Getting ready for Graz, Austria and the Musikprotokoll 2019 edition. I’ll take part in a discussion on critical music in ARTikulationen organized by Deniz Peters, head of the Artistic Doctoral School of the University of Music and Performing Arts in cooperation with musikprotokoll. In addition to the discussion, my piece for trombone and piano entitled Doris’s Drone will be performed for the first time by Studio Dan, part of the Augmented Reality project.
Doris’s Drone is inspired by the song Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans and sang by Doris Day in Alfred Hitchcock’s drama “The Man Who Knew Too Much” (1956). The lyrics of the song describe the journey of a little girl from childhood to adulthood, asking at each step “What will I be?” followed by an identical cheerful refrain: “What will be, will be.”
The original song is a waltz in C Major, reflecting the illusory spirit of hopefulness following World War II as concocted in the films of the era. Its melody and rhythm are joyful, far from the anxieties of the Cold War or wars of independence gripping the Third World. A confident, secure, happy fate is the promise to all the children who consume Hollywood in the 1950s.
Doris’s Drone is a parody in the form of a miniature composition of the song, 60 years after its release. It is a reinterpretation that takes neither the hopeful content seriously nor itself, in an age where optimistic rhetoric seems more and more of a distant hollow din.
© musikprotokoll
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