The Classical Listeners' Guide

Volume 4, Number 1 A Publication of the WTUL Classical Department October 1990

WTUL Exclusive ... Loyola Guild of Artists Makes WTUL Debut The WTUL Classical Department continu­ featured will be james C. Arey, Kevin Caparotta ally strives to find new, unusual and original and Cary Songy. Each will present original works for broadcast. On the October 6th, 1990 works and will be interviewed regarding differ­ morning show (6AM to 8AM), we will present ent facets of their pieces. works by members of the Loyola Guild of Artists Please join us for this showcase of local (LGA). an organization of student composers at talent. Also watch future Qassical Listeners' the Loyola School of Music. The composers Guide editions for upcoming LGA compositions and features. -Ted Hajek

Microtonal Keyboard Works Since the end of the seventeenth century, West­ elude manipulation of instruments or voice ern music has generally utilized a set of twelve through natural or electronic means and the equidistant semi-tones to systematically divide use of combinations of just intervals and tem­ the space of an octave. In recent times. how­ pered tones. ever. composers have started to view pitch as a The Twentieth Century Show on 14 October. 7:00 continuum. as an unbroken range of sound PM. will feature a collection of microtonal key­ from the lowest to the highest audible frequen­ board works. The album is entitled Tone over cies. An interesting offshoot of this concept is Tone. an Opus One release. Performers include microtonal technique. in which the composer Loretta Goldberg on pianos. synthesizer and uses tones smaller than a semi-tone or half step. prepared piano, Brian Charles on oboe, Charles While some microtonalists use naturally tuned Descarfino on percussion and Tom Varner on (non-tempered) intervals, others divide the horn. Composers will include john Cage, Sorrel twelve tone scale into either twenty-four or Hays, George Boziwick, john Eaton. Mathew f ourty-eight tones, dividing the octave into q uar­ Rosenblum and Constance Cooper. Please join us ter- and eighth-tones. Other techniques in- for this showcase. -Ted Hajek

WTUL presents LIVE Coverage of Home Football Games October 13- vs. Southern Miss Kickoff for each game is at 7:00 PM October 20 - vs. Missisippi State Pregame reports begin at 6:50 PM October 27 .. vs. Cincinnati HERE at WTUL Sports Central Monday Tuesday Wednesday WlrUl Classical with Steve with Cliff Programming The Baroque Show with Ted Mondays ... Ted Hajek 1 1 Tuesdays ... 'f!li~~~~~~~AntoniQ Qaldara l~lll ltl s~oci al Show Steve Hinge! "II Giuco del Quadriglio" String Quartet No.1 Piano Music Cantata for 4 sopranos The Ondine Quartet Gyorgy Ligeti - Wednesdays ... Societa Cameristica Etudes pour Piano George Perle - Cliff Callender di Lugaro Edwin Loehrer, cond. Six New Etudes Thursdays ... Julia Houston . ! . Giovanni B. Pergolesi Concerto No. 1, Op. 23 Histoire du Soldat Fridays ... NBC Symphony Orchestra Sting as the Soldier Sabbat Mater Lenny Bertrand Vladimir Horowitz, piano Vanessa Redgrave as the Salve Regina Arturo Toscanini, cond. Devil The King's Consort London Sinfonietta Saturdays ... Robert King, cond. Mary Talusan Kent Nagano, cond. Ted Hajek ~~~~~~~JQhn BIQw I!III[IFranz Schubert lrlll~yillaume de Sundays... Amphlon Angllcus Sonata, D. 821 Mach aut Lester Sullivan (Selections) "Arpegg lone" Messe de Nostra Dame Mary Talusan The Consort of Musicke Yuri Bashmet, viola Taverner Choir and Emma Kirkby, soprano Mikhail Munitan, piano Ted Hajek Consort David Thomas, bass Andrew Parrott, dir. Anthony Rooley, dir. Our Schedule: ~~[~~AIIesanQrQ II!IJMary Jeanne ~,llspecial Show Scarlatti Van Appledorn String Quartets Monday - Saturday: Beethoven - Grosse Fuge Two Cantatas Four Duos Bartok - String Quartet Helen Watts, contralto Arthur Follows, violoncello No.5 6:00 AM - Thurston Dart, harpsichord Susan Schoenfeld, viola Nancarrow - String Quartet 8:00AM Demond Dupre, viola de No.3 gamba Sunday Twentieth Century Show: ltiiiJlFrancQis III[IIEQgar Mey~r IIIJI,IGeQrge Crumb Couperin Work In Progress Vox Balaenae Edgar Meyer, bass (Voice of the Whale) 7:00PM ·.. Pieces de Clavecln Amy Dorfman, piano Zizi Mueller, flute Gustav Leonhardt, 11:00 PM Fred Sherry, cello harpsichord Janes Gaemmell, piano

