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2012 Rodeo Queen of Heaven (2010): Libby Larsen'S Fusion of Chants and Clarinet's Unique American Voice Wonkak Kim
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COLLEGE OF MUSIC
RODEO QUEEN OF HEAVEN (2010):
LIBBY LARSEN'S FUSION OF CHANTS AND CLARINET’S UNIQUE AMERICAN VOICE
By
WONKAK KIM
A Treatise submitted to the College of Music in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Music
Degree Awarded: Fall Semester, 2012 Wonkak Kim defended this treatise on November 5, 2012. The members of the supervisory committee were:
Frank Kowalsky Professor Directing Treatise
Matthew Shaftel University Representative
Deborah Bish Committee Member
Eric Ohlsson Committee Member
The Graduate School has verified and approved the above-named committee members, and certifies the treatise has been approved in accordance with university requirements.
ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to many individuals who provided me invaluable advices, guidance, and support in completing this treatise. I am forever indebted to Dr. Libby Larsen who spent a great deal of her valuable time with me and who also wrote a piece worthy of more attention than this treatise could possible provide. Her insight and generosity are simply breathtaking. I feel extremely fortunate and honored to be a student of Dr. Frank Kowalsky, my major professor. I am constantly inspired by his unfathomable musicianship, intelligence, and devotion to his students. I would not have been able to complete this treatise and my doctoral studies without his unrelenting support. I am also grateful for my former teachers Professor Donald Oehler and Mr. Kenneth Lee for guiding me to find my own musical vocation and prepare for my career. I owe much to my committee members, Dr. Deborah Bish, Dr. Eric Ohlsson, and Dr. Matthew Shaftel, for their kind advice and generous time. I would like to thank Dr. Caroline Bridger for her tireless support and help with the revision process. I am especially thankful to Dr. Don Gibson, the Dean of Florida State University’s College of Music, who helped me to discover and realize some remarkable opportunities, and to Dr. Leo Welch, who spent countless number of hours with me to guide me through the commission and recording process for Rodeo Queen of Heaven. I would like to thank my colleagues of enhakē who joined me through the commissioning process, world premiere, and recording. They provided me endless support in making the entire project came to a reality. I am also grateful for their kind assistance in reviewing my treatise drafts and giving me valuation suggestions. I look forward to continued collaboration for years to come. I owe Dr. Yoomi Paick a great deal for helping me with my musical examples. Finally, I would like to express my infinite love and gratitude to my father, Yeonkwon Kim; my mother, Youngsun Cho; and my sister Hyemin Kim. You are my heroes and greatest
iii advocates. And, finally, to my fiancée, Grace Eun-Hye Choi, for her confidence and patience in me.
iv TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Musical Examples ...... vi
Abstract ...... viii
INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1. LIBBY LARSEN: BIOGRAPHY ...... 3 1.1 Larsen’s Eclectic Musical Upbringing: From Chants to Dixieland ...... 3 1.2 Education ...... 5 1.3 Achievements ...... 7 1.4 Music and Language ...... 8 2. CLARINET IN LARSEN’S CHAMBER MUSIC ...... 12 2.1 Libby Larsen and The Clarinet ...... 12 2.2 Annotated Bibliography of Larsen’s Chamber Works with Clarinet ...... 14 3. RODEO QUEEN OF HEAVEN ...... 20 3.1 Background and The Commission Process ...... 20 3.2 Musical Analysis and Performance Guide ...... 22 3.3 Conclusion ...... 38 4. A CONVERSATION WITH LIBBY LARSEN ...... 39 A. Images of Arthur Lopez’s Rodeo Reina del Cielo ...... 48
B. Program Note to Rodeo Queen of Heaven by Libby Larsen ...... 50
C. Authorization Letters ...... 51
REFERENCES ...... 52
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ...... 55
v LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES
1a Excerpt from Kyrie of In Festis B. Mariae Virginis ...... 23
1b Excerpt from Gloria of In Festis B. Mariae Virginis ...... 23
1c Excerpt from Santus and Benedictus of In Festis B. Mariae Virginis ...... 23
1d Excerpt from Agnus Dei of In Festis B. Mariae Virginis ...... 24
2 Introduction, mm. 1-2 ...... 25
3 Introduction mm. 3-5 ...... 26
4 Clarinet and piano parts, mm. 10-16 ...... 27
5a Violin and cello parts, mm. 11-15 ...... 28
5b Clarinet, violin, and cello parts, mm. 16-19 ...... 28
6 Score mm. 19-20 ...... 29
7 5-32 set sequence mm. 20-21 ...... 30
8 Piano part mm. 22-23 ...... 30
9a Clarinet, violin, and cello parts mm. 47-53 ...... 31
9b Score mm. 54-56 ...... 32
10a Violin, cello, and piano mm. 57-59 ...... 32
10b Clarinet, violin, and cello mm. 60-62 ...... 33
11 Clarinet, violin and cello parts from the Gloria section mm.70-77 ...... 33
12 Piano part mm. 81-87 ...... 34
13 Piano part mm. 91-93 ...... 35
vi 14 Clarinet, violin, and cello part mm. 104-109 ...... 35
15a Score mm. 170-172 ...... 36
15b Score mm. 186-189 ...... 37
16 Clarinet, violin, and cello part mm. 205-213 ...... 37
vii ABSTRACT
Libby Larsen is widely recognized as one of the premiere living American composers. Her lasting influence on every genre of music is constantly asserted through ongoing performances of her works throughout the world. This treatise mainly focus’s on Libby Larsen’s recent chamber Rodeo Queen of Heaven for a mixed chamber ensemble. Rodeo Queen of Heaven was commissioned by enhake, an ensemble I founded with three fellow graduate students at Florida State University College of Music: violinist M. Brent Williams, cellist Jayoung Kim, and pianist Eun-Hee Park. Upon accepting the commission, Larsen decided to write a piece inspired by her recent discovery of Arthur Lopez’s hand-carved and painted wooden Santo, “Rodeo Queen of Heaven” housed in the Denver Art Museum. In this one-movement chamber work, Larsen thoroughly and seamless fuses a melodic motif from In Festis Beatae Mariae Virginis (Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary), a twelfth century Gregorian mass, with conspicuous Western rhythms and jazz elements.1 Just as Lopez achieved a merging of diverse styles in his sculpture of the Madonna, who stands in a rodeo outfit holding the child in perfect harmony, Larsen triumphs in merging dichotomous ideas into her own musical language. The goal of this treatise is to provide a scholarly analysis and performance guide to Rodeo Queen of Heaven. It examines the commissioning process and the premiere performance of the work, outlining how the creative collaboration developed. The role in which Arthur Lopez’s original artwork Rodeo Queen of Heaven played in Larsen’s creative process is discussed. A formal and comparative analysis of Larsen’s score reveals various parallels that exist between the musical composition and Lopez’s work. Furthermore, this treatise serves as a performance guide, providing solutions to numerous challenges posed by the difficult work.
1 Libby Larsen, Rodeo Queen of Heaven, (Minneapolis: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2010), 1.
viii INTRODUCTION
Libby Larsen is widely recognized as one of the premiere living American composers. She has written over 500 compositions ranging from instrumental chamber music to 15 full-scale operas.2 Her lasting influence on every genre of music is constantly asserted through ongoing performances of her works throughout the world. While Larsen’s vocal works have earned her an indisputable place in the twentieth century musical literature prompting USA Today to call her “the only English-speaking composer since Benjamin Britten who matches great verse with fine music so intelligently and expressively,”3 her chamber music has only recently gained its deserved prominence. As late as 2009, Larsen commented on the general bias against chamber music, stating: “the chamber music world is not necessarily looking for new repertoire, whereas [in] the vocal world, the wind world, there are so many ensembles and instruments that are, that want to speak virtually through new repertoire.”4 In this treatise, I will begin to address this bias by focusing on Rodeo Queen of Heaven, Larsen’s most recent chamber work with clarinet, an instrument she believes to be particularly versatile. This recent work is an exemplary contribution to the twenty-first century chamber music repertoire. Rodeo Queen of Heaven was commissioned by enhake, an ensemble I founded with three fellow graduate students at Florida State University College of Music: violinist M. Brent Williams, cellist Jayoung Kim, and pianist Eun-Hee Park. Upon accepting the commission, Larsen decided to write a piece inspired by her recent discovery of Arthur Lopez’s hand-carved and painted wooden Santo, “Rodeo Queen of Heaven” housed in the Denver Art Museum. In this one-movement chamber work, Larsen thoroughly and seamless fuses a melodic motif from In Festis Beatae Mariae Virginis (Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary), a twelfth century Gregorian mass, with conspicuous Western rhythms and jazz elements.5 Just as Lopez achieved a merging
2 Libby Larsen Website, Full Biography, http://www.libbylarsen.com (August 20, 2012)
3 Ibid
4 Mary Alice Domenica, “The Elements of American Vernacular in Three Selected Chamber Works of Libby Larsen: Holy Roller; Barn Dances; and Trio for Piano and Strings,” (DMA Essay, University of Miami, 2010), 3.
5 Libby Larsen, Rodeo Queen of Heaven, (Minneapolis: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2010), 1.
1 of diverse styles in his sculpture of the Madonna, who stands in a rodeo outfit holding the child in perfect harmony, Larsen triumphs in merging dichotomous ideas into her own musical language. Rodeo Queen of Heaven received its world premiere performance by enhake on 3 May, 2010 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City. The work was recorded by enhake the same year and released by Naxos on the album, Gulfstream.6 Both the performance and compositions featured in the recording received recognition throughout the world. Upon selecting the CD as “Music US Choice” in March 2012, the BBC Music Magazine noted, “Libby Larsen’s Rodeo Queen of Heaven, inspired by a wooden sculpture of the Madonna and Child in a rodeo outfits, ingeniously twists plainchant into jazz and country idioms.”7 The goal of this treatise is to provide a scholarly analysis and performance guide to Rodeo Queen of Heaven. It examines the commissioning process and the premiere performance of the work, outlining how the creative collaboration developed. The role in which Arthur Lopez’s original artwork Rodeo Queen of Heaven played in Larsen’s creative process is discussed. A formal and comparative analysis of Larsen’s score reveals various parallels that exist between the musical composition and Lopez’s work. Furthermore, this treatise serves as a performance guide, providing solutions to numerous challenges posed by the difficult work.
