Eph‐palooza III Program Notes
Benjamin Britten: Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury The twentieth century saw a veritable explosion of British composers commanding the world stage: Gustav Holst’s The Planets and Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance are among the most‐performed works of the twentieth century, while Michael Tippett and Ralph Vaughan Williams are highly regarded for their contributions to a host of genres and ensembles. However, perhaps no British composer is as highly regarded as Benjamin Britten (1913‐1976). Many of his fifteen (15!) operas—including Turn of the Screw and Peter Grimes, described by Alex Ross as “an opera of staggering dramatic force”—have already entered the established repertoire of opera companies across the world. His War Requiem brilliantly synthesized his pacifist ideals, moral outrage, and flair for musical drama in a provocative work of overwhelming intensity. Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra—one of three works popularly used in children’s music education (along with Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Saint‐Saens’s The Carnival of the Animals)—reveals his skill as a master orchestrator. This ability is remarkably apparent even in the Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury for three trumpets. Written in 1959 for the Pageant of Magna Carta held on the grounds of Bury St. Edmunds Cathedral, the Fanfare is “in the form of three separate trumpet fanfares, played attacca, which combine in conclusion” (Britten).
James Romig: The Frame Problem (2003) The Frame Problem was commissioned by a consortium of percussion ensembles from ten colleges and universities. The work's instrumentation comprises multiple "trios:” each player performs on a trio of woods, metals, or small drums, while a fourth trio—of larger drums—is distributed between the three parts. The work, a strict circular canon (each part is identical, merely starting from a different point on a looped continuum), also incorporates a paradigmatic "trio of trios" into its large‐scale structure: a particularly explosive and distinct section of the work occurs three times in each part (nine times, therefore, in total), functioning as a kind of "keystone.” Over the span of the work, this short section is heard twice as a solo (once in the metals; once in the small drums), twice as a duet between players (woods and small drums; woods and metals), and finally as a trio that concludes the work. The title refers to a primary difficulty in designing robots and computer programs with "artificial intelligence." Human brains have a remarkable ability to "frame" information: in an instant, we are able to observe and organize an enormous amount of data, sorting and categorizing what is relevant and what is not. When listening to music, one of the primary hierarchical "frames" we create is that of meter. In this percussion trio, multiple distinct meters occur concurrently—in different lines, at constantly shifting dynamic levels, and in different timbral aggregations—providing human listeners with the opportunity to resolve multiple overlapping “frames” simultaneously. Robots in the audience will probably just be confused. ‐James Romig
James Romig (b. 1971) composes solo, chamber, and large ensemble works that have been performed at recitals and festivals throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. Compositional studies with Charles Wuorinen instilled in his musical aesthetic a deep regard for iterative structure and self‐similar form, while theoretical studies with Milton Babbitt reinforced the notion of multi‐level correlation of rhythm and pitch. Interaction with the natural world through hiking and photography has engendered an interest in fractals and chaotic systems, while influences as diverse as Paul Klee, Brian Ferneyhough, and Haruki Murakami have inspired the creation of multivalent artworks that provide performers and audiences with numerous potential cognitive pathways and manners of appreciation. Romig holds a Ph.D. from Rutgers University and M.M. and B.M. degrees from the University of Iowa. He is currently associate professor of composition and theory at Western Illinois University and has also taught at Rutgers University and Bucknell University. Guest‐ composer visits include Northwestern University, Columbia University, the Cincinnati Conservatory, Juilliard, the American Academy in Rome, and Petrified Forest National Park.
Robert Schumann: An die Stern "The best way to cultivate one's feeling for melody,” wrote Robert Schumann, “is still to compose frequently for voice and a cappella chorus. Basically, one must invent and create inwardly as much as possible." For a composer associated primarily with solo songs and instrumental music, this affinity for the choral medium is surprising. But the little known cycle of Four Songs for Double Choir, op. 141 (of which the choir performs no. 1 tonight and the entire cycle at their November 6 concert) demonstrates not just affinity but the same expressive melodic genius, harmonic daring and structural confidence of Schumann’s most familiar songs and instrumental works.
This month marks the 160th anniversary of the op. 141 cycle, composed over several days in mid‐October, 1849.
