Acknowledgments Scott Lindroth YTTE Stephen Jaffe Four Pieces Quasi Sonata YTTE is available from the composer: Miriam Gideon [email protected]. Creature to Creature Four Pieces Quasi Sonata and Offering Stephen Jaffe Offering are published by . Creature to Creature is published by Mobart Music Publications

Recorded August 2008, August 2009 and January 2010. Produced and engineered by Judith Sherman Engineering and editing assistant: Jeanne Velonis

Cover image: Brian Peterson “Earth and Sky” #18, 2005 (www.brianhpetersonwordimage.com)

Support provided by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Elation www.albanyrecords.com TROY1483 albany records u.s. 915 broadway, albany, ny 12207 tel: 518.436.8814 fax: 518.436.0643 albany records u.k. box 137, kendal, cumbria la8 0xd tel: 01539 824008 © 2014 Albany Records made in the usa DDD Laura Gilbert flute Jonathan Bagg viola Daniel Lippel guitar warning: copyright subsists in all recordings issued under this label. Donald Berman piano Stacey Shames harp Elizabeth Shammash mezzo-soprano Elation is a result of the collaborative cross-relations that exist between the musicians and The Composers & The Music composers on the disc, and their enthusiasm for each other’s work. Stephen Jaffe’s Offering Scott Lindroth: YTTE was produced in 1993 as a joint commission, for flutist Laura Gilbert’s Auréole Trio and for Scott Lindroth’s work as a composer has centered on instrumental and vocal media, and includes compositions for the Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic, as well violist Jonathan Bagg’s Mallarmé ensemble. Bagg and Jaffe are colleagues at Duke University, as the Netherlands Wind Ensemble, the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Ensemble, the California E.A.R. Unit, and the Ciompi String Quartet. He has also composed music for dance, theater, and video. which led to Jaffe’s writing Four Pieces Quasi Sonata in 2006. An equal admiration for the He has received awards and fellowships from the American Academy in Rome, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Koussevitzky Foundation, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, among others. music of Scott Lindroth, also at Duke, led Gilbert and Bagg to commission his trio for the A recording of four chamber works by Lindroth was released on the CRI Emergency Music series in May 1999; other recordings may be found on the CRI and Centaur labels. Since 1990, Lindroth has lived in Mondanock Music festival while they were its directors. This produced Lindroth’s YTTE, in Durham, North Carolina, where he serves on the faculty of Duke University and is Vice Provost for the Arts.

2008. While Miriam Gideon’s playful and probing 1985 Creature to Creature was not written YTTE takes its title from a series of architectural portraits by Achilles Rizzoli (1896-1981). Rizzoli’s title, Y.T.T.E. stands for Yield To Total Elation. For most of his career, Rizzoli toiled as an architectural for these players, it seemed to add a different, powerful voice that was aesthetically consonant draftsman in San Francisco, and in his free time he cultivated a fantastical vision for a world exposi- with the rest of the music on the disc. tion of new architecture consisting of symbolic portraits of his close friends and relatives. A recluse by nature, Rizzoli never shared his work publicly, but since his death he has come to be recognized as an Once born, musical works make their way in the world as individuals. What is usually outsider artist of importance if not influence. As a teacher and administrator by day and a composer by night, I feel some affinity with Rizzoli. forgotten is the human context of their creation, the circumstances that caused the composers Though my music does not evoke the neo-classical stylings of Rizzoli’s Architectural Tectonic Exhibit that included Y.T.T.E., I do seek exaltation in the music I write. I find the veiled and generally softer and musicians to connect. That nexus is preserved here. We hope the elation that surrounded colors of the alto flute, viola, and guitar immensely attractive, and my YTTE taps into the hidden desires of these instruments and offers them a moment to shine. YTTE was commissioned by the this coming together is evoked, not just in the title, but in the character of these wonderful Monadnock Music Festival and premiered by the musicians on this recording in 2009. —Scott Lindroth recent compositions. —Jonathan Bagg Stephen Jaffe: Four Pieces Quasi Sonata Miriam Gideon: Creature to Creature Stephen Jaffe’s music has been featured at major festivals including