6 Gulfstream: American Chamber Music - Libby Larsen, Peter Lieuwen, Peter Schickele, and Aaron Copland performed by enhake, NAXOS American Classics, 2011, compact disc. [8.559692]
7 Alex Burton, “Small but Mighty,” BBC Music Magazine (March 2012), 89.
2 CHAPTER ONE
LIBBY LARSEN: BIOGRAPHY
1.1 Larsen’s Eclectic Musical Upbringing: From Chants to Dixieland
! Elizabeth “Libby” Larsen was born on December 24,1950 in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1954 Larsen’s family moved to Minnesota, a state well known for its ‘10,000 lakes.’ Growing up, she was exposed to both the urban life of Minneapolis and the nature that surrounds the Twin Cities: “The unusual thing about Minneapolis is that [it] is built around lakes and creeks; it has a concentrated urban energy, but it is also possible to take a canoe or sailboat out on the water, in the middle of the city. What has found its way into the music is a sense of movement from ground to water, and a movement from civilized energy to nature.”8 The environment in which she grew up gave her lifelong inspiration, which later materialized into many musical compositions including Symphony: Water Music, one of Larsen’s most famous works.9 Larsen’s earliest musical memory is at the age of three when she first listened to her sister playing the piano. She remembers feeling the unique vibration produced by the piano and associating it with her sister’s moving fingers. When it was her turn, she quickly climbed onto the piano stool and composed a piece with a series of clusters that she ordered and restructured.10
Larsen speaks of “a long and deep seeded desire to communicate through sound” as her source of being alive.11 Although no one ever encouraged her to become a composer, she made a
8 Libby Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=232 (accessed August 11, 2012).
9 Lee, Hyungjung, “Libby Larsen’s Four on the Floor (1983) and Slang (1984).” DMA essay, University of Illinois, 2003, p. 4.
10 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=232 (accessed August 11, 2012).
11 Richard Kessler. “Libby Larsen Interview.” New Music Box: The Web Magazine of the American Music Center, Newmusicbox.org, April 2, 2010. http://www.newmusicbox.org/archive/firstperson/larsen/index.html.
3 series of serendipitous self-discoveries that led her to pursue her musical path.12 She received a “very typical Midwestern musical upbringing,” which, at the time, meant learning to play an instrument (in her case, piano) and singing in choir.13 Larsen attended a Catholic grade school before the Vatican II Council and began to read and write music in first grade, singing Gregorian chant for daily services.14 Larsen’s familiarity with the medieval chants became an important source of her musical inspiration. For instance, she uses the melodies from the twelfth-century mass In Festis B. Mariae Virginis in her chamber work Rodeo Queen of Heaven (2010).
Larsen’s first musical training came from the St. Joseph nuns at Christ the King School in Minneapolis. Everyone in her school learned to read and sing Gregorian Chant, and learned to sightread using movable do: “We started in first grade and sang and read through sixth grade, until the Ecumenical Council happened and Gregorian Chant was eliminated from the music program. Pretty unfortunate, and a huge mistake, in my opinion, to move away from the Guidonian system to a rote, repetitive one.”15 In addition, her piano teacher, Sister Colette, introduced her to atypical repertoire for a young student right from the beginning: “I played very unusual repertoire -- Mozart, Bartok, Stravinsky, Japanese music and boogie right away. That variety was very important in introducing so many different musical sounds and colors to me.”16
Larsen’s family was also an important aspect of her early musical life. An avid fan of musical theatre, her mother had a large collection of 1950s and 60s Broadway recordings as well as stride boogie piano that she would often play on the hi-fi.17 Both of Larsen’s parents play instruments: her mother plays the piano and her father is a self-taught clarinetist.18 Larsen came to believe that both instruments are cultural vehicles that fluently speak the American
12 Ibid.
13 Ibid.
14 Libby Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
15 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=232 (accessed August 11, 2012).
16 Ibid.
17 Lee, “Libby Larsen’s Four on the Floor (1983) and Slang (1984),” p. 4.
18 Libby Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
4 vernacular.19 The prominent roles of the clarinet and piano in portraying both Luanne Nyberg, one of Larsen’s four sisters, recalls frequent musical evenings in her household: “We all sang and danced around the kitchen to recordings of musicals. We played a lot of ‘40s music and pop music at home. We knew words to entire musicals.”20 When she entered Southwest High School, she continued singing in the school’s Lutheran choir.21 For a brief time, Larsen played in a rock band that performed the music of the Mamas and the Papas.22 As a result of her eclectic musical upbringing, composing for Larsen has always been very natural. She often draws musical inspiration from these diverse traditions. While in high school, she took a music theory class for the first time when she was unable to get into a summer economics class.23 She had opportunities to compose a rudimentary theme and variations and explore the inner workings of compositional process.24 During an interview with Susan Barbieri, Larsen talks about her first exposure to the circle of fifths:
“I loved the construction. I suddenly could understand all my piano music from a whole different perspective…The circle of fifths was the most beautiful thing I had ever encountered. And I knew that was where I wanted to be. I wanted to live in that universe.”25
1.2 Education
Larsen originally hoped to become a professional singer, which led her to enter the University of Minnesota’s music program as a voice major. During her undergraduate studies,
19 Ibid.
20 Jack El-Hai, “Libby Larsen,” Minnesota Monthly, June, 1996, p. 81
21 Alicia Cook, "The Evolving Style of Libby Larsen" (1996), Graduate Thesis Collection, Paper 8. http:// digitalcommons.butler.edu/grtheses/8, p. 1.
22 Ibid.
23 Susan Barbieri, “The Language of Strings: Libby Larsen’s Music Speaks in American Vernacular,” Strings 14, no. 4 (November-December 1999), p. 72
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
5 she discovered her genuine enjoyment of academic coursework (which her peers tended to avoid).26 She naturally moved on to pursue music composition and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Music Theory and Composition in 1971. After a brief hiatus working as a secretary at the Travelers Insurance Company, Larsen returned to her Alma Mater to continue her studies with famed composers Dominick Argento, Eric Stokes, and Paul Fetler. Each composer left distinct and lasting influences on Larsen’s compositional style. She credits Felter for helping her establish the fundamentals of composition while giving her “complete confidence that [she] could make pieces of music from beginning to end.”27 Eric Stokes helped to bring out “her sense of humor and unique sense of absurd in her writing.”28 One of the most valuable lessons she learned from Stokes was to open her ears to every sound in existence: “What you listen to can’t hurt.”29 She regularly finds inspirations from the color, sound, scenery and objects she encounters in her daily life. During her doctoral work at the University of Minnesota, Larsen’s primary teacher was Dominick Argento. In 1973, while in graduate school, Larsen cofounded the Minnesota Composers Forum with her classmate Stephen Paulus. Now known as the American Composers Forum, the organization has been an invaluable advocacy group for composers in America. Larsen explains the goal of the organization:
“We wanted to create an organization that could support us in our old age. Meaning that, as life went on, the organization would be there as a touchstone. One could come there for advice, or one could come to give advice. So that there was a community that existed outside the political system for composers. We both saw that the political system for composers in this country had created a situation in the concert hall which was making what we love, which was to compose, extinct.”30
26 Alicia Cook, "The Evolving Style of Libby Larsen," p. 1.
27 Douglass Boyer, “Musical Style and Gesture in the Choral Music of Libby Larsen,” Choral Journal 34, no. 3 (October 1993), p. 18.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid., p. 19.
30 Ibid.
6 Larsen received her Master of Music in 1975 and Doctor of Philosophy in 1978. After completing her Ph.D., Larsen began to compose solely on commissions. Her reasoning is simple: “I compose on commission because I require the entire process of commission, creating, performing and communicating, which is the very heart and soul of the classical concert tradition. I have always felt that music can’t live unless it is performed.”31 Her career soon resulted in numerous successful collaborations with an array of world-renowned artists, including The King’s Singers, Benita Valente, and Frederica von Stade, among others.32 Although Larsen occasionally holds visiting faculty positions across the country, she is one of the few art music composers who work exclusively on commissions without regular academic affiliations.
1.3 Achievements
Larsen is the first female composer in America to serve as a composer-in-residence with a major orchestra.33 Along with Stephen Paulus, Larsen was a composer-in-residence with the Minnesota Orchestra under Sir Neville Marriner from 1983 to 1987. During the Minnesota Orchestra residency she wrote her first symphony, Symphony: Water Music (1985), and her piano concerto, Since Armstrong (1992). She later held similar posts with the Charlotte Symphony and Colorado Symphony, writing a great deal of symphonic, operatic, chamber and vocal music. Her innovative opera Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus (1990), based on Mary Shelley’s book, features electronic visual effects and projections and was selected as one of USA Today’ s “The Eight Best Classical Music Events of 1990.” Larsen’s accomplishments have been celebrated for decades, winning her numerous awards and recognitions. She received the Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a Bush Artist’s Fellowship, and the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. She is also a recipient
31 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=233 (accessed August 13, 2012).
32 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=243 (accessed August 13, 2012).
33 Evan Bonds, A History of Music in Western Culture, Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc., 2006, p. 647.
7 of grants from the Ford Foundation, the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota Woman of the Year in Arts and the Endowment for the Arts American Council in the Arts Young Artist Award. In 1994, she won a Grammy Award as producer of the compact disc The Art of Arlene Auger, which contains her well-known work, Sonnets from the Portuguese. Furthermore, Larsen received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (2000), the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts presented by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2003) and the 2003-2004 Harissios Papamarkou Chair in Education at the Library of Congress. In 2010 Larsen was a recipient of the George Peabody Medal along with Boston Symphony Orchestra’s music director James Levine, and she delivered the convocation speech at the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University that year. Larsen holds several honorary degrees, including Honorary Doctorates from St. Mary’s College/Notre Dame (1996) and University of Nebraska (1996).
