559199 bk Helps US 12/01/2004 11:54 am Page 8 Robert HELPS AMERICAN CLASSICS (1928-2001) ROBERT HELPS Shall We Dance Piano Quartet • Postlude • Nocturne Spectrum Concerts Berlin 8.559199 8 559199 bk Helps US 12/01/2004 11:54 am Page 2 Robert Helps (1928-2001) ROBERT HELPS (1928-2001) Shall We Dance • Piano Quartet • Postlude • Nocturne • The Darkened Valley (John Ireland) 1 Shall We Dance for Piano (1994) 11:09 Robert Helps was Professor of Music at the University of Minneapolis, and elsewhere. His later concerts included Piano Quartet for Piano, Violin, Viola and Cello (1997) 25:55 South Florida, Tampa, and the San Francisco memorial solo recitals of the music of renowned Conservatory of Music. He was a recipient of awards in American composer Roger Sessions at both Harvard and 2 I. Prelude 10:24 composition from the National Endowment for the Arts, Princeton Universities, an all-Ravel recital at Harvard, 3 II. Intermezzo 2:24 the Guggenheim, Ford, and many other foundations, and and a solo recital in Town Hall, NY. His final of a 1976 Academy Award from the Academy of Arts compositions include Eventually the Carousel Begins, for 4 III. Scherzo 3:02 and Letters. His orchestral piece Adagio for Orchestra, two pianos, A Mixture of Time for guitar and piano, which 5 IV. Postlude 8:12 which later became the middle movement of his had its première in San Francisco in June 1990 by Adam 6 V. Coda – The Players Gossip 1:53 Symphony No. 1, won a Fromm Foundation award and Holzman and the composer, The Altered Landscape was premièred by Leopold Stokowski and the Symphony (1992) for organ solo and Shall We Dance (1994) for 7 Postlude for Horn, Violin and Piano (1964) 9:11 of the Air (formerly the NBC Symphony) at the piano solo, Piano Trio No. 2, and a piano quartet Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. His commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation. 8 Nocturne for String Quartet (1960) 8:09 Piano Concerto No. 1 was commissioned by the Thorne He died in 2001. Music Fund and first performed by the composer with the Shall We Dance was written in 1994, after a long JOHN IRELAND (1879–1962) Manhattan Conservatory orchestra. His Piano Concerto hiatus, a period of silence from the composer. It was No. 2 was commissioned through the Ford Foundation by written for the pianist Russel Sherman who gave the 9 The Darkened Valley for Piano (ca. 1919) 3:41 Richard Goode and performed by him with the Oakland world première of the piece on the 2nd of April, 1996, in (CA) Symphony. Robert Helps served as professor of the Kathryn Bache Miller Theatre at the Columbia piano at the New England Conservatory, the San University School of the Arts. Robert Helps often referred Francisco Conservatory, Princeton University, Stanford to it as one of his most powerful pieces. Janine Jansen (tracks 2-8), Quinten de Roos (track 8), Violin University, the University of California at Berkeley, and He wrote: The title Shall We Dance came to me Ronald Carbone (track 8), Hartmut Rohde (tracks 2-6), Viola the Manhattan School of Music. He was artist-in- compellingly and spontaneously about half way through Frank S. Dodge, Cello residence (pianist) at the University of California-Davis in composing this piece. I never fight a title that emerges in 1973. He was recorded extensively as pianist, composer, this fashion. Despite the casual sound of the title, this is Ron Schaaper, Horn and pianist/composer on such labels as Victor, Columbia, not a flippant piece. It is, however, sensual. “Dance” Daniel Blumenthal, Piano (tracks 2-7) Composers Recordings Inc., Deutsche Grammophon, intrudes all over the place, both consciously (i.e., the Robert Helps, Piano (tracks 1 & 9) New World, Desto, Son Nova, and GM Recordings. “tune” of a Mischa Levitski waltz that my mother played Many of his compositions, including his Symphony No. 1 a lot when I was a kid) and unconsciously (i.e., American (Naumburg Award) and Gossamer Noons for voice and “popular” music – Ravel – etc.). The dance rhythm orchestra, are recorded. He was very active as a solo and disintegrates, basically self-destructs towards the climax Shall We Dance recorded live in the Kammermusiksaal der Philharmonie on November 6th, 2000 chamber music pianist throughout the United States. His of the piece only to regenerate slowly later and proceed to major teachers were Abby Whiteside for piano, and the end. Shall We Dance pays a special homage to the Piano Quartet recorded in the Kammermusiksaal der Philharmonie on April 1st, 2003 Roger Sessions for composition, and he toured pedal, that fabulous pianistic resource that only pianists Postlude recorded live in the Kammermusiksaal der Philharmonie on September 16th, 2002 extensively with such internationally famous performers have, the lack of which makes even the wonderful Nocturne recorded in the Kammermusiksaal der Philharmonie on January 22nd, 2003 as Bethany Beardslee, Isidore Cohen, Rudolf Kolisch, orchestral