Program Notes
for Will Clinger's arrangement of "Hard Times" by Stephen Foster

A minimalist twelve-tone accompaniment converts "Hard Times" into
a twentieth-century art song.  The accompaniment consists entirely
of eighth notes, repeated interminably.  The guitarist's boredom is
relieved only by octave transpositions and one change of phrasing.
The listener's boredom is relieved by interaction of this sterile
counter-melody with Stephen Foster's rhythmic and strongly tonal
melody.

This arrangement begins with a twelve-tone row in slurred semitone
pairs.  The singer plays a second guitar that outlines the accented
embedded minor and then the unaccented major triads, shifting the
perceived pulse by half a beat.  Against the 6/4 counter-melody,
the melody's sixteen-bar AABA structure in 4/4 time generates a
shifting harmonic undercurrent that takes 48 measures---three full
verses---to return to its original phase.  Within each verse, the
second statement of the A theme is heard against a rotated version
of the harmony that supports the first four measures; the verse's
opening harmony returns for its last four measures.  Each verse
begins at a different rotation of the twelve-tone row, but this
source of harmonic variation is masked by singing the second verse
in the subdominant key.  Foster's fourth verse, omitted in this
recording, would have repeated the pattern of the first verse.

I just wish Emmylou had been free to record this demo.