the Nottingham, Tanglewood, Miriam Gideon (1906-1996) lived and worked in New York City for much of her life, as a student and and Oregon Bach Festivals, and performed by ensembles such as the National Symphony, the San teacher. Her mentors were Roger Sessions and Lazare Saminsky. She taught at Brooklyn College, City Francisco, North Carolina and New Jersey Symphonies, the R.A.I. of Rome, Slovenska Filharmonija, College, CUNY, the Jewish Theological Seminary, and the Manhattan School of Music, in a career that Berlin’s Spectrum Concerts, and London’s Lontano. Recent milestones include the premiere of gave her sway over many younger composers and established her as a true eminence of American the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra by the National Symphony Orchestra, and a recording of the music. Though she faced the usual hurdles for a woman composer during that time, her sophisticated Concerto for Violin and Orchestra with the Odense Symphony of Denmark. Newer compositions include artistic voice and high craftsmanship earned the early admiration of her peer composers. During her Light Dances, and String Quartet No. 2, commissioned by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society life she received many awards and commissions, culminating in 1975 with her induction into the for the Miami Quartet, as well as two orchestral works written for the North Carolina Symphony. American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. Gideon’s compositions covered a broad range of Bridge Records has issued three discs of his music. Jaffe has received the Rome Prize, Kennedy genres, but she focused increasingly on vocal music in her later years, often choosing a chamber music Center Friedheim Award, Brandeis Creative Arts Citation, fellowships from Tanglewood, the National setting that allowed the voice to be an equal partner in the instrumental mix. Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation. His disc of the Concerto for Violin, with soloist Gregory Fulkerson, received the Koussevitsky International Recording Award. In 2012, Stephen Jaffe Miriam Gideon loved poetry “almost as much as music,” in her words, and she became ever more deft was elected to the membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is Mary D.B.T. and and subtle at setting poetic texts as her career advanced. In her late piece Creature to Creature (1985) James H. Semans Professor of Music at Duke University, where he has taught since 1981. she embraces the playfulness of Nancy Cardozo’s poetic missives to various fellow species, matching their dry wit with her own rarified vocabulary, which in this piece favors heavily the intervals of the Many of my chamber compositions have featured viola, often melding its voice in combination with half-step, tri-tone, and major seventh. The flute and voice dominate the dialogue, speaking the atonal other instruments: with the mezzo-soprano and alto flute in Four Songs with Ensemble; with harp and lingua franca of the mid-late twentieth century, which Gideon elevates to a level of refined lyricism flute in Offering; in my string quartets. With piano, the veiled warmth, and also the mournful quality of such that no dissonance or spiky interval sounds anything but chocolaty-smooth. the viola offered the discovery of new and poetic joinings, and the challenge of imagining and creating —Jonathan Bagg more virtuosic features of which today’s players make this beautiful, adaptable instrument capable. Music can be many things: intellectual or architecturally captivating; but the experience of making and listening to music is for me, most potently a physical, palpable one. Four Pieces Quasi Sonata for viola and piano was commissioned with a grant from the Fromm Music Foundation, Harvard University, and composed in the summer of 2006. The work is dedicated to the violist Jonathan Bagg, featured here, who, together with pianist Donald Berman, gave the premiere performances. Dawn Kramer’s choreographic improvisation Vignette, cleverly uses kleine pop-musik in a fascinating video. The fruits of her labor may be viewed at http://dawnkramer.info/Recentwork/Vignettelhtml. —Stephen Jaffe Creature to Creature Snake Hoot-Owl L’Envoi Who let you in Be still, I pray, desist, Welcome, cricket, After I barred the gate? Hooter, hilarious. Faithful friend, The Fly It’s much too late Old dusty feathers, Once more to mourn Compose, you said, a poem for this fly To talk of sin. Perched in the high The summer’s end. Who simply will not die. The orchard bare Crotch of darkness – From secret corners And flowers