1.4 Music and Language
Larsen, in her own words, describes her compositional style as “American vernacular.”34 According to her, American vernacular is not always beautiful: “I’m searching for the elegance of blue jeans. I’m searching for the peace of mind in the incredible pressure and drive in our machinery and our freeway systems and our information superhighway.”35 American colloquialism has fascinated Larsen all through her life, and she continues examining its rhythmic patterns, pitch range, and phrase contour:
“I believe that music itself comes from the language of the people of that culture. The example I like to use is Jesse Jackson speaking; if you were to analyze the interval of his pitch range, the tempo variations and rhythms, you would find an extraordinary
34 Libby Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
35 Barbieri, “The Language of Strings: Libby Larsen’s Music Speaks in American Vernacular,” p. 72.
8 musicality, uniquely American. I strive to understand how these characteristics represent our American lives and emotions, and to use these elements in my music.”36
She notes that in a country that considers its history in terms of decades rather than centuries, a prevalence of brisk and virtuosic communication techniques became inevitable.37 The breakneck virtuosity and polyrhythmic elements can be found in many American musical styles such as jazz, Western square dance, gospel music, and boogie-woogie.38 While many American composers can be linked to specific regions of the United States, such as “Aaron Copland with the West, Charles Ives with New England, or Gershwin and Bernstein with the fast pace of New York City,” Larsen is “a multilingual Americanist.”39 Larsen explains the ongoing waves of settlers in the United States who bring their native tongues to the country: “[As] we attempt to communicate through verbal language, our language changes, morphs and expands. American English is a language of improvisation.”40 Larsen embraces the diversity of American English ranging from the academic Northeastern culture to the Latin- American Southwestern vernacular. Meanwhile she emphasizes that her passion lies not in melding them together but in exploring a coexistence of the dynamic and multifaceted culture. Another defining characteristic of Larsen’s music is its percussive nature. Larsen draws the parallel between her music and her native tongue: “American English is percussive, truncated, full of body language, [and] has a very narrow pitch band.”41 As a result, Larsen believes that certain instruments, such as percussion and wind instruments, have inherent advantages of being the “cultural vehicle” of American music more than string instruments: “I’m not sure that our language is evolving in a way that the voice of the cello and viola are natural to it. . . [the range of] American English is about a perfect fourth, no matter what accent you put on
36 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=230 (accessed August 12, 2012).
37 El-Hai, “Libby Larsen,” p. 128.
38 Ibid.
39 Mary Domenica, “The Elements of American Vernacular in Three Selected Chamber Works of Libby Larsen: Holy Roller; Barn Dances; and Trio for Piano and Strings,” DMA Essay, The University of Miami, 2010, p. 4.
40 Libby Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
41 Barbieri, “The Language of Strings: Libby Larsen’s Music Speaks in American Vernacular,” p. 73.
9 it. And the orchestral stringed instruments can and do ‘speak’ French and German and Italian naturally, but they don’t ‘speak’ American English naturally.”42 It is Larsen’s ongoing goal to expand each traditional instrument’s potential. In the meantime, she appreciates the contribution that new instruments such as the drum set and the electric guitar had in American music: “I believe that the drum set bridges the African-American musical perspective, which is the heartbeat of one tributary of American music, to the Western European perspective, which is, at present, the other tributary to American music. I say ‘at present’ because we have essential musical perspectives melding into our creative musical consciousness which are undoubtedly influencing our collective sense of pitch, rhythm, shape and emotion.”43 Larsen’s music is constructed around tonal areas “that are vaguely modal and reinforced through pedal tones in the bass.”44 It is generally non-contrapuntal and not based on four-part voice leading as in functional keyboard harmony, although she explains tonality “as pools of ‘comfort’ around a fundamental” in her music.45 Her music can be conceived as horizontal rather than vertical, since the line comes first and the harmonies result.46 Larsen suggests that her listeners focus on non-articulated tones and low pedal tones. More important than harmonic structure is the intervals she chooses for her music. She relates intervals by their particular significance, developing them musically throughout her composition.47 For instance, throughout Rodeo Queen of Heaven Larsen uses the intervals of a major third and stacked fourths to juxtapose the traditional and modern elements. She introduces the inverted third (the sixth) later in the piece, which she links to ragtime, boogie-woogie, and jazz. Larsen sums up her musical philosophy in the following statement:
“Since I believe that music exists in an infinity of sound, my job as a composer is to make choices about how to organize that sound; in our culture; this means the
42 Ibid.
43 Libby Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
44 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=230 (accessed August 12, 2012).
45 Ibid.
46 Ibid
47 Ibid.
10 organization of scales, chord progressions, and the placement of scales within certain other hierarchies, but also choices about to whom we communicate and what results from that communication.”48
48 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=230 (accessed August 12, 2012).
11 CHAPTER TWO
CLARINET IN LARSEN’S CHAMBER MUSIC
2.1 Libby Larsen and The Clarinet
The clarinet is given a prominent and unique role in Larsen’s Rodeo Queen of Heaven. It is pertinent to explore how Larsen uses the clarinet in her chamber works. Larsen grew up listening to her father’s clarinet playing. A self-taught clarinetist, he preferred playing Dixieland to the classical literature.49 Along with her father’s playing, Larsen was surrounded by clarinet as it was used in many different genres. She came to think of the clarinet as a “cultural vehicle” in America: “[The clarinet] arrived in the US as a Western European classical instrument, but was taken up by not only the classical musicians, but also Dixieland, Club Combo, and Big Band performers. The clarinet was also really prominent in cartoon music and early film and television music like Our Gang and Laurel and Hardy. During my childhood I listened to all of this music.”50 The clarinet became an ideal instrument for Larsen to express the American cultural heritage within the context of the Western classical tradition. Larsen believes that wind instruments, especially the clarinet, have inherent advantages in relating to American English: “When I think about American English, which is a relatively young language, I feel that the wind instruments speak it more naturally than the string instruments . . . I keep choosing to compose with clarinet not by design but by instinct.”51 Larsen explains that in America there is a great deal of rhythm and a complex, virtuosic lifestyle: “[The] clarinet can express this. It can also be quite internal, quite mystical. So I often turn to clarinet for its wide range of emotional possibility.”52
49 Libby Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
50 Ibid.
51 Ibid.
52 Ibid.
12 Among her compositions for clarinet, Dancing Solo (1994) stands out as an exemplary work that showcases the instrument’s introspective and outward natures. Commissioned by virtuoso clarinetist Caroline Hartig, Larson states that this four-movement piece for solo clarinet
is made of color, rhythm, implied and explicit beat patterns, and breath.53 In the first movement of the work, ‘With Shadows,’ Larsen features the clarinet alone “ dancing and improvising with its own musical shadows.” She describes it as “the air, on an inner beat, upon a fleeting feeling.”54 The third movement, ‘In Ten Slow Circles,’ is “a musical metaphor” for an idealized “legato” connection whereas the final movement, ‘Flat Out,’ features wide leaps intentionally introduced as anti-legato gesture.55 The clarinet becomes Larsen “cultural vehicle” of American vernacular, enabling its society to “achieve unified continuity among widely disparate cultural perspectives.”56 Larsen frequently uses the clarinet in her chamber works, although her enthusiasm in the particular genre is relatively newfound. In her DMA Essay, The Elements of American Vernacular in Three Selected Chamber Works of Libby Larsen, Mary Alice Domenica points out that Larsen’s chamber music is relatively less known than her other works.57 In her interview with Domenica, Larsen states: “the chamber music world is hesitant to move beyond the canon of eighteenth and nineteenth century music.”58 Larsen explains that until the end of the twentieth century she felt restricted to write for only historically standard ensembles such as string quartet or woodwind and brass quintets, which she felt were sonically dated and limiting.59 However, my recent interview with Larsen reveals that she finds new opportunities in the twenty-first-century chamber-music world:
53 Libby Larsen, Dancing Solo, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994).
54 Ibid.
55 Libby Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
56 Ibid.
57 Mary Domenica, “The Elements of American Vernacular in Three Selected Chamber Works of Libby Larsen: Holy Roller; Barn Dances; and Trio for Piano and Strings,” p. 3.
58 Ibid.
59 Libby Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
13 “[W]hen you contacted me it was like a door opened and the sunlight came in. I have been really interested in Eighth Blackbird, Pink Martini, Nexus and the mixed ensembles your generation are forming. It feels vital, natural and organically relevant to our current musical ear to mix instruments in the small ensemble. Now I feel that chamber music in the twenty-first century is one of the most exciting places to work.”60
Since 2000, Larsen’s output of works for the clarinet in a mixed chamber ensemble has been prolific. The following section consists of an annotated bibliography of Larsen’s chamber work with clarinet. This annotated bibliography not only serves to examine how she features the instrument in various settings, but also provides publication information for ease of access.
2.2 Annotated Bibliography of Larsen’s Chamber Works with Clarinet
Barn Dances. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
Barn Dances for flute, clarinet, and piano was commissioned by the Flute/Clarinet Duos Consortium (FCDC) and received its premiere performance in August of 2001 at the National Flute Association Convention in Dallas, Texas.61 It was premiered by flutist Helen Ann Shanley and clarinetist Richard Shanley.62 The Brannen-Cooper Fund supported the commission.63 In the program note, Larsen describes Barn Dances as “a set of four abstract pieces drawing their titles from the name of a particular dance step used in cowboy dances.”64 In each of the four movements, Larsen creates “the musical equivalent of a character drawing” and encompasses
60 Ibid.
61 Larsen website, Libby. http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=242&profileID=1238&startRange=, (accessed August 12, 2012).
62 Ibid.
63 Ibid.
64 Libby Larsen, Barn Dances, New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
14 various styles, “including hoedown jig, swing, and a waltz.”65 In the first movement, ‘Forward Six and Fall Back Eight,’ Larsen imitates a virtuosic display of American folk dance tradition by constantly shifting a rhythmic configuration between the clarinet and the flute. “Divide the Ring,” the second movement, pays homage to the famous cowboy singer Gene Autry. Larsen calls for “cowboy swing” throughout the movement. ‘Varsouvianna’ or ‘Simple Dream Waltz’ is in triple meter and features the clarinet’s ability to create subtle colors and a dreamy timbre under the flute’s melody. The final movement, “Rattlesnake Twist,” is characterized by exciting raw sounds, rhythm and articulation.
Black Birds, Red Hills. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Libby Larsen often takes her musical inspiration from visual arts. This trio for clarinet, viola, and piano was commissioned by The University of Alabama for Thea Engelson and Scott Bridges in 1987 to celebrate Georgia O’Keefe’s anniversary. While studying O’Keefe, Larsen instantly discovered a strong aesthetic and spiritual connection.66 Larsen was particularly taken by O’Keefe’s ability to discover artistic inspirations from innocuous details. For Larsen, “each painting explores the flow of time and color on her beloved red hills of New Mexico. In each painting O’Keefe reveals perspective, beauty and meaning through the magnification of objects, specifically the horizon line, the black rock and the black bird.”67 In each of the four movements Larsen uses recurring themes and musical imagery to highlight her own perspectives on the colors and shapes of O’Keefe’s paintings. The piece received its premiere performance at the National Museum of Women’s Art in Washington D. C.