An die Sterne To the Stars Sterne in des Himmels Ferne! Stars in the distant heavens, die mit Strahlen bessrer Welt Brightening the earthly twilight ihr die Erdendämmrung hellt; With the rays of a better world; schau'n nicht Geisteraugen Are not spirit eyes von euch erdenwärts, Looking earthwards from you, daß sie Frieden hauchen Breathing peace ins umwölkte Herz? Into the clouded heart?
Sterne in des Himmels Ferne! Stars in the distant heavens, träumt sich auch in jenem Raum Is the fleeting dream of a life eines Lebens flücht'ger Traum ? Being dreamed in that space as well?? Hebt Entzücken, Wonne, Are delight, bliss, Trauer, Wehmut, Schmerz, Sorrow, sadness and pain jenseit unsrer Sonne Also felt by a feeling heart auch ein fühlend Herz? On the other side of the sun?
Sterne in des Himmels Ferne! Stars in the distant heavens, Winkt ihr nicht schon Himmelsruh' Are you not signaling celestial calm mir aus euren Fernen zu? To me from your distant world? Wird nicht einst dem Müden Shall the weary creature not, one day auf den goldnen Au'n On the golden pastures, ungetrübter Frieden See unalloyed peace in die Seele tau'n? Flowing into its soul??
Sterne [in des Himmels Ferne], Stars [in the distant heavens], bis mein Geist den Fittich hebt Until my spirit spreads its wings und zu eurem Frieden schwebt, And soars to your peace, hang' an euch mein Sehnen I cling to you my yearning, hoffend, glaubevoll! In the hope and in faith! O, ihr holden, schönen, O you noble, lovely ones, könnt ihr täuschen wohl? Could you be deceiving?
‐ Friedrich Rückert
Orlande de Lassus: Providebam Dominum Orlande De Lassus (c. 1530‐1594) was one of the most influential musicians of the late 16th century. Through his sacred and secular works he helped to develop and define Franco‐ Flemmish polyphony. Providebam Dominum is a sacred motet for seven voices in two antiphonal choirs. In the original voicing, one choir is three sopranos and the other is the traditional Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. In this edition by Robert King, three trumpets play the soprano parts of the first choir, and a trumpet, two french horns, and trombone play the part of the second choir.
John Adams: “The Perilous Shore” from Gnarly Buttons (1996) John Adams is one of America's most admired and respected composers. Among numerous awards and honors, he won the Grawemeyer Award (1995) and was named “Composer of the Year” by Musical America (1997). Revealing his status as, perhaps, the unofficial composer laureate for the U.S., in 2002 Adams was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to write a work commemorating the first anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks; his On the Transmigration of Souls received the 2003 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the Nonesuch recording won a rare “triple crown” at the Grammys, including “Best Classical Recording”, “Best Orchestral Performance”, and “Best Classical Contemporary Composition.”
Born and raised in Concord, New Hampshire, Adams grew up in a family that saw no boundaries or distinctions between different styles of music; both his parents were active performers musical (his father played clarinet and his mother sang in church choir and local musical theater productions), and they instilled in young John a love of music ranging from Mozart to Benny Goodman, Bach to Broadway show tunes—and it is this wide range of influences that continues to fire Adams’s musical imagination. As Thomas May remarks: "If Adams has become America's most prominent and in some ways most respected composer, it's because he's found his own voice and his own way beyond the unproductive aesthetic skirmishes of recent decades. He's so past the polarizing arguments of whether music should be tonal or not, or should be easily understood or esoteric, or be 'pop'‐sounding or freakishly original." Adams’s clarinet concerto Gnarly Buttons finds it root not only in the world of classical music, but also in folk and vernacular musics. As Adams writes:
The clarinet was my first instrument. I learned it from my father, who played it in small swing bands in New England during the Depression era. He was my first and most important teacher, sitting in the front room with me, patiently counting out rhythms and checking my embouchure and fingering. Benny Goodman was a role model, and several of his recordings–in particular the 1938 Carnegie Hall jazz concert and a Mozart album with the Boston Symphony Orchestra–were played so often in the house that they almost became part of the furniture. Later, as a teenager, I played in a local marching band with my father, and I also began to perform the other clarinet classics by Brahms, von Weber, Bartók, Stravinsky, and Copland. During my high school years I played the instrument alongside him in a small community orchestra that gave concerts before an audience of mental patients at the New Hampshire State Hospital.
