I nfflfn ^(fe£k i^£to^ Wfr EDITION PETERS »8@ ^^ '^^ ^p52^ RECENT ADDITIONS TO OUR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC CATALOGUE P66905 George Crumb Gnomic Variations $20.00 Piano Solo P66965 Pastoral Drone 12.50 Organ Solo P67212 Daniel Pinkham Reeds 10.00 Oboe Solo P67097 Roger Reynolds Islands From Archipelago: I. Summer Island (Score) 16.00 Oboe and Computer-generated tape* P67191 Islands from Archipelago: II. Autumn Island 15.00 Marimba Solo P67250 Mathew Rosenblum Le Jon Ra (Score) 8.50 Two Violoncelli P67236 Bruce J. Taub Extremities II (Quintet V) (Score) 12.50 Fl, CI, Vn, Vc, Pf P66785 Charles Wuorinen Fast Fantasy (Score)+ 20.00 Violoncello and Piano P67232 Bagatelle 10.00 Piano Solo + 2 Scores neededforperformance * Performance materials availablefrom our rental department C.F. PETERS CORPORATION I 373 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016 • (212) 686-4147 J 1989 FESTIVAL OF CONTEMPORARY MUSIC Oliver Knussen, Festival Coordinator 4. J* Sr* » sponsored by the TANGLEWOOD MUSIC CENTER Leon Fleisher, Artistic Director Gilbert Kalish, Chairman of the Faculty I Lukas Foss, Composer-in-Residence Oliver Knussen, Coordinator of Contemporary Music Activities Bradley Lubman, Assistant to Oliver Knussen Richard Ortner, Administrator James E. Whitaker, Chief Coordinator Harry Shapiro, Orchestra Manager Works presented at this year's Festival were prepared under the guidance of the following Tanglewood Music Center Faculty: Frank Epstein Joel Krosnick Lukas Foss Donald MacCourt Margo Garrett Gustav Meier Dennis Helmrich Peter Serkin Gilbert Kalish Yehudi Wyner Oliver Knussen 1989 Visiting Composer/Teachers Bernard Rands Dmitri Smirnov Elena Firsova Peter Schat Tod Machover Kaija Saariaho Ralph Shapey The Tanglewood Music Center is maintained for advanced study in music and sponsored by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Seiji Ozawa, Music Director Kenneth Haas, Managing Director Daniel R. Gustin, Manager of Tanglewood The 1989 Festival of Contemporary Music is sponsored by a gift from Dr. Raymond and Hannah H. Schneider. Contemporary Music at Tanglewood I hope it is a healthy sign of the times that it seems to become more difficult, perhaps superfluous, each year to write an intro- duction to this Festival which is supposed to be multifaceted or, to use current jargon, pluralistic in aim. But perhaps the identifi- cation of some elements that can be found here in hopefully peaceful, characterful coexistence may be useful, so here goes. Firstly, it is a pleasure to welcome back to Tanglewood someone who as a very young composer took part in the first ses- sions of the Berkshire Music Center—our composer-in-residence Lukas Foss, who seems at 67 to be a younger and more vital musician than some composers half his age. Among a number of works being pre- pared here during his residency, three—as Lukas points out, "the three E's"—will be performed during the week: Exeunt for or- chestra, Embros for ensemble, and Echoi for four virtuosi (perhaps it is another healthy sign of the times that the extraordi- nary technical demands of Echoi can today be met by TMC fellowship players, by the way). Mr. Foss has also provided our open- ing Fanfare in the form of a new version of the March from his opera Griffelkin, which had its first live performance in the '50s. The music of Aaron Copland is being celebrated widely on both sides of the lawn throughout the summer; our contribution includes two major rarities. The ballet Hear Ye! Hear Ye! is one of the big lacunae in our knowledge of Copland's work in the 1930s, a sizeable score which has re- mained unperformed for more than half a century after its initial outings by Ruth Page's company. Set in a courtroom during a murder trial, its evocations of dancing girls, honeymoon couples, and voodoo magic have already given myself and the TangJewGDd performers not a few moments of hilarity Music during rehearsals, and setting your mind in "spot the reference" mode won't go unre- Center warded either! Skyline is a very large and, to me, self-contained part of the almost The terrifying quantity of interesting totally neglected Music for a Great City, music being produced by younger com- which Copland wrote for the London Sym- posers in this country today is at least partly phony Orchestra in 1964. I was lucky represented by five major pieces: Anne enough to attend Copland's early rehear- LeBaron's virtuoso percussion Rite of the sals for the premiere of this astonishingly Black Sun, Peter Lieberson's Tashi Quartet, vivid sound-piece, an exploration of mas- Stephen Mosko's The Road to Tiphareth, sive chordal sonorities which effortlessly John Watrous' Paul Jacobs Memorial or- spans the stylistic gap between the tonality chestral commission Protean Geog- of, say, the Third Symphony