65 Ibid.
66 Larsen website, recorded lecture South Dakota State University http://libbylarsen.com/index.php? contentID=242&profileID=1240&startRange= (accessed August 14, 2012).
67 Libby Larsen, Black Bird, Red Hills, New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
15 Corker. New York: E. C. Schirmer, 2001.
Corker was commissioned by Robert Spring, Professor of Clarinet at Arizona State University. He premiered the piece at the 1991 International Clarinet Society Convention held in Flagstaff, Arizona. The work is written for clarinet and a set of percussion instruments, including marimba, suspended cymbal, tom-toms (high, medium, low), snare drum, and hi-hat, all to be played by one performer. Larsen effectively creates a drum-set out of orchestral percussion instruments. She professes that her inspiration for the work is drawn from 1940’s popular music, which “speaks the rhythms and harmonic language of contemporary American English.”68 The term ‘corker’ relates to the “early big band sound and some key personalities that make up the history of the era, especially drummer Gene Krupa.”69 According to Larsen, Corker is a piece for the clarinet that “speaks American English really well, as does percussion, brass, and piano. Strings don’t speak American English.”70
Downwind of Roses. Minneapolis: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2009.
Downwind of Roses was commissioned by The School of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Louisiana at Monroe.71 On 16 February, 2009, the premiere performance was given by the university’s faculty artists: flutist Sandra Lunte, clarinetist Scot Humes, and percussionist Melvin Mobley.72 The piece was inspired by a seemingly innocuous moment in Larsen’s life. Larsen describes the scenery in her program note:
68 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=242&profileID=1302&startRange= (accessed August 14, 2012).
69 Daniel Jacobi, “Performance Considerations of Libby Larsen’s Corker for Clarinet and Percussion: A Treatise.” Master’s thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2001, p. 11.
70 Ibid., p. 12.
71 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=242&profileID=1609&startRange= (accessed August 14, 2012).
72 Ibid
16 “Standing on the corner of a freeway and parking lot in Rockport, Maine it was high noon. The sun was scorching hot and the noise and smell of car exhaust assaulted our ears and noses. We stood, waiting for our ride – very late. We were practicing patience, which was running out. A sudden hint elsewhere, for just a whisper of time, the smell of wild roses. Then again din. We turned to realize that we were standing in front of a hedge of wild roses. We moved towards it, took deep breaths and were transported on its current of delicate aroma.”
An important quality that makes Larsen such an exciting creative force is her ability to discern these minuscule details of mundane life and transform them into original musical ideas. The piece opens with what Larsen marks as simple “orchestra bells” played by the percussion, but the writing becomes increasingly complex. The improvisatory patterns and intricate rhythms effectively portray the various moods, ranging from vexation to fascination, that Larsen experienced during her wait in Rockport, Maine.
Licorice Stick. Minneapolis: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2002.
Licorice Stick was commissioned by clarinetist Stefan Harg and pianist Katarina Strom- Harg to be performed at the International Clarinet Festival in Stockholm, Sweden on July 2, 2002.73 The term “licorice stick” was used as American slang for the clarinet during the big band era of clarinet playing in the 1930s.74 In her program note, Larsen lists five instruments from the Western musical tradition that she believes were able to make successful transitions from “European musical sensibilities into new forms of music developed in North America”75
Piano – ragtime, boogie-woogie, gospel Clarinet – swing, big band, Dixieland Saxophone – jazz, bee-bop, funk Trumpet – hotclub swing, ragtime, bee-bop, funk, jazz Guitar - jazz, rock-and-roll
73 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=242&profileID=1283&startRange= (accessed August 14, 2012).
74 Ibid.
75 Ibid
17 In this one-movement work for clarinet and piano, Larsen recalls the big band and boogie-woogie eras by using their most representative instruments. The piano assumes the role of boogie rhythm section with boogie patterns and rhythm embedded in the left-hand. The clarinet, on the other hand, functions as a solo voice throughout the piece.
Slang. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Slang for clarinet, violin, and piano was commissioned and premiered by the pioneer of the clarinet-violin-piano ensemble, the Verdehr Trio. The trio features boogie-woogie, ragtime, and funk elements that span through all three instrument parts. The self-descriptive title of the one-movement piece in three sections refers to the use of both jazz and boogie slang and twentieth-century ‘new music’ slang throughout the composition.76 The diversity and abundance of the American culture and musical language was Larsen’s inspiration: “I am fascinated by the idea that just as we have developed slang in our speaking language, we have also developed a lexicon of musical slang. This composition explores the idea, asking the performers to freely change performance styles as the musical language dictates.”77
Yellow Jersey for B-flat Clarinet Duet. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
This duo for two clarinets was commissioned by the clarinet students of Dr. Alan Woy on the occasion of his retirement from the Crane School of Music at SUNY Potsdam.78 The work was premiered by Dr. Michelle Shoemaker and Dr. Linda Ciontti at SUNY Potsdam’s Sara M. Snell Music Theatre in New York on 15 May 2004.79 The piece was written during the year between the American cyclist Lance Armstrong’s fifth and sixth victories in the Tour de France.80
76 Lee, “Libby Larsen’s Four on the Floor (1983) and Slang (1984),” p. 31.
77 Ibid.
78 Larsen website, http://libbylarsen.com/index.php?contentID=242&profileID=1287&startRange= (accessed August 19, 2012).
79 Ibid.
80 Unfortunately, Mr. Armstrong was recently stripped of all these victories for doping.
18 A passionate athlete and an active marathoner, Larsen was inspired by the energetic performance of Armstrong. She named the piece Yellow Jersey in honor of the jersey worn by the most recent overall leader of the Tour de France. Larsen describes the piece as a short wind sprint for two clarinets, inventing a new form based on the imaginary sprint: Massed Start - Cadence I - Breakaway I - Cadence II - Breakaway II - Cadence to Coast - Coast - Cadence III - Bonk.81
81 Ibid.
19 CHAPTER THREE
RODEO QUEEN OF HEAVEN
3.1 Background and The Commission Process
Rodeo Queen of Heaven was commissioned by enhakē, an ensemble I founded with three fellow graduate students at the Florida State University College of Music in 2007: violinist M. Brent Williams, cellist Jayoung Kim, and pianist Eun-Hee Park. By 2009, the group had earned a number of distinctions by winning top prizes at the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition at Carnegie Hall (2008) and the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition (2009). With an increasing number of concerts and festival appearances, the group quickly exhausted the staple literatures written for their particular instrumentation, including Olivier Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps. As an emerging chamber music ensemble with unorthodox instrumentation, the members of enhakē realized it was imperative to find new works specifically written for them if they were to continue to present engaging programs in both new and repeat venues. The members of enhakē decided to use the funds from their first prize placement at the Chamber Music Yellow Springs Competition to start a commission fund for Libby Larsen. enhakē also received the James and Lola Faust Scholarship presented by Mu Phi Epsilon to contribute to their commission pool. Once the funding was established, I contacted a number of composers who expressed their interest in the commissioning project. enhakē was particularly excited when the renowned American composer Libby Larsen agreed to write a piece for the group. The new piece would be a highlight of the group’s Carnegie Hall debut at New York City’s Weill Recital Hall on May 3, 2010. Larsen initially suggested a one movement work in abstract variation form called “Variations on a Shadow.” She described the character of the potential piece:
20 “I can even give you a title: Variations on a Shadow. This allows us, in the space of about ten minutes, room for intricacy and subtlety. I do not know yet exactly what the nature of the shadow is. Maybe it’s a musical object or maybe it’s the shadow of an icon (narrative), or philosophical metaphor, such as the shadow of a recognizable musical theory. Maybe it’s the shadow of each of your instruments’ traditional role. I’m tending towards the shadow of an icon.”82
Since enhakē was looking specifically for a fast-paced, energetic concert piece for its New York debut, Larsen proposed another idea inspired by her recent discovery of Arthur Lopez’s hand-carved and painted wooden Santo, Rodeo Reina del Cielo, which is housed in the Denver Art Museum. She was in Denver for the premiere of her mass at the Saint Paul Cathedral and was anxious to visit the Denver Museum’s new contemporary wings, featuring an exhibit of contemporary Western Art.83 She recalls her initial impression of her discovery of Lopez’s work:
“Amidst paintings of vast June skies, western grass pastures, ranches dwarfed in their landscapes, cowboys and any number of familiar icons of the American West was a glass vitrine that housed a hand-carved wooden, hand painted Santo, 26 1/2 by 9 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches. The image was a Madonna and Child dressed in Rodeo garb. I walked by at first. Then I walked by again. After my fifth pass I stopped, utterly arrested by the work -- Rodeo Reina del Cielo, ‘Rodeo Queen of Heaven,’ by Arthur Lopez.”84
Larsen was taken by “Lopez’s audacity of dressing the subject in rodeo regalia” and the Madonna’s “halos made of cartoonish stars.”85 Larsen became inspired by the fact that Lopez was able to “blend the ancient Christian image of the Madonna and Child, serene in their expressions as they have been for hundreds of years” with the trappings of Western rodeo: “the Madonna was dressed not only in Western garb, but in Rodeo Queen attire, which is part of the purely American tradition of showmanship.”86 She could relate her own upbringing to Lopez’s
82 Feb 2 2009 email from Larsen
83 Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
84 Libby Larsen, Rodeo Queen of Heaven, (Minneapolis: Libby Larsen Publishing, 2010), 1.
85 Ibid.
86 Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
21 interpretation of Southwestern American culture through a Mexican-Catholic icon in the Santo: “As a child in Minneapolis, I was a typical Midwestern kid -- except my grade school, Christ the King, was full of plaster Santos, and for eight years we read, wrote and sang Gregorian Chant, often singing the In Festis B. Mariae Virginis (Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary), a 12th century Gregorian mass, for the daily mass at our church.”87 In her Rodeo Queen of Heaven Larsen “intertwines fragments of this mass into the fabric of this one-movement chamber work.”88 As Lopez has achieved in his sculpture of the Madonna in a rodeo outfit holding the child in perfect harmony, Larsen successfully merges dichotomous elements into her own musical language. Rodeo Queen of Heaven received its world-premiere performance by enhakē on May 3, 2010 at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in New York City. The work was recorded by enhakē the same year and released on the Naxos’s album Gulfstream.89 Both the performance and compositions featured in the recording received multiple recognitions throughout the world. Upon selecting the CD as its “Music US Choice” in March 2012, the BBC Music Magazine noted “Libby Larsen’s Rodeo Queen of Heaven, inspired by a wooden sculpture of the Madonna and Child in rodeo outfits, ingeniously twists plainchant into jazz and country idioms.”90
3.2 Musical Analysis and Performance Guide
! Rodeo Queen of Heaven is a one-movement chamber work for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. Larsen uses In Festis B. Mariae Virginis (Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary), a twelfth- century Gregorian Mass, as its base material. Larsen’s choice of this particular mass was instinctual. Beginning in third grade at Christ the King Grade School in Minneapolis, she sung in
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
89 Gulfstream: American Chamber Music - Libby Larsen, Peter Lieuwen, Peter Schickele, and Aaron Copland performed by enhake, NAXOS American Classics, 2011, compact disc. [8.559692].