gone to seed – Don’t you know what time is? Of my walls A Love poem, said I, There is no need Your wistful phrase And wrote it with a sigh To tempt or dare. What scatologic jest One voice recalls. And hung it up to dry. Calls forth such laughter So when the fly flew by, Beware, my fleet That I cannot rest? Although the rose (I cannot tell you why) Monosyllabic foe, What huge obscenity Is black with frost, He read it with his metaphysical eye. This rusty hoe – Drops through the leaves Tell me, my cricket, Yet, it was sweet, Of midnight? Stop. Or tell it me. All’s not lost. Spider Our ancient crime; Still in our fires Spider, the cloth you spin, So while I turn my head, Interlude The apple glows Spreading your substance thin, Swift through this garden thread (instrumental) While the winds gather Can hold no heat within, A stich in time. And the snows… Nor keep out the cold wind. Firefly (after Hadrian) When into winter Your geometric net Miniscule voluptuary I must climb Is jeweled with corpses, set Guest in the imaginary Up the dark passageway – With friends that you collect Gardens where the would-be poets write This time, And victims you forget. Verses quasi visionary, Come with me, Aviary, bestiary – Cricket, come to bed, Spider – how skild you are – Tell me, animula of delight – Sweet voice that lives Ambitious metaphor – What green revolutionary Within my head Stretching from star to star Thought sent your incendiary Ladders of gossamer. —Nancy Cardozo, from Spirit wandering through a summer’s night? Creature to Creature: An Animalculary Stephen Jaffe: Offering The Performers Written in 1996, Offering lasts roughly 16 minutes and is cast in a single, continuous movement. There is a beautiful, resonant poise in music with plucked string. I have been told that in Offering, I Violist Jonathan Bagg is Professor of the Practice at Duke University and a member of the Ciompi succeeded in creating a challenging part for the players, both individually, and as an ensemble. The String Quartet. His career with the Ciompi includes hundreds of concerts across the U.S. and around soulful singing or resounding qualities of each instrument predominate, to be sure, but rhythmic music the world, and many recordings. Currently co-Artistic Director of Electric Earth Concerts in New abounds as the players integrate a contemporary vocabulary of plucked notes, sonorous percussing of Hampshire, he also co-directed the Monadnock Music festival from 2007-2011. Recitals and festival the instrumental body, wind-like sounds, and ultimately, extension into the realm of additional instru- appearances have brought him to venues such as the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. and ments. In composing, I had in mind not only instrumental tradition, but also a spiritual and spatial Boston’s Jordan Hall, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Eastern Music Festival, the Portland dimension. For the premiere performances, I wrote that: Chamber Music Festival, the Highlands, Mohawk Trail, and Castle Hill festivals. His solo recordings “…I meant the title metaphorically; offering as both noun and active verb, as if trying, as in sculpture, include music for viola and piano by Robert and Clara Schumann, and by Robert Fuchs (1847-1927) for to catch that elusive moment when a gesture captures the transition from a state of readiness to an Centaur; contemporary works by Arthur Levering, Malcolm Peyton, Robert Ward, and Donald Wheelock, action. When the athlete leaps, the musician draws a bow, or when a person is moved to action, the on Albany, Bridge, Centaur and Gasparo Records. Collaborations include many notable musicians, improbable jump or realization in which they surpass themselves is both an offering (noun) and an including pianists Menahem Pressler and Bella Davidovich, saxophonist Branford Marsalis, jazz vocal- offering (verb).” ist Nnenna Freelon, and the Tokyo and Borromeo Quartets. Offering was co-commissioned by the Auréole Trio of New York and by the Mallarmé Chamber Players, with assistance from the North Carolina Arts Council. The performers on the present recording repre- Laura Gilbert, flutist, has appeared around the world as chamber musician, soloist, recitalist and sent members from each of the commissioning trios: Stacey Shames and Laura Gilbert from Aureole, guest lecturer. In addition to founding and performing with Auréole, a flute, viola and harp trio, Ms. and Jonathan Bagg, from Mallarmé. Gilbert has appeared with Musicians from Marlboro, Alexander Schneider’s Brandenburg Ensemble, the —Stephen Jaffe Borromeo, Brentano, Saint