeable. In the world of piano, Chopin made the polonaise famous; he also wrote a bolero, which uses the polonaise rhythm. (Aside: Chopin's Bolero has a section that sounds like Flight of the Bumblebee, which was composed nearly 70 years later by Rimsky-Korsakov.)
Quick tangent - there are the boleros I'm talking about, of which Ravel's is by far the most popular, and then there are the Cuban love songs by the same name, which are typically in 4/4, and tend to carry some of the percussive momentum of the originals into the second beat. Weirdly, this version of the bolero has also become popular in Vietnam.
Where was I... oh, yes. And yet, I maintain that "First, the fish" is a tango! Neither will I accept "First, the fish" as anything other than a dotted rhythm, nor will I push the nature of the first two lines into 2/4 time. The outcome is therefore some weird hybrid like this.
First, the Fish: A Tango Bolero
So we're sitting here in our 6th song of Stuff & Nonsense, quoting the 6th song of Outgrabe, situated squarely in 6 sharps, dealing with a riddle of 6 clues,
1. A baby can catch the fish,
2. A penny can buy the fish,
3. A minute can cook the fish,
4. The fish is already in a dish,
5. The dish is easy to set on a table, and
6. The dish-cover is nearly impossible to remove.
...What is the fish?
and of course we'd land in 6/4. Whether or not you like these compositions, I could hardly take it personally, for I really don't seem to have anything whatsoever to do with the decision making process. The songs themselves are always working so hard on my behalf to make things right.
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08 Jul 2026
Oh, and it will end in a waltz.
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