90 Alex Burton, “Small but Mighty,” BBC Music Magazine (March 2012), p. 89.
22 the choir for the daily mass, and the In Festis B. Mariae Virginis was the most commonly used chant in her parish.91 Larsen describes how it became ingrained in her and her classmates by the end of their grade school.92 Throughout the piece, Larsen quotes the chants from the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and Agnus Dei (Ex. 1 a, b, c, and d).
EXAMPLE 1a Excerpt from Kyrie of In Festis B. Mariae Virginis93
EXAMPLE 1b Excerpt from Gloria of In Festis B. Mariae Virginis94
EXAMPLE 1c Excerpt from Santus and Benedictus of In Festis B. Mariae Virginis95
91 Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
92 Ibid.
93 Transcribed from a compositional sketch of Libby Larsen.
94 Ibid.
95 Ibid.
23 EXAMPLE 1d Excerpt from Agnus Dei of In Festis B. Mariae Virginis96
! These melodic materials appear in various forms throughout the one-movement work. Although the piece is not a mass setting, it follows the liturgical order of the ordinary mass. After a short introduction, fragments of the Kyrie appear in each instrument’s part until it is fully stated by the clarinet in measure 47. The Gloria is played in measure 70 until the end of the first section. Larsen introduces fragments of Santus and Agnus Dei in the middle section, starting in measure 81, although the chants never appear in their entirety. The final section features all the chants that were previously introduced. Larsen states that she “attempted to place the Mass in micro form, embedded in an abstract concert piece in one movement with an introduction.”97 As Larsen explains in her program note, her intention is to weaves the fragments of this mass” into the fabric of this piece, creating “a raucous, fluid and rowdy musical Santo – a partner to Arthur Lopez’s work.”98 The first section begins with a powerful introduction that the composer marks “Explode!” It features rising major thirds in the piano that transforms into a percussive dotted rhythmic configuration featuring stacked fourths (Ex. 2). Both intervals play crucial roles throughout the piece: the third represents traditional musical elements while the fourth represents a modern sentiment. Each rising sequence on the piano horizontally form 5-32, an important harmonic
96 Ibid.
97 Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
98 Ibid.
24 motive that appears throughout the first section.99 Vertically, these groups are composed of thirds, but they sound highly unstable due to the tritone in 5-32 (see Ex. 2). In the second measure, the other instruments join in with pedal chord, 4-16 (Eb, F, A, Bb). This set consists of a perfect fifth combined with the major third of the piano’s opening music (generating a single tritone: Eb-A, and two perfect 4ths or 5ths, recalling the stacked fourths chord: Eb-Bb and Bb-F) and becomes another important harmony in the piece, which I will call the Rodeo Chord.
EXAMPLE 2. Introduction, mm. 1-2
99 Forte Number is used in author’s analysis of pitch class set.
25 In order to portray the abundant energy in the rodeo scene, it is very important to emphasize both the heavily dotted rhythm and percussive nature of the strings’ pizzicati and accents. The strings in the first two measures should use Bartok pizzicato to obtain the maximum degree of percussiveness. The tempo should not be set too fast so that dotted rhythms and complex rhythmic subdivisions can be brought out precisely. As other instruments enter, the dotted rhythm sets in like high-stepping rodeo cattle (Ex. 3). The chords here in the piano part (4-6) also feature both two perfect fourths and a tritone, although the major third of the original Rodeo chord is missing. Finally, the violin and the cello join in with a contrasting harmony that employs two perfect fifths, now a semitone apart (4-9). The resulting harmony is related by its quartal/quintal stacking but is more intense, since it also includes two tritones (D-Ab, G-Db). Ultimately, this is the most rhythmically and harmonically intense moment in the introduction. Larsen demands very specific styles of articulation in this piece. As a result, performers should pay very close attention to execute the various bowing and pizzicato style as well as accents. The absolute precision of rhythmic execution is also required to properly transmit the interlocking patterns (see Ex. 3, m. 5). These hocket-style patterns provide a sonic resemblance of the bucking of a horse.
EXAMPLE 3 Introduction mm. 3-5
26 The high-energy rodeo of the opening does not give way to the Madonna’s serenity when the clarinet introduces a fragment of the Kyrie from In Festis B. Mariae Virginis in measure 10 (Ex. 4). Instead, it becomes even more relentless and goes through various changes in rhythmic pattern. The dotted rhythmic configuration becomes even more volatile with the addition of the triplet figure on the pianos’s left hand. This is the first clear manifestation of Larsen’s attempt to feature the coexistence of two different traditions: the American West and the medieval Catholic mass. The performers should maintain a fine balance while retaining their individual characters. For instance, the clarinet should quickly turn from the violent mood of the previous measures into the pious voice of the chant. Meanwhile, the pianist should play the Rodeo motif (at a reduced dynamic level) without sacrificing the initial vigor, maintaining the energy through the end of measure 19.
EXAMPLE 4 Clarinet and piano parts, mm. 10-16
27 The clarinet is an ideal instrument to imitate the human voice in singing the chant. It is no surprise that Larsen uses the instrument to both introduce the fragment of Kyrie in measure 10 and to play the chant in its entirety later in measure 47 (see Ex. 4 and 10). Instead of following a linear presentation, Larsen presents all of her materials simultaneously. While the clarinet plays the chant fragment in a single line, Larsen inserts the Kyrie motif with various twists in the violin and cello parts. The violin imitates the sound of modern electric guitar by playing in harmonic and glissando in octaves (Ex. 5a). The cello plays the Kyrie motif in pizzicato, suggesting playing style of a jazz bass (Ex. 5a). Larsen also uses rhythmic diminution to weave the Kyrie motif between the clarinet and string parts until it becomes difficult to discern (Ex. 5b).
EXAMPLE 5a Violin and cello parts, mm. 11-15
EXAMPLE 5b Clarinet, violin, and cello parts, mm. 16-19
28 The opening section is defined by the constant clash of pious chant and vulgar rodeo rhythm. Starting in measure 10, the dichotomy between the Kyrie in the clarinet part and the rodeo motif (mainly in the piano part) is significant. However, through Larsen’s effort to fuse them, the two contrasting lines become more coherent both rhythmically and harmonically (Ex. 6). In measure 19, the clarinet and piano takes over the percussive character of the rodeo while outlining the melodious Kyrie tune played by the violin and cello.
EXAMPLE 6 Score mm. 19-20
The 5-32 set reappears towards the transition starting in measure 20, revealing Larsen’s cyclic use of germinal materials. After the clarinet reintroduces the set, other instruments follow, presenting the 5-32 set in thirds just as in the beginning (Ex. 7).
29 EXAMPLE 7 5-32 set sequence mm. 20-21
The sequence of “Santos” harmonies is interrupted by a fragment of Kyrie in the upper line of the piano part (Ex. 8). This time, the Kyrie motif appears in a disjointed form in uneven meters and contrasting articulations, accompanied by chords composed of stacked fourths (Rodeo chords -- 5-7, 5-11, and 5-Z36).
EXAMPLE 8 Piano part mm. 22-23
30 ! Larsen writes Kyrie in its most explicit form starting in measure 47 (Ex. 9a). This section is marked ‘Slowly, suspended’ without a specific metronome marking. The violin and cello present a counter melody in thirds. The performers should imitate a free chant style, employing a flexible tempo and controlled rubato following Larsen’s suggested meters. Larsen believes that the interval of a third is an important cultural vehicle that connects the old musical tradition of the West to the new American tradition. The counter melody on string parts in thirds, therefore, functions as a nexus that links the ancient chant to her modern reinterpretation.
EXAMPLE 9a Clarinet, violin, and cello parts mm. 47-53
Larsen elevates the chant melody for the clarinet solo by taking the melody up an octave and adding piano drones starting in Measure 54 (Ex. 9b).
31 EXAMPLE 9b Score mm. 54-56
The chant is repeated in unison by the violin and cello in much stricter rhythm starting in measure 57. The drones played by the piano now feature stacked fourths rather than thirds. In addition, the piano’s chords in heavily dotted rhythm echo the initial “rodeo” motif. The result is a distinctly modern sound within the context of a concert mass.
EXAMPLE 10a Violin, cello, and piano mm. 57-59
The performers should note that Larsen calls for single bow strokes starting in measure 57. The Baroque bowing technique demanded for the violin and cello should come in line with
32 the strictly non-vibrato playing of the clarinet, creating a homogenous timbre and unison melodic line.
EXAMPLE 10b Clarinet, violin, and cello mm. 60-62
The Gloria makes its first appearance in measure 70, starting the next liturgical section. Its fragments are presented in imitative parts for the clarinet, violin, and cello until the chant becomes more explicit in the string parts (in major thirds) starting in measure 73.
EXAMPLE 11 Clarinet, violin and cello parts from the Gloria section mm.70-77
33
The section that begins in measure 81 is based on new melodic material from Santus and Agnus Dei (see Ex. 1 c and d). By using fragments of the Gregorian mass in the piece, Larsen features ancient systems of pitch organization while enjoying the freedom of modern harmonic and rhythmic configurations. She wanted to “create a fused contrast which allows the listener to shift his/her focus from one to the other as they are happening at the same time.”100 Instead of direct quotations, Larsen blends various fragments from Santus and Agnus Dei, employing jazz rhythms and harmonies (Ex. 12). As a result, the distinction between old and new musical materials become even more ambiguous than in the previous section.