Lawrence, and Ciompi String Quartets, Chamber Music at the 92nd Street Y, Saint Luke’s Ensemble and Orchestra, The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, The New York Philharmonic and . Ms. Gilbert also performs frequently in a duo with the Greek guitarist Antigoni Goni. Ms. Gilbert’s discography includes a Grammy award for Dawn Upshaw’s Girl with the Orange Lips, two solo recordings on Koch International, and 12 discs on Koch with the Auréole Trio, the first of which was short-listed for several Grammys. Auréole is responsible for 50-plus original compositions and arrangements, many of which appear on their recordings. In 2012 she co-founded Electric Earth Concerts, a year-round music festival based in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Guitarist Daniel Lippel enjoys a diverse performing career focused on contemporary music. He has As soloist, chamber musician, and orchestral principal, Stacey Shames has appeared in the US, premiered more than 50 new solo and chamber works, many written for him, recording several of them Europe, Canada, and the Far East. Recent concerto engagements include the Riverside Symphony, on his independent label, New Focus Recordings. As the guitarist for the International Contemporary the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Louis Symphony, and the National Chamber Orchestra in Ensemble (ICE) since 2005 and new music quartet Flexible Music since 2003, he has performed Washington, DC. She won first prize in the Young Professional division of the American Harp Society at the Macau Music Festival (China), Sibelius Academy (Finland), Cologne’s Acht Brücken Festival Competition, took a top prize in the International Harp Contest in Israel, and toured for several years (Germany), and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. He has appeared as a guest with the St. as the American Harp Society Concert Artist. Ms. Shames has held the solo chair with the Chamber Paul Chamber Orchestra and New York New Music Ensemble, among others, and recorded for Kairos, Orchestra of Europe under Claudio Abbado, the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, and the Orpheus Bridge, Albany, Centaur, and Starkland. Recent recital highlights include the Museum of Contemporary Chamber Orchestra, with whom she performs and records. She concertizes extensively with Auréole, Art in Cleveland, the Center for New Music in San Francisco, and church concerts in Istanbul, Berlin, her trio of flute, viola and harp. The group has released nine recordings. and Reykjavik. Lippel has worked with many eminent composers including Mario Davidovsky, John Zorn, Magnus Lindberg, and Nils Vigeland. He received his DMA from the Manhattan School of Music, Elizabeth Shammash has a dual career as a classical vocalist and cantor. In addition to degrees in under the guidance of David Starobin. performance from the Manhattan School of Music and Boston University, she trained as a cantor at the Jewish Theological Seminary. In a career that began with opera appearances at notable venues such as Pianist Donald Berman is recognized as a chief exponent of new works by living composers, overlooked Wolf Trap, Glimmerglass and Tanglewood, Shammash is unusual for her ability to retain prominence music by 20th century masters, and recitals that link classical and modern repertoires. His two-volume in both worlds. In addition to her busy life as a cantor for a congregation in suburban Philadelphia, The Unknown Ives and The Uncovered Ruggles represents the only recordings of the complete short Shammash continues to perform with chamber music groups, symphony orchestras, summer festivals piano works of Charles Ives and Carl Ruggles extant. Other recordings include the 4-CD set Americans and, as she has for many years, in Bernstein on Broadway, created and narrated by the composer’s in Rome: Music by Fellows of the American Academy in Rome, The Light That Is Felt: Songs of Charles daughter. She has recorded several contributions to the Milken Archive of American Jewish music, Ives (with Susan Narucki, soprano), Wasting the Night: Songs of Scott Wheeler and CDs of music by Su including Great Songs of the Yiddish Stage and David Stock’s Holocaust cantata, A Little Miracle. Lian Tan (Arsis), Arthur Levering (New World), Martin Boykan (New World; Bridge), Tamar Diesendruck (Centaur), and Aaron Jay Kernis (Koch). Elation Music by Miriam Gideon Stephen Jaffe Scott Lindroth troy1483 Elation wa r ning: c TROY1483 Jonathan Bagg,viola|DonaldBerman,piano

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