Garlands for Steven Stucky Gloria Cheng, piano 1) Iscrizione (4:26) Esa-Pekka Salonen 2) Green Trees Are Bending (1:58) Stephen Andrew Taylor 3) Reverie (2:03) Jesse Jones 4) Nella Luce (2:12) Donald Crockett 5) Capriccio (2:43) Julian Anderson 6) ...and Maura brought me cookies Andrew Waggoner (Remembering Steve) (1:54) 7) Steven Stucky in memoriam (2:11) Charles Bodman Rae 8) Waltz (in memoriam Steve Stucky) (:47) John Harbison 9) That raindrops have hastened the falling flowers: Fang Man in memory of Steven Stucky (2:08) 10) Hommage à Lutosławski (2:10) Brett Dean 11) Harawi-cito de charanguista ciego (2:58) Gabriela Lena Frank 12) Music for Gloria (in memoriam Steven Stucky) (1:09) William Kraft 13) A Few Things (in memory of Steve) (2:26) Steven Mackey 14) In memoriam (2:00) Eric Nathan 15) In Memory of Steve (2:19) Chen Yi 16) Elegy, in memory of Steven Stucky (1:49) Joseph Phibbs 17) November (2:06) Hannah Lash 2 18) Debussy Window (1:43) Michael Small 19) Snowprints (1:38) Julia Adolphe 20) Inscription (1:57) Pierre Jalbert 21) CHAPTER I: In which our hero dies and encounters James Matheson Palestrina, Brahms, Debussy, Lutosławski and other dead loves; looks out to see the entire universe before him, and prepares to visit all of the amazing shit therein (1:55) 22) Muistomerkki (2:23) Christopher Rouse 23) Children’s Crusade (2:07) Harold Meltzer 24) In Memoriam: Steven Stucky (2:07) David S. Lefkowitz 25) Interlude (2:24) Kay Rhie 26) some moths for Steve (1:02) Colin Matthews 27) This is no less curious (3:10) Louis Chiappetta 28) Epitaph (1:23) David Liptak 29) Chorale, for Steve (2:32) Judith Weir 30) Glas (3:17) Daniel S. Godfrey 31) Just a Minute (1:23) Anders Hillborg 32) Fratello (1:23) Magnus Lindberg 33) Two Holy Sonnets of Donne (1982) (10:12) Steven Stucky Peabody Southwell, mezzo-soprano • Carolyn Hove, oboe p c and 2018, Bridge Records, Inc. • All Rights Reserved • Total Time: 1:18:36 3 Garlands for Steven Stucky (1949-2016) A garland is, of course, a wreath or crown of flowers, celebratory or memorial or both. It has also, in a series of incarnations stretching back to the Middle Ages, been a prize, a distinction, or a literary anthology. Garlands for Steven Stucky is all of the above: a memorial wreath, a celebratory crown, an offering of love and respect, and an anthology, not of words but of musical tombeaux, short pieces that give voice to the collective experience of grief, but also of enduring friendship, in the untimely loss of Steven Stucky. Steve was born in 1949 in Hutchinson, Kansas. He studied at Baylor University and at Cornell, where he worked with Karel Husa. After a brief stint teaching at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, he returned to Cornell to teach in 1980. He remained on the faculty there for the next 34 years, during which time he would become one of a handful of the most significant and highly regarded composers of concert music in the U.S., and touch deeply the lives of countless students, musical colleagues, and concert audiences. Lacking either a brahmin conservatory pedigree or an early accumulation of high- profile compositional prizes, Steve built his compositional life brick by brick, through the sheer power and brilliance of his music. Once major ensembles started paying attention, they never stopped. A watershed commission from the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1985 was followed by a torrent of offers from the Minnesota Orchestra, the 4 orchestras of Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, Pittsburgh, and Singapore, the National Symphony, the New York Philharmonic, and the orchestra with which he formed a uniquely rich and long-lasting relationship, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to his orchestral works, Steve also composed a strong and varied catalog of chamber music, music for chorus, wind ensemble, and solo instruments, one opera, and one masterful oratorio, August 4, 1964. The music blew people away: sophisticated, brilliant, and profoundly beautiful, it both challenged and rewarded the listener. Combining a native sense of dramatic gesture with both an intimate knowledge of the European vanguard of the ’60s and ’70s and an encyclopedic knowledge of the standard repertoire, he morphed seamlessly the most astringent dissonances into the most ravishing textures, while tracing imaginative forms of beautiful proportion. His music answered, with no accompanying polemic, long-standing questions as to the public viability of contemporary music, brushing them aside with each performance. There was suddenly, it seemed, nothing to argue about. With the commissions came the awards, among them election to the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a trusteeship of the American Academy in Rome, the Pulitzer Prize for his Second Concerto for Orchestra, and a Grammy nomination. Steve was also a gifted scholar, and his seminal work, Lutosławski and His Music, won the ASCAP/ Deems Taylor Prize for writing about music in 1982. 