EXAMPLE 12 Piano part mm. 81-87
The use of jazz rhythm and harmony imbued with the original chant materials distinguishes the middle section. Larsen reinstates the Santus melody (ex. 1c) in the piano solo in thirds that begins in measure 91 (ex. 13). She compares this with Doobie Brothers’ guitar works with abundant thirds. In the jazz piano solo in Example 13, the original materials from In Festis B. Mariae Virginis remain so thoroughly imbedded that their presence becomes barely discernible. Understanding the jazz style with proper placement of accents and note lengths is crucial for successful rendition of this section.
100 Larsen, phone interview by author, Minneapolis, MN. August 27, 2012.
34
EXAMPLE 13 Piano part mm. 91-93
Another defining element in the middle section is the ‘rodeo rhythmic motif’ composed of dotted rhythm predominantly featured in the piano part throughout the first section. The dotted rhythmic motif is shared by all parts, and poses particular challenges to the clarinetist in a rapid articulation with offbeat accents (Ex. 14).
EXAMPLE 14 Clarinet, violin, and cello part mm. 104-109
The final section begins with an improvisatory musical conversation between the cello and the piano. The writing is idiomatic for the piano, but it is very difficult for the cello to execute. The cellist should rest her bow on the music stand in order to play the jazz pizzicati and
35 quickly damp the strings to prevent extra resonance. The other instruments join in and create an intricate texture that remains until the coda. In this heavily rhythmic section characterized by glissandi and percussive pizzicati, Larsen present some of the most lucid quotations from In Festis B. Mariae Virginis. The piano plays an excerpt of the Kyrie, and Larsen suggests a smooth legato line for the right-hand, which plays the tune in octaves (Ex. 15a). Similarly, the clarinet plays an excerpt of the Gloria, accompanied by the piano trio functioning as a jazz rhythm section. Each part must not outbalance the others in order to achieve a natural coexistence of different musical styles.
EXAMPLE 15a Score mm. 170-172
36 EXAMPLE 15b Score mm. 186-189
In the final section, the sixth (inversion of the third) becomes more prevalent. According to Larsen, sixth are considered harmonically unstable to the American ear in contrast to the harmonically stable thirds. Larsen applies inversions to significant intervals to instantly change the mood and style. The final reference to In Festis B. Mariae Virginis is uttered by the clarinet, a jazzy Santus tune accompanied by the ‘rodeo motif’ in the violin and cello parts that propels the piece to its frenzy, energetic coda (Ex. 16).
EXAMPLE 16 Clarinet, violin, and cello part mm. 205-213
37 3.3 Conclusion
Rodeo Queen of Heaven is Libby Larsen’s most recent composition for a mixed chamber ensemble with clarinet. Inspired by Arthur Lopez’s wooden Santo, Rodeo Reina del Cielo, Larsen combines the twelfth-century Gregorian mass with elements of Western art music and jazz idioms in this composition. Larsen believes that the clarinet is a ‘cultural vehicle’ that provides a bridge between the Western musical tradition and the music of modern America. In Rodeo Queen of Heaven, Larsen uses the clarinet at both ends of the spectrum, as a voice that introduces the Kyrie in free-chant, while later injecting various fragments of the chant with a jazz style. Larsen avoids featuring any one particular tradition by itself, whether it is a medieval chant or an American cowboy song. Instead, she strives for the coexistence of musical cultures, weaving them together through rhythmic and harmonic integration and presenting them simultaneously. Rodeo Queen of Heaven is an exemplary work that displays Larsen’s understanding of the diversity in American culture as well as her ability to find a harmony in highly dichotomous ideas. Commissioned by enhakē, Rodeo Queen of Heaven received superlative receptions in both live performances and recordings. After the world-premiere performance at Carnegie Hall, enhakē performed Rodeo Queen of Heaven at the International Society for Contemporary Music’s Pan Music Festival at the Seoul Arts Center on October 28, 2010. The work is also featured in a recording entitled Gulfstream released on Naxos’s American Classics series. The compact disc was selected by BBC Music Magazine for its Music U.S. Choice in March 2012. It is my belief that the unique musical features of this work will make it a staple for future mixed chamber ensembles
38 CHAPTER FOUR
A CONVERSATION WITH LIBBY LARSEN
The following transcript is adapted from a phone interview conducted by the author on 27 August, 2012. The focus of our discussion was Larsen’s idea music, culture and language as well as the commissioning and composing process of Rodeo Queen of Heaven.101
KIM: Thank you so much, Libby, for making this time available for me to interview you. It is a privilege.
LARSEN: It’s a pleasure.
KIM: Let’s begin with our first question. What does the clarinet represent to you as a composer?
LARSEN: That I think is an excellent question. I grew up hearing the clarinet in my household because my father is a self-taught clarinetist. I had the basic, raw sound in my head.
KIM: Great!
LARSEN: I have come to think of the clarinet as a cultural vehicle in our country. It arrived in the US as a Western European classical instrument, but was taken up by not only the classical musicians, but also Dixieland, Club Combo, Big Band performers. The clarinet was also really prominent in cartoon music and early film and television music like Our Gang and Laurel and Hardy. During my childhood I listened to all of this music. My father preferred Dixieland. My mother preferred Big Band. I loved all of it. And the clarinet, for me, is a culturally fluid instrument in America. Does that makes sense?
KIM: Yes, absolutely! In your program note to Licorice Stick, I read about those cultural vehicles. It appears that clarinet is one of the five instruments you consider as the best representation of the cultural vehicle, transforming elements of the Western classical tradition to the new American sounds. The prominent role of wind instruments is intriguing. The duality of the classical western music and the new American idiom seem to be abundant in your
101 This transcript was edited by the author and Dr. Larsen, and is used with her permission.
39 composition. How do you balance and mold them together in your composition, particularly for the clarinet and its sound?
LARSEN: Yes, that's an excellent question. I believe that I'm more drawn to the wind instruments as cultural vehicles because I believe that music itself -- meaning the pitch and rhythmic organization and also the emotional connection -- comes from the language of the people of that culture. When I think about American English, which is a relatively young language, I feel that the wind instruments speak it more naturally than the string instruments for instance. My piece Slang is an essay about this.
KIM: Right. I can already think of the ongoing juxtaposition between the violin and the clarinet in Slang.
LARSEN: Yes, essay these questions: “Where does music come from?” and “Which instruments best speak the language of the contemporary people as a culture?” Here’s an example. If you and I, and an Italian friend of ours were on a mountain top watching a sunset, beautiful beyond words, our Italian friend might sigh, “che bella!” And what would you say?
KIM: Beautiful? Incredible?
LARSEN: Yeah. And the word I would choose is “Wow!” “Che bella!”, “Incredible,” and “Wow..” yield entirely different music. I find that so many American words and utterances are really best expressed through breathing instruments.
Now clarinet -- I keep choosing to compose with clarinet not by design but by instinct. I think music exists in an infinity of sound. I think of all music as existing in the substance of the air itself. It is the composer’s task to order and make sense of sound, in time and space, to communicate something about being alive through music. I'm trying to compose N-O-W -- meaning what is in the air right now. And so I will look for instruments that best convey what is in the air. In the American air we have a great deal of rhythm. There is also a great deal of complex speed and we ask ourselves to live a rather virtuosic emotional life, daily. Clarinet can express this. It can also be quite internal, quite mystical. So I often turn to clarinet for its wide range of emotional possibility.
KIM: Fantastic! Since you just mentioned some of the close connections between speech and the clarinet I would like to proceed to my next question. When I study your music, I sometimes find rather unidiomatic writings for the instrument, which present some formidable technical challenges for us as players. As a working clarinetist, I spend most of my time perfecting legato, connecting between notes as beautifully as possible. However, it seems to me that you are often trying to go against that performer’s instinct and calling for a different kind of sound. It reminds me of Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto where he tries to portray very rustic and earthly sound by choosing many difficult intervals to play smoothly.
40 LARSEN: Yes, you are correct in your interpretations. In certain passages I work to create lines that really force you – well, nothing forces a performer to do anything -- but that invites you to not make beautiful legato lines even though the line itself looks legato. But in these passages the most natural way to play the line is detached.
KIM: Right. The presence of such dichotomy of different sounds makes me think beyond the clarinet. Dancing Solo is a great example!
LARSEN: Yes, yes, yes. For instance in Dancing Solo the third movement is intentionally created to highlight the ability of the clarinetist to play extraordinarily long legato lines replete with wide leaps.
KIM: I should say hopefully [laugh]. They are indeed very beautiful.
LARSEN: And you might think of interpreting this as a musical metaphor for the American idea that we can achieve unified continuity among widely disparate cultural perspectives. In Ten Slow Circles is a musical metaphor for idealized “legato” connection of disjunct motion whereas in Flat Out you have wide leaps, “booh bih bih”, intentionally created as an anti-legato gesture set amidst bebop scales “blr-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-rUP, blr-r-r-rUP” which must be played smoothly and rapidly in order to give the impression of bebop, right?
KIM: Absolutely. I think your music has a strong association with American English.
LARSEN: Yes.
KIM: Each language seems to have its own distinct feel to it. To me, for instance, French feels smooth and flowing and German feels strict and organized. I was wondering if you see it the same way. If so how do you feel about American English?
LARSEN: That is really a good question. I think of American English as a “twin language” – fraternal twins. Academic Northeastern English is one kind of English. It developed during the Colonial period and made its mark in early Post-Colonial American culture. However, most of the United States was settled from 1830 to present day; we're still in the process of settling, you know. And we will probably continue to settle for a great long while. The waves of settlers who continue to come to the United States bring with them their native tongues.
KIM: Right.
LARSEN: And then as we attempt to communicate through verbal language, our language changes, morphs and expands. American English is a language of improvisation. We often will improvise words to say what we mean when we don't have a common word between us
41 KIM: As I listen to you I realize just how dynamic the English language is. In fact, it's probably one of the most dynamic and fast changing languages in the world. Just look at the diverse composition of our population, and the influx of so many different cultures! A culture with tremendous improvisatory nature.
LARSEN: Yes, I think this is true.
KIM: Right. Now I would like to move on to the next topic and talk to you about the chamber music.
LARSEN: Yes.
KIM: In my research, I discovered the interview that you did with Mary Alice Domenica for her dissertation back in 2010. You then mentioned that the chamber music world was rather conservative and relatively reserved in accepting your new ideas.
LARSEN: Yes.
KIM: However, I see an incredible number of young musicians, young ensembles -- whether it’s string quartet or a different combination of instruments such as Eighth Blackbirds -- not to mention many percussion groups. Just a tremendous variety! So even ten years ago people thought the instrumentation of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time was quite unusual. Now people look at us [enhake] as a rather conservative ensemble. Do you see any change of attitude in the chamber music of the twenty-first century?