But strangely enough, I never composed for the instrument until I was almost fifty. By that time my father had died, and the set of instruments I had played as a boy, a Selmer A and B‐flat pair, had traveled back and forth across the country from me to my father (who played them until he fell victim to Alzheimer’s disease) and ultimately back to me. During the latter stages of my father’s illness, the clarinets became an obsession for him, and this gentle, infinitely patient man grew more and more convinced that someone was intent upon breaking into his New Hampshire house and stealing them. Finally, one day, my mother found the disassembled instruments hidden in a hamper of laundry. It was the end of my father’s life with the instrument. The horns were sent to me in California where they grew dusty and stiff, sitting in a closet. But I brought them out again when I began to compose Gnarly Buttons, and the intimate history they embodied, stretching from Benny Goodman through Mozart, the marching band, the State Hospital to my father’s final illness, became deeply embedded in the piece.
"Gnarly" means knotty, twisted or covered with gnarls...your basic village elder's walking stick. In American school kid parlance it takes on additional connotations of something to be admired: "awesome," "neat," "fresh," etc. etc. The "buttons" are probably lingering in my mind from Gertrude Stein's "Tender Buttons," but my evoking them here also acknowledges our lives at the end of the 20th century as being largely given over to pressing buttons of one sort or another. NB: clarinets have rings and keys, not buttons.
The first movement of Gnarly Buttons—“The Perilous Shore”—is a trope on a Protestant shape‐ note hymn found in a 19th‐century volume, The Footsteps of Jesus, the first lines of which are:
O Lord steer me from that Perilous Shore Ease my soul through tempest's roar. Satan's leering help me firmly turn away Hurl me singing into that tremulous day!
The opening melodic line played by the clarinet is twisted and embellished from the start, appearing first in monody and eventually providing both micro and macro material for the ensuing musical structures. Bits of the hymn melody are fragmented and tossed through the ensemble, juxtaposing rusticity with modernity, terror with elation, all in an ever‐increasing frenzy of energy and passion.
Alex Taylor started playing clarinet in the sixth grade after brief stints with both tuba and piano. From 2004‐2006, Alex served as principal clarinet in the Reno Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and was featured as a soloist with Rondo from Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major, K. 622. He also performed in the California All State Band from 2004‐2006, serving as assistant principal in 2006. Alex is majoring in biology and plans to attend medical school soon after graduating. In addition to his interest in clarinet, Alex enjoys racing with the Nordic ski team. Alex is a student of Susan Martula.
Antonio Carlos Jobim: Chega de Saudade Antonio Carlos Jobim was the most prolific and influential composer of the Bossa Nova era. In many of his compositions (such as Wave and Triste), he deliberately juxtaposed major and minor tonalities. Chega de Saudade provides the most dramatic such example, not simply beginning in major and ending in minor, but rather containing two equal halves of its form, the first in minor and the second in major. This piece was incorporated into the larger jazz repertoire by the late Dizzy Gillespie.
Ghanian traditional (arranged by Bernard Woma): Ne Wa Seb (“Come and Dance”) The Ghanaian gyil, a cousin to the Zimbabwean marimba, is the focus of tonight’s presentation. This instrument is played by the Dagara people of northwestern Ghana and it is central to many social activities. Zambezi has been fortunate to have worked with Ghanaian gyil master, Bernard Woma, in learning this material.
Robert Pearsall: Lay the Garland British composer Robert Pearsall (1795‐1856) was trained in and briefly practice law; after a mild stroke and following medical advice, he moved to Germany where he pursued his interests in history, painting, geneology, heraldry and, above all, musical composition. There he became absorbed in the Cecilian movement, an effort to return music to a more subservient role in the Catholic church and which held the Renaissance masters of the 15th and 16th century (Palestrina, above all) as ultimate models. He received training in traditional counterpoint and transcribed Renaissance works into modern notation. Soon, the revival of secular styles occurring back in England took his interest, as well, and Pearsall began writing madrigals in the style of Morley and other 16th century British composers. Lay a garland, one of his best‐known works, is a remarkable synthesis of sure and clear neo‐Renaissance counterpoint and an almost constant use of expressive dissonance and a romantically enriched harmonic palette.
