Charles Wuorinen Series
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Cover art: James Flora, Untitled, tempera on paper, ca.1963, © Jim Flora Art LLC; thanks to Irwin Chusid and Barbara Economon. www.JimFlora.com TROY1077 Albany Records U.S. Albany Records U.K. 915 Broadway, Albany, NY 12207 Box 137, Kendal, Cumbria LA8 0XD Tel: 518.436.8814 Fax: 518.436.0643 Tel: 01539 824008 www.albanyrecords.com DUOs © 2008 Charles Wuorinen • Made in the USA ddd Warning: Copyright Subsists In All Recordings Issued Under This Label charles wuorinen series DuosBooklet.indd 2-1 9/25/08 12:40:48 PM 1–3. SONATA FOR GUITAR The term bicinium denotes a type of two- traditions, but much more importantly, AND PIANO (1995) part musical composition written for either with its secure and sustained future. The William Anderson, guitar voices or instruments that appeared during spare utterance of those works of the great DUOs Joan Forsyth, piano the Renaissance and Baroque eras. In the European tradition that are composed for strictest historical sense of the term, the only two musicians, whether they are called charles wuorinen series 4. NEVER AGAIN THE SAME (2006)* bicinium was a Lutheran pedagogical work by the names sonata, duo or something Wilbur Pauley, bass that provided not only musical instruction else, leave no margin for error: all is exposed Christopher Hall, tuba but also biblical training as well. Ever when writing for two contrasting mindful of the long-standing and deeply instruments. The composer’s craft and 5. ELeven Short PIECes (2006)* rooted musical traditions within which he expressive intensity had better be up to Erik Carlson, violin himself is now firmly situated, Wuorinen the creative task lest the work itself lapse Michael Caterisano, vibraphone once composed a work that he identified by into mere pedantry. These duos, spanning name as a bicinium for two oboes in 1961. slightly more than a quarter century of 6. Divertimento for ALto Though not all bicinia are in the Lutheran Wuorinen’s oeuvre, never lapse in their SAXophone and Piano (1982) tradition nor set biblical texts – Wuorinen’s intensity and invention. Written for a variety Eliot Gattegno, alto saxophone oboe bicinium conforms strictly to neither of instrumental and vocal pairings, some Eric Wubbels, piano feature – we should recall that Wuorinen conventional and others not, they display an believes, as that great Lutheran J.S. Bach impressive fecundity of sources and outward 7. PerCussion Duo (1979)† did before him, that all music making and forms. What they offer the interested John Ferrari, marimba/vibraphone indeed all art is fundamentally an act of listener or performer by way of Margaret Kampmeier, piano worship. The model that I refer to here then a “lesson” then concerns the diversity of is not that pedagogy of the banal technical means through which the composer’s 8. PsaLM 39 (1979) etude, it is instead the deep expressive imagination may manifest itself. Wuorinen, Thomas Meglioranza, baritone lesson of Bach’s music even when that music like other great masters before him, has William Anderson, guitar is presented to us in those other allegedly consumed the music available to him pedagogical genres like the Invention – genres (always taking that long-view of musical 9–11. Duo Sonata (2004)* that now appear to have weathered the tests history) and has internalized it as part of Robert Aitken, flute of time and musical judgment. While the his personal vision. While he is most often James Avery, piano duos that are presented on this current disc associated with the “twelve-tone” school, are not literally bicinia, like all of Wuorinen’s and particularly some specifically American * first recording music from the past three decades they branch thereof, I don’t personally find such † orginally issued by CRI take the long view of musical history and an attempt at categorization especially align themselves not only with its expressive helpful in listening to Wuorinen’s music. DuosBooklet.indd 2-3 9/25/08 12:40:49 PM Such comparisons usually proceed from the both melodic and harmonic gestures. Yet in great affinity and insight for Wuorinen’s do best or most comfortably, the ever- assumption that “twelve-tone technique” other ways the instruments are completely holistic approach to the unusual duo treated varying compositional dimensions within denotes some sort of closed grammar of at odds. The dynamic capacities of the two in this instance. which Wuorinen’s staggering output has shared structures and procedures that in instruments are so different that a tension been framed are always just more grist for fact don’t seem to exist at all once you begin and restrictive boundary could be expected Never Again the Same sets James Tate’s poem his musical mill. This work is ostensibly to closely examine the music of several to circumscribe this work, but it does not. of the same title for the seemingly unusual divided into “7 Short Pieces” and “4 Shorter composers or even one individual composer Wuorinen instead exploits these differences combination of bass voice with tuba. The Pieces” almost all of which are but one over the course of their career, especially if it by making virtues of them throughout the compressed but powerfully sensual shared or two measures long – complete and was a rich career. Wuorinen’s specific choice piece. Cast in three movements that proceed tessitura of this pairing imbue the work coherent in themselves, but always making of pitches and harmony are undoubtedly in the traditional Fast-Slow-Fast manner, the with a masculine eroticism that expose a greater whole in their juxtaposition into critical to the way his musical surfaces strike beginning of the work presents the guitar subtle elements of Tate’s poem that might a continuous statement. Although Webern the ear, but they speak to me less about and piano in a fully integrated perpetual easily have otherwise gone unnoticed. In now meets Stravinsky in Wuorinen, there is his poetics than what I hear reflected in motion machine that undermines the Wuorinen’s setting, the terror that is invoked not even a hint of derivativeness in this music the depths below that surface: a steadfast perception of two contrasting instruments by Tate’s preternatural sunset and it’s despite the precision with which we might commitment to the principals and aesthetics and replaces it instead with the impression of accompanying series of explosive climaxes maps single musical features back to their of western musical tradition directed some new and wonderful instrument capable become potently visceral in a manner that precedents in the works of earlier composers now through his own unique voice. What of sounds and articulations that we had never make Wuorinen’s compositional choice of of the past century. The palindromic close characterizes that voice if not adherence to a heard before. The initial gesture that opens bass and tuba seem suddenly both obvious of the last piece mirrors perfectly the school or technique? Despite this composer’s the work is itself a familiar Wuorinenism: and inevitable. pitch-classes in the elongated gesture of the astounding and continued prolificacy, he has a syncopated overlay shared between two opening, but this is not Webern’s or even never swerved from his avowed mission to voices in similar motion. Here they are The neo-Webernian Eleven Short Pieces Dallapiccola’s palindrome, it is Wuorinen’s create a music that – as one commentator has unfolding chromatically opposed pentatonic was composed in 2006 for the New York music through and through. As I listen to put it – is always “of drive and flow.” fragments that will eventually become Miniaturist Ensemble. It remains pure the opening sustained high violin C and then reconciled in a final vertical harmony some Wuorinen despite the obvious nod towards its subsequent repetitions on the G above Sonata for Guitar and Piano was composed eleven minutes later. Although Wuorinen’s the Viennese twelve-tone master for whom it, I can think only of those other musical in 1995 as a commission for guitarist score reveals that great pains have been the musical aphorism became an iconic texts that are all Wuorinen’s: the opening William Anderson and pianist Joan Forsyth taken to seamlessly resolve the differences gesture. Wuorinen’s ability to seize any span of the Lament from the Reliquary for Igor who premiered the work that same year. It between the instruments, the performers of musical duration, form or genre and make Stravinsky, the gestures that permeate the counterposes two instruments that share themselves – Anderson and Forsyth – must it firmly his own remains one of the surest cascading structure of Rhapsody for Violin some important material features such as be heartily lauded for having achieved measures of his artistic accomplishment. and Orchestra and then all those other works producing sound by striking strings over something transcendent of mere faithfulness While other lesser composers are sometimes in which Wuorinen speaks uniquely through a resonant body and still other musical to Wuorinen’s instructions. The balance exposed when forced to move beyond the violin as his primary expressive voice. features such as a balanced capacity for and clarity of this performance demonstrate the technical boundaries of what they DuosBooklet.indd 4-5 9/25/08 12:40:49 PM The 1982 Divertimento for Alto Saxophone and tempting, Psalm 39 is at first passionately obvious examples – seemed to mark a in Wuorinen’s music of the 1980s and and Piano is dedicated to saxophonist chaste, even repentant in tone. The music special place for the flute in Wuorinen’s thereafter as a regression or even “softening” Christopher Ford with whom Wuorinen is initially characterized by a liturgical output. While Wuorinen’s language and of the composer’s harmonic language, himself premiered the work.