LARSEN: I do. You know when you contacted me -- you know those years ago, its almost five years, isn't it?
KIM: That’s already a long time ago!
LARSEN: Yes. You know I was kind of feeling that chamber music was not a place that I wanted to work very much because set ensembles -- string quartet, woodwind, brass quintet, and even the Pierrot ensemble, etc. – felt sonically dated to me.
When you contacted me it was like a door opened and the sunlight came in. I have been really interested in Eighth Blackbird, Pink Martini, Nexus and the mixed ensembles your generation are forming. It feels vital, natural and organically relevant to our current musical ear to mix instruments in the small ensemble. Now I feel that chamber music in the 21st century is one of the most exciting places to work. The ear of today’s ensemble is an ear that hears color and texture much more creatively then at the end of the 1900s. I’ve been working to add drum set to the chamber ensemble -
KIM: Right.
42 LARSEN: -since I believe that drum set bridges the African-American musical perspective, which is the heartbeat of one tributary of American music, to the Western European musical perspective, which is, at present, the other tributary to American Music. I say “at present” because we have essential musical perspectives melding into our creative musical consciousness which are undoubtedly influencing our collective sense of pitch, rhythm, shape and emotion.
KIM: Sure.
LARSEN: So, in the 1980’s I thought to myself, “You know, I really want to explore drum set - not a drum but the drum set – in my compositional work.”
KIM: When I listened to Corker for the first time without a score I imagined that it was written for a clarinet and a drum set. I know it is not the case, but that’s what I hear!
LARSEN: Yes! Back to American English, - it is quite a rhythmic language, you know. And of course drum set is an instrument which evolved out of American culture. I think it’s an ideal instrument to speak the rhythms of American English.
KIM: Right.
LARSEN: I’ve been adding it, one way or another, to some of my chamber music for years. Most recently I added it to my tuba piece Ursa. The piano/tuba score requires drum-set in performance also. I have been wanting to compose two pieces. One is the piece for tenor and drum-set -- the Buddy Holly ensemble.
KIM: Now, back to Rodeo...Would you walk me through your impression when you first saw Arthur Lopez’s Rodeo Queen of Heaven at the Denver Museum?
LARSEN: Yes. I was in Denver for the premiere of my Celebration Mass with Saint Paul Church, and I had some time on my hands. And so I do one of two things when I have time on my hands: I either go to the art museums or hardware stores. I was really eager to go to the Denver Art Museum, especially to the new contemporary wing. It’s a beautiful piece of architecture. I wanted to see the exhibit of contemporary art of the American West.
I was wandering around amidst many, many large scale paintings of the sky, landscapes and beautiful sweeping works. There were smaller sized works, Remington bronzes, for instance, but again of sweeping subjects. Walking through the rooms I noticed a piece that was kind of set off to the side. It was a Santos - the Madonna and Child. Mary was dressed in cowgirl garb and she had a halo of stars. She was holding the child, also dressed in classic cowboy garb. As the morning went by, I kept returning to study the Madonna and Child. I noticed that it was placed in kind of a dimly lit corner, suggesting a grotto or chapel or a place of contemplation. This worked because I kept coming back to linger. And as I studied I became truly inspired that this
43 piece, Arthur Lopez’s Rodeo Queen of Heaven was so carefully wrought to blend the ancient Christian image of the Madonna and Child, serene in their expressions as they have been for hundreds of years -- yet the Madonna was dressed not only in western garb, but in Rodeo Queen garb which is a purely American tradition of showmanship.
KIM: Right. When I saw the picture of the artwork I was instantly worried about a certain group of people being offended. Not only are they dressed in Western Rodeo outfits, but the Madonna possesses a gun! When we were playing this piece in Korea and trying to write an introduction for a rather conservative audience, I was really concerned about describing this in detail because some people might get offended by the fact. However, there is really no reason to be offended, because what Lopez is trying to do in his artwork is to find the harmony and balance between the tradition and the new American culture. He perfectly fuses them into a new cultural embodiment. I believe that’s something you are trying to do in your music as well.
LARSEN: That's exactly it. It would . . . in some circles it would be considered heresy to use fragments of the Gregorian mass in the piece the way I use them. But my intent was to fuse ancient systems of pitch organization with contemporary systems of pitch organization. Also, ancient systems of musical flow to our contemporary systems of musical flow. Studying Lopez's work, The Rodeo Queen of Heaven, the piece, meaning the music, arrived whole in my mind, if that makes sense to you.
KIM: It does.
LARSEN: I think in music as my first thought process, so it’s natural for pieces to arrive whole in my mind.
KIM: I find it very interesting that you were in Denver for a premiere of your mass.
LARSEN: I never thought of this before.
KIM: The mass as a underlying formal structure in chamber music is rather rare. Did you make any conscious effort to use the form because you were involved in a premiere of your mass back then?
LARSEN: No. It would have been my subconscious at work because I really never made the connection until now! And oddly, the Mass that I composed is high liturgical mass for the Lutheran Church. The music really has no reference to any Lutheran or Catholic liturgical music.
KIM: Oh, I see.
LARSEN: So I wonder -- it's very possible that working on the Saint Paul's Mass planted the possibility of the Mass as an object of abstract contemplation.
44 KIM: Right; I mean, you know just by looking at the Madonna and Child, it makes sense to make that reference, but I didn't really think of extra-musical elements that might have affected it. It's a curious observation, right? Now could you also go over your early musical training, especially at the Catholic grade school? It's been documented in many different interviews, and we also talked about that in the past. But how much influence does your early musical training have on your musical composition nowadays?
LARSEN: Yes, I'm so aware of my background now, having articulated it often enough, that it's in the front of my mind when I'm working on a piece. I may borrow from the tradition more now than I did in the past. I think in the past my background was more instinctually part of the music. And I notice myself now, as I'm working, picking and choosing techniques from my musical past. So I'm more cognizant of it now in a way that is a little bit sad because it's been drawn from instinct to cognition.
KIM: Right. I suppose that it's the punishment for being too famous, right? [laugh]
LARSEN: [laugh] It's a sad feeling, actually, because it’s as if I had a treasure chest that was mine and now the treasures are on display in a museum.
KIM: Right, I can understand that feeling to some extent. When I play a piece of music which had been so instinctual and intrinsic, I now focus more on refining and superimposing so many new ideas that it is in large part driven by cognition.
LARSEN: Yes. And it makes me wonder, should we actually study music so much?
KIM: It makes me wonder! Let us move on to the Mass of Virgin Mary. This is something you actually sang when you were young. Could you tell me how you came to choose this particular mass for Rodeo?
LARSEN: Yes. In my grade school, Christ the King Grade School in Minneapolis, Minnesota, we were all taught to read Gregorian chant beginning in first grade so that by the time we got to third grade we could become the choir for the daily masses at the church. We would sing mass once a week during third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades. This particular mass, the mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary, is one that was commonly used. We sang that particular mass many times. And it became engrained in all of us, I'm certain. So it's a common mass used from the Gregorian hymnal.
KIM: So it is one of most common masses?
LARSEN: In my parish it was.
KIM: Could you tell me a little bit about the formal structure of the piece?
45 LARSEN: Good question. I'm not sure I'm entirely successful with the form. I was looking at the difference between a concert mass and a liturgical mass. And so I attempted to place the Mass in micro form, embedded in an abstract concert piece in one movement with an introduction.
KIM: The reference to Gregorian chant and the modern and jazz elements are equally prevalent throughout the music. It seems to me you are in some ways trying to fuse them?
LARSEN: Yes, to fuse them. You might say asking them to coexist.
KIM: Coexist.
LARSEN: Yes. But I was looking to fuse them in exactly the way that Lopez was working to fuse iconic elements of more than one culture. For example, I didn’t intend to make the pitch material non-harmonious nor did I intend to make it harmonious. I wanted to create a fused contrast which allows you to shift your focus from one to the other as they are happening at the same time.
KIM: I see. I remember when you came to Florida State University and gave a lecture in Dr. Shaftel’s Atonal Theory class about this piece. You mentioned then that there are a lot of sixths, and their inverted thirds, coexisting in the piece. Is there any particular harmonic scheme that gives additional significance to the parallel of the Rodeo, the music, and the sculpture?
LARSEN: Well, the thirds are another kind of cultural vehicles. We haven't talked about intervals as cultural vehicles intervals. In this case, I was thinking three things about the third: that in the tuning of the third is the heart of the culture. I was thinking about the Doobie Brothers. Do you know the Doobie Brothers?
KIM: Unfortunately I don’t, but I can look it up.
LARSEN: It's a rock band and they are known for their guitar work -- playing thirds all the time. Du, du, du, du, du, du, [Sounds]. You could YouTube and hear some Doobie work.
KIM: I will certainly listen to that!
LARSEN: The sixth, the inversion of the third, is considered unstable harmonically in the American ear. So the third is strong, the sixth is unstable, and I wanted to use the strong third and the unstable sixth. You find the sixth used quite a bit in ragtime and boogie and jazz. The other intervals that are important to me in this particular piece are quartal chords and P4/Tritone aggregates.
KIM: That's wonderful. I am so grateful for your generosity and giving me this opportunity to chat with you. Thank you so much for your help.
46 LARSEN: It's a pleasure. It's a pleasure to help you in anyway I can.
47 APPENDIX A
RODEO REINA DEL CIELO
Rodeo Reina del Cielo 102
102 This image is provided by and used with the permission of Arthur Lopez.
48 Rodeo Reina del Cielo103
103 Ibid.
49 APPENDIX B
PROGRAM NOTES TO RODEO QUEEN OF HEAVEN BY LIBBY LARSEN104
Wandering through the Denver Art Museum a year or so ago, I happened upon an exhibit of contemporary Western Art. Amidst paintings of vast June skies, western grass pastures, ranches dwarfed in their landscapes, cowboys and any number of familiar icons of the American West was a glass vitrine which housed a hand-carved wooden, hand-painted Santo, 26 1/2 by 9 1/2 by 8 1/2 inches. The image was a Madonna and Child dressed in Rodeo garb. I walked by at first. Then I walked by again. After my fifth pass I stopped, utterly arrested by the work - Rodeo Reina del Cielo "Rodeo Queen of Heaven," by Arthur Lopez.
