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Now Again New Music Music by Bernard Rands Linda Reichert, Artistic Director Jan Krzywicki, Conductor with Guest Janice Felty, Mezzo-Soprano Now Again

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Now Again New Music Music by Bernard Rands Linda Reichert, Artistic Director Jan Krzywicki, Conductor with Guest Janice Felty, Mezzo-Soprano Now Again Network for Now Again New Music Music by Bernard Rands Linda Reichert, Artistic Director Jan Krzywicki, Conductor with guest Janice Felty, mezzo-soprano Now Again Music by Bernard Rands Network for New Music Linda Reichert, Artistic Director Jan Krzywicki, Conductor www.albanyrecords.com TROY1194 albany records u.s. 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 with guest Janice Felty, tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 albany records u.k. box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd mezzo-soprano tel: 01539 824008 © 2010 albany records made in the usa ddd waRning: cOpyrighT subsisTs in all Recordings issued undeR This label. The story is probably apocryphal, but it was said his students at Harvard had offered a prize to anyone finding a wantonly decorative note or gesture in any of Bernard Rands’ music. Small ensembles, single instrumental lines and tones convey implicitly Rands’ own inner, but arching, songfulness. In his recent songs, Rands has probed the essence of letter sounds, silence and stress in a daring voyage toward the center of a new world of dramatic, poetic expression. When he wrote “now again”—fragments from Sappho, sung here by Janice Felty, he was also A conversation between composer David Felder and filmmaker Elliot Caplan about Shamayim. refreshing his long association with the virtuosic instrumentalists of Network for New Music, the Philadelphia ensemble marking its 25th year in this recording. These songs were performed in a 2009 concert for Rands’ 75th birthday — and offer no hope for winning the prize for discovering extraneous notes or gestures. They offer, however, an intimate revelation of the composer’s grasp of color and shade, his joy in the pulsing heart, his thrill at the glimpse of what’s just ahead. -Daniel Webster The Music Commissioned by the English ensemble Walcott Songs: These are not conventional The cello is played pizzicato throughout, sug- Prelude and “...sans voix parmi les voix…” Capricorn and the Arts Council of Great Britain, “settings” for voice with cello accompaniment, of gesting the timbre of a drum and the character for Flute, Viola & Harp are miniatures for Scherzi consists of nine short movements — poems to music — the poems are beautiful and of a calypso. Although composed last, Endings that ensemble and constitute two sections five “scherzi” movements and four “mobile” powerful in their own right! Rather, the texts are states musical material that is carried through of a work in progress. “...sans voix parmi movements. The “scherzi” are tutti move- analyzed and explored through fragmentation, and embedded in the subsequent two songs. les voix...,” commissioned by the Chicago ments but with one instrument having a solo reordering, repetitions and changing pace of The Walcott Songs are dedicated to my Symphony Orchestra Association for a con- function in each. The “mobiles,” which are delivery. Thus the poems find new meanings and friends Abby and Norman Fischer. cert celebrating the 70th birthday of Pierre trios, may be played in any order — one expression, in a musical context, often beyond that “now again” — fragments from Sappho, Boulez, was composed first. The brief Prelude being placed between each of the “scherzi” imagined or intended by the poet. The songs were commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation was commissioned to celebrate the 25th OR they may be omitted completely, as in composed between 2002 and 2004, in reverse for the Network for New Music, was completed anniversary of the June in Buffalo Festival. this performance. order from that of their final performance order. in September 2006. The title “...sans voix parmi les voix...” is Although certain playful uses of tempo, The first of these three songs to be As the title states, the texts are from the taken from an early poem by Samuel Beckett. meter and rhythm characterize the work, composed, The Fist, was commissioned by extant fragments of Sappho’s poetry. Only The compositional technique mirrors Beckett’s the 19th century Scherzo was not a model. the Guggenheim Museum, New York, for a one complete poem exists and the remainder literary technique of recycling a limited Rather, the connections (which are no more celebration of the West Indian American poet range from tiny, disconnected phrases to single number of brief, highly-charged modules of than delicate allusions) are to features found Derek Walcott. His readings were interspersed words and parts of words. A large amount of language (here, musical elements) whose in the Scherzi Musicali of Monteverdi, namely with short compositions by five American conjecture is therefore necessary in order to continually new and often-surprising juxtaposi- the cantabile melodic line of the canzonetta composers, each employing a Derek Walcott discern (imagine) the poet’s precise meanings tions give rise to new meanings. All this is style and later instrumental playing actions poem, for voice and one instrument of their and intent. In this context, the