Score (51 pp.) + Parts (89 pp.)

Format: PDF

Duration: 12 1/2 min.

Catalogue No.: 014

Program Note

Ladle Rat Rotten Hut: A furry tell Indo-Anguish languish

To quote Howard Chace’s explanation of his own creation: “Heresy ladle furry starry toiling udder warts--warts welcher altar girdle deferent firmer once inner regional virgin. This sentence means: "Here is a little fairy story told in other words--words which are altogether different from the ones in the original version." ---Howard L. Chace.

I composed the music to this story as a present for my daughter, Charlotte, on her seventeenth birthday in April of 2007. Charlotte plays the clarinet, and she has played through a trio version of this piece with a cellist/chemist friend of ours, Jerome Claverie. My deep appreciation goes to Howard L. Chace for having invented, in 1956, the Anguish languish. In 2007, I found, by accident, a magazine cutout of this story that my mother, Dr. Marian W. Kies, had sent me in 1987. This had remained hidden in a stack of papers for 20 years. Without that moment of pure serendipity, I might never have heard of the story of Ladle Rat Rotten Hut.

There are two versions of the text: the Anguish languish version and an alternate version in English. The English version, with its optional “happy ending”, can be used whenever the music is performed for audiences too young to appreciate the subtleties of the Anguish languish.

After the first version for clarinet, cello, piano and narrator, I arranged the music for several other groups with narrator, including: oboe, bassoon and piano; flute, bassoon and piano; brass quintet; six horns; viola, cello and piano; full orchestra; and concert band.

--Christopher Kies, December 2022