page 2 O•C•T•O•B•E•R Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday with Julia with Leonard with Ted The Twentieth and Mary Century Show with Lester, Mary and Ted IIII JNi!

ti111AifQnSQ X lli(IYirgil ThQmpsQn lfllGuiJJaum~ Dufay 11lllvariQus Artistlii Cantlgas of Santa Marla Autumn (concertlno) Mlssa "L'hom me arme" Microtonal Keyboard The Martin Best Ensemble The River • Suite The Hilliard Ensemble Works Los Angeles Chamb. Orch. Loretta Goldberg, Ann Mason Stockton, harp piano and synthesizer Neville Marriner, cond. See article, page one. lllflchartes Jves IIIJSteve Reich fll]special Show rll lllispecial Show A Symphony: New Electronic Counterpoint Art Songs by African­ Sounds Australian Eng land Holidays Pat Metheny, Guitar American Composers An excursion through Chicago Symphony See article, page five. modern music of Orchestra and Chorus Australia. See article, page four.

I!IILQ!.! HarrisQn fiiAibert RQussel i1111Franz Uliizt ~~~~Ernest BIQ!

page3 Sounds Australian Endless scorched vistas of Aboriginal 1800's. The piece is a set of six variations in outback~ravity-defying and complex forms of which a string orchestra (playing an Aboriginal skyscrapers and the modern Opera House melody) represents the outback and a string trio overlooking the bright blue of Sydney Harbor­ (playing what seems to be colonial drawing these are the extremes that can picture Australia. room music) represents the failed settlement. As for sounds Australian, they, too, present The two kinds of music, at first in apparent extremes of contrast, and WfUL's Twentieth­ harmony, grow ever farther apart until all that Century Oassical Show will give listeners a wide­ remains is sound representing the bush. ranging sample of music from the island Among other composers represented on continent on Sunday night, October 21, from 7 to the show are students of Sculthorpe or his 11 p.m. contemporaries. The euphonious opera Fly, by Australia's art music delineates the Barry Conyngham (b. 1944), a protege of country's transition from ancient Aborigine Sculthorpe and Toru Takemitsu, was inspired by cultures and the brutal frontier life of the early the life of Australia's early aviation pioneer British convict settlers to today's sophisticated, Lawrence Hargrave and was first performed in urbanized society. In the beginning, times were 1984. Listeners will hear excerpts from Act 1. rough for classical music lovers; the first RainForest ( 1981 ), byGraeme Koehne (b. 1956), professional symphony orchestra was not is an amelodic efflorescence born of sinuous, assembled until barely a century ago. Among intertwining orchestral colors. seeking to the composers whose music will be heard on the replace heat and outback harshness as the show is one of the earliest major Australian dominant images in Australian music. From a classical music pioneers. Alfred Hill ( 1870-1960 ). remarkable new CD entitled "Australian Despite his interest in Aboriginal musical Percussion Music, Volume 1" comes three enter­ culture, however, his European training (at the taining tracks: First, Martin Wesley-Smith Leipzig Conservatory) did not prepare him to (b.1945). who has focused principally on com­ challenge most of the received tenants of German puter-generated sounds, combines them with Romanticism. The broadcast will include one of marimba and xylophone to form White Knight his richly-textured symphonies. The and Beaver ( 1984). The piece reflects Wesley­ generation of Australian composers born in the Smith's fascination with the writings of Lewis late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Carroll, as if the author (or the White Knight, as began to break away from Victorian provin­ Carroll portrayed himself in Through the Look­ cialism. Percy Grainger ( 1882-1961) was a ing Glass) is a marimba player showing a genuine radical, propounding theories of xylophonic Alice in Wonderland (the Beaver in heatless music, proposing the revival of medieval The Hunting of the Snark) how to play nursery styles, and advocating the adoption of East Asian rhymes backwards, forwards, and upside down musical techniques. Several short but some­ on a music box, the actual instrument being a times ear-stretching pieces. Dorian Le Gall­ Fairlight Computer, a veritable Pandora's music ienne ( 1915-1963) began to venture-within an box. Second, Ross Edwards (b. 1943), a student of essentially English-pastoral framework-toward British composer Peter Maxwell Davies as well as the harmonic innovations of Ravel and of Sculthorpe, contributes some cheerful and Prokofiev. A charming but slightly ironic virtuosic solo Marimba Dances ( 1982). Finally, Sinfonietta. Nigel Westlake (b. 1958), whose now-departed but much-lamented Magic Puddin' Band fused The next generation benefitted from improved jazz, rock. classical, and ethnic backgrounds, communications and outside influence. The provides an exciting Omphalo Centric Lecture leading figure of this generation is Peter ( 1985) by marimba, slit drums. cymbal, and Sculthorpe (b. 1929 ). He is perhaps the first shaker. Australian composer to formulate a musical style Another outstanding CD, "Austral VoiCes," that easily can be related to the unique from the New Albion label based in San Francisco, characteristics of his country. His conscious features frankly experimental music. Among search for an Australian identity is well the quasi -environmental pieces is Three Inverse demonstrated in the evening's featured work, Genera ( 198 9) by Warren Burt, who was born in Port Essington, in which Sculthorpe vividly Baltimore ( 1949) but who now works freelance depicts the tragic attempt to establish a port on in Australia. The almost Gamelan-like piece the northern coast of Australia in the early combines performance on specially made