Lay a garland on her hearse of [the] dismal yew. Maidens, willow branches wear, say she died true. Her love was false, but she was firm [from her hour of birth.] Upon her buried body lie lightly, thou gentle earth. Francis Beaumont (ca. 1584‐1616), John Fletcher (1579‐1625) (NB: The words inside the brackets belong to the original poem by Beaumont and Fletcher, but have been left out in the composition. The word "thou" in the last line has been added in the composition.)
Brian Simalchik: Three Overlooks: “Anthony's Nose,” “Taconic,” “Adams” (2009) Adams, Anthony's Nose, Taconic Three Overlooks is a piece for viola and piano in three short movements, played attacca. It is one of a series of pieces in which I attempt to create an acoustic space that reflects my own experience in specific landscapes. Though one can certainly be struck by the physical beauty of a certain land‐ scape, our memory of place is much richer than just a recollection of physical attributes. In that same way, this piece is not trying to depict landscape literally: it is an attempt to capture moods, emotions, and the pace of passing time I remember when I was in three specific places. ‐Brian Simalchik
Brian Simalchik is a senior at Williams College, majoring in music with a focus on composition. His score for the documentary Child of Hope: Darfur Dreams of Peace won best soundtrack at the 2008 Kent Film Festival. Brian will have his senior thesis composition premiered by the Berkshire Symphony in spring 2010. Over the last few years, several of Brian’s pieces have been premiered on campus: the Williams Percussion Ensemble premiered The Light is Electric in spring 2008; the Williams Chamber Winds premiered Untitled with choreography by Darran Moore `09 in a concert of collaborations with Dance Company in April 2009; Leo Brown ‘11 premiered a new Topography 1, 2, 3 for solo violin also in April 2009; and his when I lived in permanence for cello soloists Katie Palmer ’10, Mimi Lou ’09, and Betsy Ribble ’09 and Chamber Winds was premiered in May 2009. Brian’s arrangement of The Mountains for brass ensemble has been performed at Convocation the last two years, and his arrangement of Eric Satie’s Sports et Divertissements was performed by the Student Symphony in December 2008.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Bogoroditse Devo Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873‐1843) composed few works for a cappella choir; all were large‐ scale, multi‐sectioned works and each employed Russian liturgical chant to a great extent as a melodic platform. As an advocate of the New Russian School of choral composition, he embraced Russian chant melodies to create a uniquely Russian sound (in opposition to the heavily German and Italian influenced sacred music of the preceding two centuries). For Bogoroditsye Devo, his most beloved anthem from The All‐Night Vigil, op. 37, Rachmaninoff invented a “chant‐like” melody which serves as the basis of the piece – a brief, luminous choral chant that weds late Romantic sweep to a fervently Russian sacred choral song.
Bogoroditsye Devo, raduysia. Virgin Mother Of God, rejoice, Blagodatnaya Mariye, Ghospod s Toboyu. Holy Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blagoslovenna Ti v zhenah, i blagosloven Blessed are you among women, plod chreva Tvoyego, And blessed is the fruit of your womb, yako Spasa rodila yesi dush nashih. For you have borne the savior of our souls.
Kathryn Salfelder: Cathedrals (2008) Kathryn Salfelder (b. 1987) is fast gaining national recognition as a rising young composer. This past May Ms. Salfelder graduated from the New England Conservatory, she studied with Michael Gandolfi and was awarded both the 2009 Donald Martino Award for Excellence in Composition and the 2009 George Chadwick Medal, NEC’s highest undergraduate honor. She is currently studying with Aaron Jay Kernis, pursuing a MM in Composition at the Yale School of Music.