5 As much as for his music, however (and as is reflected in the notes for this disc), Steve is remembered for his humility; his loyalty; his devotion to the larger musical community; his humor; his excitement and curiosity around literature, visual art, theatre, movies, food, and wine (a first-rate palate); for living itself; for his deep humanity. He was not by nature a public person, but always extended himself to those around him, those who loved and came to depend upon him. He knew that he carried a tremendous responsibility, to music, to the larger culture, and to the successive generations of students to whom he had already given so much, and he did everything he could to live up to it. He was both beloved friend and engaged public citizen, one whose advocacy made a tangible difference in hundreds of lives. — Andrew Waggoner 6 Julia Adolphe (b. 1988), Snowprints Steven Stucky was my first composition teacher. When I arrived at Cornell as an undergraduate, I had no formal training and had spent my childhood writing folk music. I dreamed of expanding my musical language and writing for orchestral forces, but did not know how to begin. I approached Professor Stucky with trepidation, unsure if he would accept me as a student since Cornell’s composition program is designed for doctoral students. Those of you who knew Steve can imagine how he immediately agreed to meet with me. I was lucky enough to study with Steve once a week for four incredibly formative years. Professor Stucky made me feel welcome and included in the intimidating world of contemporary composition. He had a way of making the immense, rich history of classical music accessible, even fun! My piece, Snowprints, strives to capture the spirit of our lessons. When discussing the music he loved, Steve would rapidly switch back and forth between a kind of solemn reverence and giddy excitement. He communicated his deep respect for the compositional art form as well as lighthearted joy about the creative process. In an attempt to capture these moments, Snowprints juxtaposes warm, grounded homophonic chords sounding in the piano’s lowest register with high, angular flurries and kinetic outbursts. The piece simultaneously captures the two of us: I was filled with anxiety and excitement about writing music for the first time and Professor Stucky steadied my nervous energy with calm and sincere encouragement. Steve taught me to believe in my own voice and to embrace my musical instincts. The title evokes the tremendous imprint and influence Steve and his music has had on my life, all against the backdrop of a wintry Ithaca landscape. 7 Adolphe has received commissions from the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, among others. Current projects include the comic opera A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears. Julian Anderson (b. 1967), Capriccio Like most who met him, I loved Steve Stucky very much. His human kindness and elegance of manner were legendary, as was his generosity. Above all, Steve was totally committed to and in love with music, so his own works are always acutely imagined and a delight to the ear. My Capriccio is not a direct evocation of Steve or his music. It’s simply a piece I hope he would have liked, in which I tried to emulate not his style but his standards. Julian Anderson studied with John Lambert, Alexander Goehr, and Tristan Murail. He came to prominence with works such as Diptych and Khorovod, and his music is now performed regularly by the world’s major orchestras and ensembles. Charles Bodman Rae (b. 1955), Steven Stucky in memoriam When the pianist, Gloria Cheng, kindly asked me to contribute a short piece for solo piano in memory of our dear, departed friend, the composer Steven Stucky, the challenge was to produce something that might amuse and please him if only he were able to hear it. Our shared admiration for the music of Lutosławski brought us together as friends, so it seemed natural to hint at some of the works that had influenced both his music and mine. Over the years of our friendship we often compared notes—literally—and knew exactly where each distinctive chord was to be found. For this reason, my modest 8 little tribute includes direct quotation of chords and melodic phrases from the following pieces by Lutosławski: Jeux vénitiens; Livre pour orchestre (the climax chord); Paroles tissées; Symphony no. 3; and the chords from the end of the slow movement of the unfinished Violin Concerto. There are also quotations from Steven’s own Piano Sonata, including one where he alludes to Lutosławski (the song, Dzwony Cerkiewne).