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durtal@soviet.circumlunar.space 20210105Oz PLEASE NOTE: The following is from my phlog of the same date. I am placing it in the soviet_docs as a placeholder for the eventual treatise which take a while to finish. I am publishing this now for two reasons. Firstly, I'm still exploring the vagaries of git on Soviet with a view to producing a users' guide, perhaps even an info file. I've already discovered some interesting things to be aware of for those of us who are novices. Feel free, of course, to modify the document as you wish as per our tradition. Secondly, I draw your attention to the orchestral arrangement by John Richard Campanelli. It's worth a listen. As a tone poem, it seems to fit our circumstances. But, that might just be me. 20210103 MARE CRISIUM, SEA OF CRISES 1 ====================================== This will be the first of a series of short posts relating to the lunar crater, Crisium. There is a great deal of interesting information scattered across a number of sources. My goal is to pull this information together and eventually create a larger document accounting for the historical and cultural, as well as physical science dimensions of our namesake. In this way, I hope to contribute to the cultural riches of The Soviet. As can be seen from the title, Mare Crisium is Latin for Sea of Crises. The crater is in the north east quadrant of the moon as viewed from earth. The mare is only one of 22 whose name has been official accepted. One of its easily visible characteristics is its separation from the plethora of other mares. Crisium stands alone. It is also known as Caspian after the Caspian Sea on earth as they seemingly share a similar location if considered from a European orientation of the globe. However, Mare Crisium is the accepted "modern" nomenclature. It is also distinguished from many other mares by not having been named after a Renaissance astronomer. One characteristic of the crater which was not detectable until more recent times was its mass concentration. Perhaps due to the composition of the astroid that created the crater a few billion years ago, gravitation forces associated with this mare are formidable. In fact, unware space probes are at risk of crashing in its vicinity. This actually occurred to an unmanned Russian craft during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969. It would be interesting for future historians to investigate whether this is what indeed influenced the naming of our colony. In the normal course of events, the loss of a probe might not seem consequential. However, its demise during a mission in which astronauts from the United States landed and walked on the moon no doubt further poured salt into old wounds. The crater was, indeed, the source of a tangible crisis. The crater has also inspired at least one musical cultural expression. John Richard Campanelli submitted an orchestral arrangement as his doctoral thesis at the University of Michigan in 1983. The following statement is was provided as an abstract for the thesis' inclusion in the repository: -->> MARE CRISIUM (Sea of Crises), written between September, 1982 and March, 1983, is an extended one-movement work for orchestra. It is scored for winds in threes (with oboe 3 doubling English Horn, clarinet 3 doubling bass clarinet, and contra-bassoon), four horns, three trumpets, two trombones, tuba, percussion, two harps, celesta, and standard strings. The title of the work is intended to inform the listener in an abstract rather than a programmatic sense. Mare Crisium is one of the seas of the moon, the majority of which were rather fancifully named by Renaissance astronomers. The language of the piece utilizes extended tertian triads as building blocks, with the interval of the third being important both melodically and as a basis for root movement. From an orchestrational and gestural standpoint, the work is inspired by the orchestral music of Claude Debussy, the early impressionistic works of Igor Stravinsky, and the pre-serial music of Arnold Schoenberg. Reference to their music in MARE CRISIUM is in the nature of an hommage. The period from which these works issue, i.e., ca. 1905 to 1913, is the one that I consider the golden age of the orchestra, in which the music conceived for the instrument of the orchestra most admirably suited its capabilities. MARE CRISIUM is, from this stylistic point of view, something of a look backward; however, I believe that the language of the piece works for our own time. <<-- In order to benefit personally and to enhance their commitment to The Soviet, Sundogs can listen to an excellent rendition of the orchestration at the following YouTube address: https://youtu.be/XANqcLOLlS0 Again, as Bruce Sterling's <<Schismatrix>> was first published in 1985, literary scholars will need to explore whether or not Campanelli's work influenced the author of our Urtext.