9 december, 2002 - Het Bethanienklooster, Amsterdam


CONCERT XXXVII

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presenteert





Michael Arnowitt

     American Piano Music      &      Vermont Portrait







Programma


     American Piano Music


William Mayer - Fantasia, 1st movement of Piano Sonata (1960)

Aaron Copland - Piano Variations (1930)

George Crumb - Dream Images (Gemini) and Spiral Galaxy (Aquarius) (1972)
from: Makrokosmos

Frank Zappa - The Girl in the Magnesium Dress (1983)

Robert Helps - Hommage ˇ Ravel (1972)

John Cage - 49 Waltzes for the 5 Boroughs (1977)
version with field recordings from Vermont addresses by M. Arnowitt

Eve Beglarian - Fireside, for piano and spoken text (2001)
based on a poem written by Ruth Crawford at age 13

David Rakowski - Nocturnal E-Machines (1988)



Pauze



     Vermont Portrait


James Grant - Toccata (1984)

David Fuqua - Once again, once again / I am for you / A star (1989/1996)

Stanley Charkey - Three Short Inventions (1986)

David Gunn - FogWalls (1996)

Larry Polansky - Four-Voice Mensuration Canon #13 DIY (1976-2001)
"Eroica Canon", realized by M. Arnowitt

Dennis Bathory-Kitsz - Tirkiinistra: 25 Landscape Preludes (2002 - World Premiere)
num. 11, 19, 24, 20, 3, 14 and 25

Allen Shawn -
     Five Preludes: no. 1, impetuous (1994)
     Three Reveries: no. 3, solemn (1992)


Eric Lyon - (2002 - World Premiere)
     Sandoz
     Purification Ritual


Allen Shawn - Boogie Woogie (1983/1999)




Dit concert is tot stand gekomen met steun van de Public Affairs Office van de ambassade van de Verenigde Staten in Den Haag.








Toelichtingen




Fantasia - William Mayer

For a program exploring American and Vermont music of the last forty years, the noted composer William Mayer, born in 1925, is the perfect starting point, as Mayer lives part of the year in the urban atmosphere of New York City and part of the year in the small town environment of Springfield, Vermont. His Fantasia, part of his 1960 Piano Sonata often performed as a separate work, is one of MayerĖs rare compositions using 12-tone writing; the opening 12-tone row, however, is formed of rich, open, and sonorous intervals more reminiscent of Copland than Schoenberg. The composer describes the Fantasia as "somewhat akin in visual experience to early morning mist clearing from a lake, only to return at dusk," a scene he more likely saw in rural Vermont than in New York City.

Mayer has commented: "the initial twelve-tone row acts as a frame of reference and as a generating principle, never as a closed system. This is another way of saying that I was immediately unfaithful to the row whenever an alien impulse stirred. I have a deep conviction, however, that random ideas that occur to a composer while a work is in progress are only seemingly unrelated the unconscious often brings to a work a subtle and deep organizing power that a conscious manipulation of materials could not hope to match."


Piano Variations - Aaron Copland

This powerful, focused composition uses the theme and variation set form as developed by European composers but places the listener in an American environment of granite and skyscrapers. Written in 1930, this composition is widely viewed as one of the greatest pieces of American 20th century piano music.


Dream Images & Spiral Galaxy - George Crumb

The world of the unconscious is also touched by CrumbĖs "Dream Images," where fragments of the lyrical theme of ChopinĖs "Fantaisie-impromptu" drift in and out of consciousness; at the pieceĖs conclusion, perhaps the dreamer is abruptly woken up. Crumb is fascinated with the way music appears visually; his scores are always beautifully published on extra-large paper. In his collections of Makrokosmos pieces (sets of 12 pieces, each devoted to one sign of the zodiac), some are written in the shapes of a cross, a circle, and a spiral.


49 Waltzes for the 5 Boroughs - John Cage

This piece collages together fragments of famous waltzes, Cageian snippets of short sounds, and field recordings collected from street addresses grouped in threes. In the original composition, Cage specified various addresses in the five sections of New York City, but tonight you will hear tape recordings made at addresses chosen from where Michael Arnowitt lives in Montpelier, Vermont, a small-town, rural environment in the northeast of the United States. Many thanks to Dennis Bathory-Kitsz for making the field recordings.


Fireside - Eve Beglarian

"Fireside was commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill in celebration of Ruth Crawford SeegerĖs centennial. The piece sets a poem Ruth Crawford wrote when she was thirteen years old. The harmony is a response to her fifth prelude. Fireside is dedicated to women composers of the future, who will undoubtedly be making devilĖs bargains of their own." - Eve Beglarian

Fireside Fancies - Ruth Crawford, age 13

When I sit by the side of the blazing fire
On a cold December night,
And gaze at the leaping and rollicking flames
As they cast their flickering light

I see what I would be in future years,
If my wishes and hopes came true,
And the flames form pictures of things that I dream,
Of the deeds that I hope to do.

One tall yellow flame darts above all the rest,
And I see myself famed and renowned,
A poetess I, and a novelist too,
Who is honored the whole world around.