The Madonna, serene in her appearance, held the Child, also serene and worldly. Clearly the artist knew his subject. I thought that Lopez’ audacity of dressing the subject in Rodeo regalia and surrounding their heads with halos made of lariats had caught my eye – and it had – but what really speaks to me about this work that Lopez interprets Southwestern American culture through a Mexican Christian religious icon and comes up with an object (the Santo) which speaks volumes about who we are and what we are becoming.
It hit me where I live. As a child in Minneapolis, I was a typical Midwestern kid – except my grade school, Christ the King, was full of plaster Santos, and for eight years we read, wrote and sang Gregorian chant. often singing theIn Festis B. Mariae Vriginis (Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary), a 12th century Gregorian mass, for the daily mass at our church.
The Rodeo Queen of Heaven(Rodeo Reina del Cielo) weaves fragments of this mass into the fabric of this one movement chamber work. I set about to create a raucous, fluid musical Santo – a partner to Arthur Lopez’s work.
104 This program note is used with the permission of Dr. Libby Larsen.
50 APPENDIX C
AUTHORIZATION LETTERS
Permission Letter from Arthur Lopez:105
Hello Won,
I am greatly honored that my work was her interpretation for this composition. You are more than welcome to use the image in your work, I would be honored. I am attaching an image of Rodeo Reina del Cielo (Rodeo Queen of Heaven) for you I hope this works if you need anything else please feel free to ask. I wish you the best on your project.
Peace, Arthur Lopez
Permission Letter from Libby Larsen:106
Dear Won,
Here is the revised version of our phone interview transcription. I made all the necessary changes. You have my permission to use it in its entirety in your treatise. You are also welcome to use the musical example excerpts from Rodeo Queen of Heaven to accompany your writing.
Yours,
Libby Larsen
105 From an email correspondence dated August 21, 2012.
106 From an email correspondence dated October 1, 2012.
51 REFERENCES
Barbieri, Susan M. “The Language of Strings: Libby Larsen’s Music Speaks in American Vernacular.” Strings 14, no. 4 (November-December 1999): 70-72, 74, 76-77.
Bezerra, Jeanenne Gray Barton. “The Relationship Between Text and Music in the Works of Libby Larsen.” Master’s thesis, Baylor University, 1999.
Boyer, Douglas. “Musical Style and Gesture in the Choral Music of Libby Larsen.” Choral Journal 34, no. 3 (October 1993): 17-28.
Chastain, Susan. “A Conversation with Libby Larsen: A Transcription of a Taped Telephone Interview from April 17, 1996.” International Alliance for Women in Music Journal (February 1996): 4-7.
Collins, Pamela. “Libby Larsen.” In Contemporary Composers, edited by Pamela and Brian Morton, 537-8. Chicago: St. James Press, 1992.
Cook, Alicia, "The Evolving Style of Libby Larsen" (1996). Graduate Thesis Collection. Paper 8. http://digitalcommons.butler.edu/grtheses/8
Domenica, Mary Alice, “The Elements of American Vernacular in Three Selected Chamber Works of Libby Larsen: Holy Roller; Barn Dances; and Trio for Piano and Strings.” DMA Essay, The University of Miami, 2010.
El-Hai, Jack. “Libby Larsen.” Minnesota Monthly, June, 1996.
Fowler, Charles. “Chapter 18: Three Musical Creators: Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, Libby Larsen.” In Music! ITs Role and Importance in Our Lives, edited by Charles Fowler, 345-353. New York: MacMillan McGraw Hill, 1994.
Fuller, Sophie. “Libby Larsen.” In Pandora’s Guide to Women Composers, 173-176. San Francisco: Pandora Press, 1995.
Jacobi, Daniel James. “Performance Considerations of Libby Larsen’s Corker for Clarinet and Percussion: A Treatise.” Master’s thesis, University of Nebraska at Omaha, 2001.
Kelly, Jennifer W. “Libby Larsen Composes Love Songs: Five Songs on Texts by Women Poets: An Artist’s Identity Informs her Work,” DMA essay, University of California, 2005.
52 Kessler, Richard. “Libby Larsen Interview.” New Music Box: The Web Magazine of the American Music Center, Newmusicbox.org, April 2, 2010. http:// www.newmusicbox.org/archive/firstperson/larsen/index.html
Larsen, Libby. “A Composer and Her Public: A Mutual Seeking.” Symphony 35 (December 1984): 34-36, 78, 79.
______. Barn Dances. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
______. “Composing to Communicate: Reaching the Audience. “ Symphony 47, no. 5 (September-October 1996): 40-41.
______. “Libby Larsen.” In The Muse That Sings: Composers Speak about the Creative Process, edited by Ann McCuthan. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
_____. “Reaching the Audience.” Symphony 47, no. 5 (September-October 1996): 40-41.
_____. “The Concert Hall That Fell Asleep and Woke Up as a Car Radio.” In Colloquium: Music, Worship, Arts, Vol 2 (Autumn 2005): 11-19.
_____. “The Nature of Music.” Pan Pipes of Sigma Alpha Iota 27, no. 2 (1985): 3-4.
_____. “The Role of the Musician in the 21st Century: Rethinking the Core.” Lecture, National Association of Schools of Music National Convention, 1997. Quoted in Libby Larsen, “Library: Speeches and Lectures.” Libby Larsen Website. http://www.libbylarsen.com
_____. “Words to Live By: A Selected Collection of Inspiring Commencement Addresses.” The American Music Teacher 47, no. 5 (April-May 1998): 32-35.
Lee, Hyungjung. “Libby Larsen’s Four on the Floor (1983) and Slang (1984).” DMA essay, University of Illinois, 2003.
Lewis, Jill Terhaar. “Two Song Cycles by Libby Larsen: A Study of Songs from Letters and Chanting to Paradise.” DMA essay, University of South Carolina, 2000.
Logan, Janice W. “Libby Larsen’s ‘Love after 1950”, A Song Cycle for Mezzo-soprano and Piano. A Stylistic and Interpretive Analysis.” DMA essay, University of Oklahoma, 2008.
Shoemaker, Michelle Normandeau. “Language, Imagery and Reference: The Clarinet as a Cultural Vehicle in Libby Larsen’s Instrumental Music.” DMA essay, New England Conservatory of Music, 2002.
53 Tuttle, Raymond. “Composer Libby Larsen: Letting the Music Speak for Her.” Fanfare - The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors 24, no. 6 (July-August 2001): 20, 22, 24, 26.
54 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Korean-born clarinetist Wonkak Kim has captivated audiences around the globe with his “excellent breath control” (The Washington Post) and “exuberant musicianship” (Fanfare). Since his solo debut with Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic, playing Carl Nielsen’s Clarinet Concerto, Kim has enjoyed a performance career spanning hundreds of venues on four continents, including Carnegie Hall, the Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Constitution Hall, Le Louvre in Paris, Izumi Hall in Osaka, Japan, the Seoul Arts Center as well as in London, Geneva, Philadelphia, Boston, Minneapolis, Ghent, Costa Rica, and Brazil. A laureate of the Presser Music Award, Kim received over a dozen international prizes and is frequently featured with orchestras and ensembles worldwide. His award-winning recordings can be heard on Naxos, Emeritus, Capstone labels as well as the National Public Radio (USA), Radio France, Swedish Radio, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Korean Broadcasting System. An avid chamber musician, Kim has been invited to OK Mozart, Norfolk, Banff, Osaka, and South Korea’s ISCM Pan Music festivals, working with Richard Stoltzman, Yo-Yo Ma, and members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Tokyo, Artis, Brentano and Hayden string quartets. Kim is a founding member of enhakē, the award-winning clarinet-violin-cello- piano quartet praised for its "music of the very highest quality" (Gramophone, UK). With enhakē, Kim has toured throughout the US and abroad, most notably at NYC's Weill Recital Hall and the Promising Artists of the 21st Century Series in Costa Rica under the auspices of the US Department of State. His latest CD with the group “Gulfstream” released on Naxos’s American Classics Series received BBC Music Magazine’s Music US Choice and MusicWeb International “CD of the Month.” A staunch advocate of new music, Kim regularly collaborates with Edward Knight, Libby Larsen, Peter Lieuwen, Peter Schickele and Ellen Zwilich, commissioning, premiereing or recording their new works. Kim joined the music faculty at Tennessee Tech University in 2011, where he is the Assistant Professor of Clarinet. Kim is the principal clarinetist of the Bryan Symphony Orchestra
55 and performs with the Cumberland Quintet, the faculty ensemble-in-residence of Tennessee Tech. Starting the 2012-13 Season, Kim was invited to be the principal clarinetist of the Albany Symphony Orchestra in GA. In the summer, he serves on the faculty at the Chapel Hill International Chamber Music Workshop and the Southeast Chamber Music Institute. Constantly in demand as a teacher-clinician, Kim is regularly invited to give master classes at universities and conservatories throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and Latin America. Kim held educational residencies in Escape2Create at Seaside Institute Florida, Tallahassee Youth Orchestras, and Costa Rican-North American Cultural Center. Kim is a recipient of many awards: the Presser Music Award (2010), First Prize at the Mary Graham Lasley Competition (2010), First Prize at the Richard B. Salsbury Young Artist Competition (2008), and Grand Prize at the Washington Metropolitan Young Artist Competition (2007); Laureate of the 9th Osaka International Chamber Music Competition and Festa (2011), First Prize at the Yellow Springs International Competition (2009), Gold Medal at the International Chamber Music Ensemble Competition at Carnegie Hall (2008), Judges Special Prize at Plowman Competition (2008) as a member of enhakē; winner of the University of North Carolina and Florida State University Doctoral concerto competitions; invitations to the Concert Artist Guild and Munich ARD International competitions, among others. Additionally, Kim received fellowships and grants from the American Composers Forum, Chamber Music America/ National Endowment for the Arts, Norfolk/Yale School of Music, and the Presser Music Foundation. A native of South Korea, Wonkak Kim grew up in Seoul and Paris and moved to the United States at the age of 15. The same year, he began studying clarinet with Kenneth Lee, a disciple of the legendary pedagogue Leon Russianoff. Kim subsequently attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on a distinguished scholarship, where he studied clarinet with Donald Oehler and earned degrees in Mathematics (BA) and Music (BM). He shortly began his career as a clarinetist under the mentorship of Dr. Frank Kowalsky, earning MM and DM degrees at Florida State University. Kim also studied with Janet Hilton, David Shifrin, Richard Stoltzman and Freddy Arteel.
56