Her orchestral work, Dessin No. 1, will be premiered in Boston this Fall by the New England Philharmonic, as winner of their 2009‐2010 Call for Scores. The following month, it will be performed by the Minnesota Orchestra on the Future Classics! Concert, in conjunction with their Ninth Annual Composer Institute. Her wind band work Cathedrals—which has already been performed over 30 times across the U.S.—has received numerous accolades, including the ASCAP/CBDNA Frederick Fennell Prize, Ithaca College Walter Beeler Memorial Composition Prize, and the U.S. Air Force Colonel Arnold D. Gabriel Award. Salfelder offers the following comments:
Cathedrals is a fantasy on Gabrieli’s Canzon Primi Toni from the Sacrae Symphoniae, which dates from 1597. Written for St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice, the canzon is scored for two brass choirs, each comprised of two trumpets and two trombones. The choirs were stationed in opposite balconies of the church according to the antiphonal principal of cori spezzati (It. “broken choirs”), which forms the basis of much of Gabrieli’s writing.
Cathedrals is an adventure in “neo‐renaissance” music, in its seating arrangement, antiphonal qualities, 16th‐century counterpoint, and canonic textures. Its form is structured on the golden ratio (1: .618), which is commonly found not only in nature and art, but also in the motets and masses of Renaissance composers such as Palestrina and Lassus. The areas surrounding the golden section and its series of extrapolated subdivisions have audible characteristics, often evidenced by cadences, changes in texture, or juxtaposition of ideas.
The work is a synthesis of the old and the new, evoking the mystery and allure of Gabrieli’s spatial music, intertwined with the rich color palette, modal harmonies, and textures of woodwinds and percussion.
Oliver Nelson: It's Glory The Jazz Ensemble’s opener is a straightforward swing arrangement by Oliver Nelson. Though best known as a jazz studio arranger and composer (Blues and the Abstract Truth is his best known collection of original compositions, while his arrangements may be found supporting the work of organist Jimmy Smith, guitarist Wes Montgomery, and many others), Nelson also wrote many scores for movies and television as well.
Duke Ellington & Billy Strayhorn: The Eighth Veil Interestingly, van de Leur's appendix (The Music of Billy Strayhorn, Oxford, 2002) dates this piece to 1946, while Wynton Marsalis's Jazz at Lincoln Center notes state 1962. More than likely this is because the transcription we are playing tonight (by Lincoln Center's David Berger) is done from the Ellington album Afro Bossa (1962). In any event, this piece falls squarely in the idiosyncratic and unique realm of what scholars and reviewers have long referred to as Ellington's "exotic" material. Written to feature Cat Anderson in a demanding solo (as opposed to high register lead trumpet) role, the piece is also noteworthy for its lack of improvisation, nuanced instrumental blend, and unusual harmony.
Duke Ellington: I like the Sunrise from Liberian Suite This piece is the opening movement of the 1947 Liberian Suite, commissioned by that country's government to commemorate its centennial that year. The premiere took place in Carnegie Hall and was originally recorded to feature the heroic baritone Al Hibbler. Strayhorn's influence is obvious in the contrapuntal introduction.
I like the sunrise 'cause it brings a new day, I like a new day, it brings new hope, they say. I like the sunrise blazing in the new sky, Night time is weary, oh and so am I.
Every evening I wish upon a star That my brand new bright tomorrow isn't very far. When that heavy blue curtain of night is raised up high, Out of sight, I like the sunrise, oh heavenly day, I like the sunrise, I hope it lights for me
Every evening I wish upon a star That my brand new bright tomorrow isn't very far. When that heavy blue curtain of night is raised up high, Way out of sight, I like the sunrise, so heavenly to see, I like the sunrise, I hope it likes poor me.
Rob Pasternak ‘11: Blues for Baltimore A Blues‐based composition by our own prolific Rob Pasternak, who has developed into an outstanding composer and jazz pianist whose work is now featured routinely in the Jazz Ensemble performances.
Irving Berlin (arr. Mary Lou Williams): Trumpets No End (aka Blue Skies) Another piece from the Ellington Swing Era canon—though as the arrangement of Irving Berlin's Blue Skies (also written to feature Cat Anderson, for obvious reasons)—is by the late Mary Lou Williams, who during the 40s contributed to the libraries of many important swing bands, not just Ellington's but also those of Benny Goodman and Andy Kirk. A daring composer/arranger, Williams frequently challenged the technical (and formal) limits of jazz players at the time in her piece (for example, she was among the first to compose a jazz fugue, long before the so‐called "Third Stream" era), and she was also a pianistic mentor to both Bud Powell and Thelonious Monk.