and the raphies, and Jay Alan Yim's Geometry and twelve-tone Connotations. Delirium; and from other countries are HK I was surprised and delighted when Gil- Gruber's Cello Concerto for Yo-Yo Ma and bert Kalish told me of a not-yet-performed Boston Musica Viva (Austria), Bright Concerto for cello, piano, and string or- Sheng's Chinese Love Songs, and Kaija chestra by Ralph Shapey, written a few Saariaho's Lichtbogen (Finland). years ago for himself and Joel Krosnick. I Both Saariaho's work and Yim's had just heard Shapey's recent magnificent Geometry involve live-electronics, a de- Symphonie Concertante for the Philadel- velopment which is also reflected by the phia Orchestra, and had been deeply im- extension of the Electro-Acoustic Preludes pressed by this major statement of a great toward the substantial involvement of live individualist composer at the height of his performers, and written about extensively powers. It is an honour to present the new by Tod Machover elsewhere in this book- concerto here, and to welcome Ralph let. These "extras," along with a ballet Shapey back to Tanglewood to conduct it. score, symphony, and concerto in addition From a new Concerto to a "new" Sym- to the orchestral program and many extra- phony, the Fourth by Alfred Schnittke, demanding chamber works, have been which I purchased at a Moscow music worked into the schedule with spectacular store a few years ago out of curiosity, un- ease by James Whitaker and Carol Wood- prepared for the fact that, although scored worth. Thanks also, as always, to Leon for modest forces, this is a major spiritual Fleisher, Gilbert Kalish, Dan Gustin, and statement by a composer working in the Richard Ortner for their unstinting support pre-Gorbachev USSR. It made a deep im- and problem-solving, and a special word pression on audience and musicians when of extra gratitude to Peter Serkin, Joel Kros- we performed it at the 1988 Aldeburgh nick, and my assistant Bradley Lubman, Festival, and I could not resist bringing it to who have all done a great deal more to- Tanglewood. We are also happy to be able ward this Festival than is apparent on to welcome two much younger composers paper. from the Soviet Union, Elena Firsova and Dmitri Smirnov (who also happen to be married to each other), whose works are attracting a great deal of attention and ad- miration abroad. Firsova's Earthly Life and Smirnov's Seasons are both highly charac- —Oliver Knussen teristic examples of their work, and sure to Coordinator of win them many friends here as they have Contemporary Music Activities, already in Europe. Tanglewood Music Center Contemporary Music at Tanglewood The goal of last year's series of Electro- ing two very contrasting examples here. Acoustic Preludes was to convey the mes- Neither piece uses electronic sound (both sage that electronic music has moved out being played on the piano), but have rather of the research labs and scientific institu- used the computer to help compose the tions in the last five years, and closer and music itself. In the case of David Cope's closer to the musical mainstream, in both EMI system, the computer attempts to the concert and commercial worlds. This analyze and "understand" aspects of exist- year's concerts have been organized to ing music. The programs work by first ex- give an even greater idea of just how di- tracting general qualities or so-called "har- verse the electronic music field is these monic mush" from a group of pieces by a days, and to give a glimpse of how many particular composer. Then another set of different types of composers are increas- programs looks for typical themes, turns- ingly attracted to the medium. This ex- of-phrase, and even ornamentation by that treme diversity has, I think, made elec- same composer, which are turned into a tronic music one of the more exciting areas sort of catalogue of "signatures" that such a of the contemporary music world. composer might use. The computer then The term "electro-acoustic" is a bit of a combines its "harmonic mush" with its de- misnomer for this year's concerts. It is the rived "signatures" to create a new piece use of the computer, rather than the that such a composer might have written. medium of electronic sound itself, that is We present two pieces generated by this the common thread. All of the composers EMI system, one in the style of Mozart and presented here have integrated computers the other of Scott Joplin, which use the into their creative work, often in ways that same "harmonic mush," but a different set challenge traditional definitions of "com- of composer "signatures." Clarence Bar- position" and even of "music. "This is most low, on the other hand, has attempted to evident in the works that will be presented formulate an entire theory of music, ex- on the first Prelude concert.