American Vistas
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PROJECT PRODUCERS: MIMMI FULMER AND LEONE BUYSE RECORDING ENGINEERS: STEVE GOTCHER AND BUZZ KEMPER (AUDIO FOR THE ARTS, MADISON), AL SWANSON (SEATTLE), ANDY BRADLEY (HOUSTON) RECORDING PRODUCERS: MICHAEL WEBSTER (MADISON AND HOUSTON), WILLIAM FARLOW AND RIC MERRITT (MADISON), ZART DOMBOURIAN-EBY AND MARTIN AMLIN (SEATTLE) DIGITAL EDITING AND MASTERING: ALLEN CORNEAU, ESSENTIAL SOUND, HOUSTON; STEVE GOTCHER AND BUZZ KEMPER BOOKLET NOTES: LEONE BUYSE AND MIMMI FULMER american vistas THE FOLLOWING WORKS WERE RECORDED AT AUDIO FOR THE ARTS IN MADISON: CORIGLIANO AND COPLAND Mimmi Fulmer, soprano Leone Buyse, flute & alto flute (MAY 22, 2000), GENDEL AND SHAPEY (DECEMBER 19, 2003), BOSCH AND COWELL (DECEMBER 17, 2005), Martin Amlin, piano Scott Gendel, piano Michael Webster, clarinet GABURO (JUNE 21, 2006). AMLIN AND BLAKE WERE RECORDED IN ILLSLEY BALL NORDSTROM RECITAL HALL AT BENAROYA HALL, SEATTLE, ON MAY 5, 2001. STALLMAN WAS RECORDED IN STUDE CONCERT HALL, RICE UNIVERSITY, HOUSTON, ON FEBRUARY 14, 2006. PHOTO OF MIMMI FULMER BY JAMES GILL PHOTO OF LEONE BUYSE BY TOMMY LAVERGNE WWW.ALBANYRECORDS.COM TROY1097 ALBANY RECORDS U.S. 915 BROADWAY, ALBANY, NY 12207 TEL: 518.436.8814 FAX: 518.436.0643 ALBANY RECORDS U.K. BOX 137, KENDAL, CUMBRIA LA8 0XD works by Kenneth Gaburo Ralph Shapey Maura Bosch TEL: 01539 824008 © 2009 ALBANY RECORDS MADE IN THE USA DDD John Corigliano Braxton Blake Scott Gendel Aaron Copland WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL. Martin Amlin Henry Cowell Kurt Stallmann THE MUSIC Martin Amlin: Two Songs on Poems of Anne Fessenden Martin Amlin is Associate Professor of Music and chairman of the Composition and Theory Department at The 11 works on this compact disc represent four generations of American composers and a composi- Boston University, as well as director of the Young Artists Composition Program at the Boston University tional time span of eight decades. Interestingly, the texts of these pieces span five centuries, from Tanglewood Institute. His compositions have been performed throughout the world and are published by poems by Richard Barnefield (1574-1627) and Thomas Dekker (c.1570-c.1644) to a text by the the Theodore Presser Company. Both his Sonata for Piccolo and Piano and Sonata No. 2 for Flute and Piano Minnesota-based poet Jim Moore (b. 1943). In the ensemble repertoire for voice and flute, only have won the National Flute Association’s newly published music competition. A versatile performer, Corigliano’s Three Irish Folksong Settings and Copland’s As It Fell Upon a Day enjoy wide recognition Mr. Amlin has appeared as piano soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra and has been featured on the and frequent performances; the remaining works, all composed between 1992 and 2005, are relatively Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Prelude concerts at both Symphony Hall and Tanglewood. He studied in unknown and deserving of a broader audience. Fontainebleau and Paris with Nadia Boulanger, and received his master’s and doctoral degrees and the In selecting music for this disc we sought works that define skillful text setting and showcase Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music. Recipient of grants from such organizations as contrasting compositional styles. Just as the American “character” defies definition because of its rich the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and ASCAP, he may be heard as cultural blend, the American musical “style” comprises myriad voices—each distinct in its conviction. both pianist and composer on the Albany, Hyperion, Koch International, Centaur, Crystal, Titanic, Opus One, Ashmont Music, Folkways, and Wergo labels. Amlin writes: “Two Songs on Poems by Anne Fessenden was premiered on a recital for the New York John Corigliano: Three Irish Folksong Settings Flute Club in January, 1998, by Mimmi Fulmer, soprano and Leone Buyse, alto flute. Anne Fessenden is a John Corigliano is one of the most prominent American composers of his generation. Awarded a Pulitzer poet whom I met at Yaddo, the artists’ colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. I was struck by the wonderful Prize in 2001 for his Symphony No. 2, he also received the Grawemeyer Award in 1991 for his Symphony imagery in her poetry and thought that the alto flute was the perfect instrument for the evocative nature No. 1 and an Academy Award for Original Film Score (The Red Violin) in 1999. He has composed primarily of these two texts. I used several different types of rhythmic devices (such as changing meters and for the symphonic medium, and includes several concertos in his catalogue. Flutists are familiar with polyrhythms) in an attempt to give the music a floating quality in ‘Lookout.’ In ‘The Song Wheel’ there is his colorful Pied Piper Fantasy, written in 1982 for flutist James Galway. His music is known for its a continual shifting between symmetrical and asymmetrical measures in order to create the image of a accessibility, and the Three Irish Folksong Settings are an excellent example of Corigliano’s ability to wheel that has been spinning for centuries and continues to spin unhindered.” compose in a contemporary idiom while conveying the timeless character of folk music. Written in 1988, Three Irish Folksong Settings have quickly become a staple in the repertoire for Kenneth Gaburo: Cantilena One voice and flute. Each of the songs deals with the universal issue of love in a different way, from the Through his work in American experimentalism, Kenneth Gaburo (1926-1993) had a major impact on a self-pitying mood of “The Salley Gardens” to the boisterous, youthful exuberance of “The Foggy Dew” generation of musical minds. Gifted as a teacher and jazz pianist, he composed and published exten- and the wistful longing of never-to-be-fulfilled love in “She Moved Through the Fair.” The last of these sively and was a pioneer in the field of electronic music. Among his teachers were Bernard Rogers at is particularly haunting in its modal language, and the three as a set are memorable for their engaging the Eastman School of Music and Goffredo Petrassi. During the course of his career he taught at the dialogue between voice and flute. University of Illinois, the University of California at San Diego, and the University of Iowa. As early as 1955 he began to combine taped concrete sounds with live performers, a genre that was to interest him for the rest of his life. Attracted to music as language and language as music, Gaburo began formal Henry Cowell: I Heard in the Night studies in linguistics in 1959 and devised the term “compositional linguistics.” In 1965 he founded the Henry Cowell (1897-1965) was a highly influential seeker who explored music of all cultures and whose New Music Choral Ensemble (NMCE), one of the first American choirs to perform avant-garde vocal compositional innovations revolutionized American music. A native of Menlo Park, California, he was music, combining improvisation with electronics, linguistics, computers, dance, mime, film, slides, and exposed from an early age to Irish folk music, Asian and Indian classical music traditions, and his tape. Gaburo received awards from the Guggenheim, UNESCO, Thorne, Fromm, and Koussevitsky mother’s Midwestern folk tunes. Cowell studied composition with Charles Seeger at the University of Foundations and in 1974 founded Lingua Press Publishers, a publishing house committed to showcasing California and pursued further studies in world music. He became a celebrity in both the United States artist-generated works in all media relating to language and music. Cantilena One: Solo soprano is set and Europe as a performer of his own piano works, which included such sensational new compositional to a luminous text by Rabindranath Tagore. techniques as clusters, playing harmonics on the piano strings, and producing percussive sounds inside the piano. He taught at the New School for Social Research in New York, the Peabody Braxton Blake: Three Songs on Poems by Marianne Moore Conservatory, and Columbia University, and counted among his students John Cage, Lou Harrison, and Braxton Blake studied at the Eastman School of Music (MM and PhD), the Aspen Music Festival, the (more briefly) George Gershwin and Burt Bacharach. His circle of friends included Charles Ives, Carl Bayreuth Festival, the Dartington Festival, the Staatliche Musikhochschule, Stuttgart, and the Ruggles, and Dane Rudhyar. Among his many awards and honors was his election in 1951 to the University of Houston. He has received commissions from the Sønderjyllands Symfoniorkester, Denmark; American Institute of Arts and Letters. the Philharmonic Brass, Stuttgart; the West German Radio, Cologne; the Vail Valley Foundation, the City Cowell wrote more than 180 songs. I Heard in the Night was composed at a time when Cowell had of Mannheim, Ensemble GelberKlang, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the City of Stuttgart, and the Stuttgart returned to a more conservative language. It uses a text originally entitled “No Child” by the Irish poet Ballet. His music is published by Theodore Presser and Columbia University Music Press, has been Padraic Colum, also a playwright and novelist with a keen interest in folklore. The folk-like character recorded and broadcast by the Südwest Rundfunk, Baden-Baden, and can be heard on the Ars-Musici of its simple melody touchingly expresses the melancholy of the childless woman speaking. and Albany labels. Mr. Blake is a recipient of the Wladimir and Rhoda Lakond Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. As conductor, he served as music director for the Erick Hawkins Dance Ralph Shapey: Lullaby Company, and appeared with such ensembles as the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the San Francisco A composition student of Stefan Wolpe, Ralph Shapey (1921-2002) venerated masters of previous gen- Contemporary Music Players, the South German Radio Choir, and the Stuttgart Ballet. He has recorded erations and was particularly influenced by Edgard Varèse.