page4 Sounds Australian (continued from previous page) aluminum tuning forks with actual sounds of speed and reach across the keyboard birds and such filtering in from the outback simultaneously from extreme bass to extreme recording site. Sarah Hopkins (b. 19 58) treble. There is also a lovely blues-colored contibutes the highly atmospheric Songs of the interlude before an abbreviated reprise of the Wind, in which a corrugated plastic hose is ultra-fast part. whirled in such a way as to sound uncannily like women's voices. The Fantasie ( 1984) by Alistair (Several of the recordings for this broadcast Riddell (b. 1955) is performed on a conventional were loaned by Richard Letts of the Australian piano being played directly by a microcom­ Music Centre through his New York puter. The results yield all the subtlety and representative Bronwen jones. WTUL wishes to human feeling of the acoustic instrument thank them for their kind courtesy.) combined with the computer's superhuman -Lester Sullivan

Art Songs by African-American Composers The genre of the American art song has forms such as be-bop and blues. flourished over the decades, with Charles Ives, TheClassicalShowonOctober 20,6:00 AM, Samuel Barber. Virgil Thompson. Leonard will feature works from the album Art Songs by Bernstein and Aaron Copland among its more Black An1erican Con1posers . Composers include prominent composers. Several African­ Florence Price, john Work, Howard Swanson, American composers have made great Cecil Cohen, George Walker and William Grant contributions to the genre, but are sadly less Still. Performers include: Laura English­ well-known than the afor mentioned artists. The Robinson, soprano; Hilda Harris, mezzo-soprano; songs all assimilate a complex Mrican-American George Shirley, tenor; Willis Patterson. bass and tradition. These composers modified and the University of Michigan School of Music enriched the art song by adding the rich legacy Student Performers. The album is released by of dance music, church music and popular music the University of Michigan Publications

WTUL News Programming Weekdays Weekends Daily Newscasts Newscasts at at 8:00AM 11:00 AM 12:00 Noon and 5:00PM 5:00PM Join us on Sunday evening at 6:30PM for The Weekend Review, our weekly news summary.

pageS FORUM The CLG is a production of the An in-depth look at issues WTUL Oassical Department of interest to and to Edited by Ted Hajek . Questions,comments or donations to help defray Airing every other Thursday publication costs should be addressed to: 8:00PM on WTUL, 91.5 FM. WfUL Qassical Department Center New Orleans, LA 70118 (504) 865-5887 Forum is a production of the WTUL News Department.

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