composer felt in a terse but elegant texture of minimal but such as pizzicato and tremolando. choosing. The cello has a dominant role as it free to assemble fragments at will creating a expansive discourse. The absence of the flute These delicate miniatures do not aim at pursues its “fantasia,” seemingly independent “libretto” in which a dialogue between Sappho from the first part of “...sans voix parmi les the monumental developments characteristic of the voice’s concerns. Midsummer, Tobago, (as narrator) and other young ladies conveys voix...” is balanced by the aphoristic Prelude, of other pieces written for this instrumental commissioned by Philadelphia’s Network for the poet’s love and desire for women. In a whose material is a condensed form of the combination. The piano is deliberately New Music, was the next to be composed. “feminine voice, desiring other women” she flute’s solo “cadenza” which marks its entry restrained from its customary role in this Here, the text is maximally processed beginning sings, again and again, of desire and yearning; in “...sans voix parmi les voix...” As the work respect, and in place of traditional development with single, essential words, then combinations of “the amorous pleasures women share on in progress develops, an interlude and final processes which require dramatic climaxes and of two words, then three etc. until the poem soft beds” (Page duBois). Thus a text is created movement will be added. reiterations for consummation, the aim was is finally delivered in its original format and for a Cantata Erotica in which the four vocal to create a labyrinth of interrelationships and integrity — the imagery and intensity intact. sections suggest, in turn, an Invocation; connections in muted, miniature forms. a Convocation; a Consummation and an The Composer made a wonderful and dedicated contribution The Performers Introspection. These are connected by three The distinctive character to the music of our time. Rands’ works are Janice Felty is recognized brief instrumental interludes. and originality of Bernard widely performed and frequently commercially as a leading interpreter of Sappho was a musician who sang or Rands’ music have been recorded. His work, Canti d’Amor, recorded by contemporary music, having recited her poems, accompanying herself on the variously described as Chanticleer, won a Grammy Award in 2000. premièred, performed and lyre and sometimes on a small harp. In fact, she ‘plangent lyricism’ with a Born in England, Rands became an recorded works by John “wrote songs, she wrote for the ear, with all the ‘dramatic intensity’ and American citizen in 1983. He has been Adams, Philip Glass, John need for repetition and the quickly recognized a ‘musicality and clarity of idea allied to a honored by the American Academy and Harbison, Lee Hoiby, Tod Machover, Judith phrase that song requires” (Page duBois). sophisticated and elegant technical mastery,’ Institute of the Arts and Letters; Broadcast Weir and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich among others. With these qualities dominating the fragmen- qualities developed from his studies with Music, Inc.; the Guggenheim Foundation; She is also well known for traditional chamber tary poems, the composer has responded in a Dallapiccola and Berio; through more than a the National Endowment for the Arts; music, recital repertoire, and opera. She musical idiom somewhat different from that hundred published works and many recordings, Meet the Composer; the Barlow, Fromm has performed John Harbison’s Mottetti di normally associated with his music. Here, the he has been firmly established as a major and Koussevitsky Foundations, among many Montale and his North and South, Zwilich’s harmonic language is simpler, more direct and figure in contemporary music. His work Canti others. In 2004, Rands was inducted into Passages, Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and the melodic lines (both vocal and instrumental) del Sole, premièred by Paul Sperry, Zubin the American Academy of Arts & Letters. Bernstein’s Songfest, as well as a staged are essentially conjunct in their movement. Mehta and the New York Philharmonic, won His many orchestral commissions include version of Judith Weir’s Consolations of The rhythms of the vocal lines directly the 1984 Pulitzer Prize in Music. His large the New York Philharmonic; Carnegie Hall; Scholarship; and the première of Steven reflect the syllabic speech patterns of the orchestral suites Le Tambourin won the 1986 the Boston Symphony Orchestra; the Los Stucky’s To Whom I Said Farewell. poems and melismatic settings are reserved Kennedy Center Friedheim Award. Conductors Angeles Philharmonic; the Philadelphia Ms. Felty has sung with the National for moments of fantasy. The composer has said including Barenboim, Boulez, Berio, Mehta, Orchestra; the National Symphony Orchestra; Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the “I could not imagine these texts being sung in Muti, Ozawa, Rilling, Sawallisch, Schuller, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Many Seattle Symphony, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, disjointed vocal lines typical of the sound world Slatkin, and Zinman, among others, have chamber works have resulted from commis- Bargemusic, Aspen Music Festival, Theatre de of so much post-Second Viennese School music.
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