That flame then grows dim, which to me seems to say,
That my first hope must soon die away,
Then another one darts on a great opera stage,
The most exquisite music I play.
And then, after many flames rise, and die down,
The first burns even and slow,
And I see myself singing to children my own,
On the porch of a small bungalow.

Oh, I dream, and I dream, until slowly the fire
Burns lower, grows smaller, less bright,
Till the last tiny spark has completely gone out,
And my dreams are wrapt up in the night.



"Once again, once again / I am for you / A star" - David Fuqua

This intriguing work, composed in sections based on the various movements of BachĖs famous "English Suite no. 2 in A minor," features the pianist improvising gradual transitions between composed, written-out material. These transitions are to be fashioned in the style of Steve ReichĖs "process music" of the 1970Ės, but the improvisational element creates a more exciting and less mechanical performance atmosphere.

Another important influence for the composer was the early twentieth-century development of collage in the visual arts. Fuqua writes of the collage becoming one of the "most radical techniques of the visual arts ÷ in the collages of this period various textures are juxtaposed one against the other in unexpected combinations. Each individual element finds itself in a foreign context that alters its significance and forces a new identity upon it. The unexpected visual shifts of a collage violate the nineteenth century formal conceptions of art as representation of a single object or scene." The title of the piece is from a poem written in this same pre-World War I era by the Russian futurist, Velimir Khlebnikov. Fuqua has radically shifted his own scene, having in recent years taken up residence at a monastery in rural Nepal!


Three Short Inventions - Stanley Charkey

"Three Short Inventions for Piano are a modest homage to BachĖs two-part inventions, which have been a source of pleasure and enlightenment for me. I have always found a two-part contrapuntal texture to be an especially challenging medium to work within, because it requires concise, clear thought and gesture. The first and third inventions are rapid, and explore the same basic gesture, while the second is more lyrical. Three Short Inventions can be heard on pianist Michael ArnowittĖs recording Alive and Well." - Stanley Charkey


FogWalls - David Gunn

"FogWalls was originally composed for an August 1996 multimedia production in Montpelier, Vermont called Circular Screaming that featured electroacoustic music, a couple of computers, numerous blocks of ice, and select aromas that were broadcast throughout the performance space. It was written using Cakewalk sequencing software and conceived to be played by an electronic keyboard, being much much too difficult for normal humans even those with prehensile third arms expressed frustration over the impossible intricacies of measure 79.

Under pressure from clamoring keyboardists plus his parole officer, the composer reworked the piece so that it could be performed by pianists with regulation-size hands ÷ The resulting piece was almost but not quite playable. Even measure 79 spots the pianist a sporting chance to escape with fingers intact. Because the tune was originally called Fogwaltz, more than a few waltzlike phrases may from time to time be discerned. A tonal center has yet to be appointed." - David Gunn


Four Voice Mensuration Canon #13 (DIY) - Larry Polansky

The DIY in the title stands for "do it yourself." In the Cage tradition, this piece consists of what Polansky calls "recipes" (open-ended realization instructions) by which the performer becomes a performer-composer. Inspired by late medieval canons, the basic idea is that of a round wherein the different parts enter at different moments and proceed independently at different speeds calibrated so all parts end together on the last note. Four-element groups undergo permutations according to comprehensive tables provided by the composer. An element in these groups of fours does not have to be an individual pitch: these groups can be composed of four rhythms, four tone colors, instruments, or any element of music you wish to choose: here each individual element is a melody from BeethovenĖs "Eroica" Symphony no. 3.


Tirkiinistra, Landscape Preludes for Piano - Dennis Bathory-Kitsz

"TÔrkĖinistrˇ is a set of 25 one-minute prģludes based on photographs taken on my land in Northfield, Vermont, in the autumn of 2002. Each miniature was created by recomposing the raw material extracted from the design and color information in each photograph, as well as the frequency of changes and densities.

The raw material was extracted many times until it reflected the content of the photograph to the composer's satisfaction, and then roughly worked through 24 modes and scales as reflected through the structure of a folk song. The rough piece was refined and polished so that listening to all 25 prģludes exposes the feel of a Vermont autumn. The photograph for each piece is presented in the upper right of each page of the score, and in the upper left is a dynamic map. This map replaces dynamics in the score itself, and leaves it to the performer to sculpt its shape in sound." - Dennis Bathory-Kitsz


Prelude no. 1, Reverie no. 3, and Boogie Woogie - Allen Shawn

Allen Shawn offers an impetuous Prokofiev-like prelude, a beautiful, sonorous reverie which takes CoplandĖs harmonic ideas a step further, and an exciting modern boogie-woogie jazz piece (think of boogie-woogie as the American version of the romanticsĖ moto perpetuo pieces or the classical periodĖs left-hand Alberti basses). Sandoz and Purification Ritual - Eric Lyon

"My lullabies are intended as gentle meditations on the transition from the 20th to the 21st century. The collection is a note of thanks to Europe for the cultural history that led to my becoming an American composer. While these compositions do not ignore the present, they are focused on the past." - Eric Lyon



Biografiean


Michael Arnowitt






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