transcriptions by Ravel of his own piano works The Darkened Valley recorded live in the Kammermusiksaal der Philharmonie on November 6th, 2000 Phyllis Curtin, soprano, and Aaron Copland, and for fade when compared to the original. many years performed solo and chamber works, many of The Quartet for piano, violin, viola and cello was them world premières, for internationally known chamber written in 1997 for the Sergey Koussevitzky Music Producer and Engineer: Christian Feldgen, Schalloran Tonstudio, Berlin music and contemporary music organizations in New Foundation in the Library of Congress and dedicated to York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, the memory of Sergey and Natalie Koussevitzky. The 8.559199 2 7 8.559199 559199 bk Helps US 12/01/2004 11:54 am Page 6 Frank Dodge world première took place on the 14th of December, somewhat the perception; 1997, in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. 5 a good-natured finale. The title of the movement, The cellist Frank S. Dodge is founder and artistic director of Spectrum Concerts by members of the Dunsmuir Piano Quartet. Coda – the Players Gossip, pretty well describes one Berlin. He studied with Aldo Parisot at the Yale Graduate School of Music, and after The composer wrote as follows: In music, long way of looking at it. his move to Europe in 1982 continued working with the cellists Eberhard Finke, Pierre (several movement) pieces deal with “emotions” and Fournier and Maurice Gendron. He has performed often with the Berlin Philharmonic “rhythm” (pacing) as does a long prose narrative (novel), The Postlude for horn, violin and piano was written Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Spain and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. Frank but without the encumbrance of words (i.e., a “plot”). in 1964. It is Part III of Serenade, a series of compositions Dodge plays a cello by Antonio Casini from Modena that dates from 1676. His How music gets at us in this fashion, directly, without commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation. musical endeavours have received international support and acknowledgement from words, how a composer can set up a mood through the use The Nocturne for string quartet was completed in the Ernst von Siemens Foundation, the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund for Music, the of only twelve pitches, that produces a similar emotion in November of 1960. It is Part II of Serenade. Robert Helps Koussevitzky Foundation for Music, the Aaron Copland Fund for Music, the Robert practically all sensitive people listening, remains a inscribed the original score with, “for my parents”. In his Helps Music Trust, and others. He has recorded numerous twentieth-century works by mystery. The quartet, in five movements, is a bit like own note on the work he wrote: It belongs to an esoteric American composers with Spectrum Concerts Berlin for RIAS (DeutschlandRadio) looking at a piece of jewellery or a painting from five very genre of pieces that hardly ever get performed, single and RBB (Radio Berlin/Brandenburg). He has also recorded for CRI and Naxos. different angles, getting very different perceptions, but movement pieces for string quartet. I later incorporated basically just one new look each time. The titles suggest the Nocturne into a yet more apt-not-to-be-performed Ron Schaaper something of the mood content – Prelude, Intermezzo, work - a chamber music “happening” entitled Serenade, a Scherzo, Postlude and, perhaps a bit on the odd side, coda work in three movements, performable as a single work The horn player Ron Schaaper plays regularly with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in – The Players Gossip. The inspiration for this somewhat or as separate works, of which the Nocturne is the middle Amsterdam. His teachers include Peter Hoekmeijer and Richard Bissil, and he is winner of peculiar title comes from a comment made by Chopin movement. It is very much a mood piece, the mood being numerous competitions including the Princess Christina Competition in The Hague and the before the publication of his famous “Funeral March” in the tradition of the numerous Mahler and Bartók “night National Youth Horn Competition in Amsterdam. Piano Sonata No. 2. The last movement of Chopin’s music” movements which make their appearances in Sonata, the movement after the funeral march, is well these composers’ string quartets and symphonic works. It known to us by its popular sub-title “The Wind Over the is predominately a gentle movement, “night music” heard Grave”, a title probably as unknown to Chopin as from afar. It does, however, have its share of “filigree” “Moonlight Sonata” was to Beethoven. In a letter to a passage-work and an occasional “muted” climax. The friend Chopin described the last two movements of his combination of delicacy, even wistfulness, and Sonata as “a funeral march followed by a bit of gossip”.