The Music of Meyer Kupferman

-- LINER NOTES --

AMERICAN ACADEMY AND INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND LETTERS
MUSIC OF MEYER KUPFERMAN

THE CELESTIAL CITY
Gilbert Kalish, pianist, performing live and on prerecorded tapes

THE GARDEN OF MY FATHER'S HOUSE
Max Pollikoff, violinist; Meyer Kupferman, clarinetist

ANGEL FOOTPRINTS
Max Pollikoff, violinist, performing live and on prerecorded tapes

MEYER KUPFERMAN (b. 1926, New York City) is self-taught in composition. He has been a professor of composition at Sarah Lawrence College for 30 years, where he' has also served as chairman of the music department. He has received grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Library of Congress, in addition to the 1981 composers award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters that made this recording possible. His Symphony No. 10: FDR was commissioned and performed by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic in commemoration of the 100th anniversary of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's birth.

He is a virtuoso clarinetist and has given annual recitals with his "Music by My Friends" ensemble, a group which has introduced more than fifty new works by American and European composers. Kupferman's special brainchild, the Sarah lawrence Improvisation Ensemble, which he created and conducted for sixteen years, is an important vehicle for experimental work by young composers and performers.

In the late 50's he started to compose music which utilized jazz materials within a framework of atonality. In 1961 he began work on his Cycle of Infinities, a diverse collection of almost fifty works all based on the same twelve-tone row. He has composed twelve film scores, among which Halleluja the Hills, Blast of Silence, Black Uke Me, Trilogy, and Goldstein have received international notice. He writes:

"When I composed THE CELESTIAL CITY in 1974 for my dear friend, Gilbert Kalish, I conceived of the work as a concerto for piano and orchestra even though the piece has no orchestra. The tape accompaniment is scored for two tracks of prerecorded piano, which provide a background that is as imposing and as colorful as an orchestra and that is more flexible. The combined sound of these tightly coordinated pianos creates a contemporary 'SUPERPIANO!' which can dazzle us with its endless displays of astonishing keyboard sonorities and which apparently requires an indefatigable 'six-handed' virtuoso (like Kalish) to operate.

"The work is a 'gestalt' piece, taking its form from my earlier experiments with unusual stylistic mixtures and combinations of tonality and atonality. Like a giant city which embraces all cultures and eventually develops its own, my concerto includes different melodic, harmonic, rhythmic and textural ideas which, under normal circumstances, have little in common, but which ultimately speak, I hope, in one expressive voice.

"While the thematic materials of THE CELESTIAL CITY are original, the concerto suggests musical epochs of the past. It is my conviction that anachronistic sound-images, imbedded in the musical structure of a twentieth-century work, produce a time displacement or psycho-acoustical disturbance.

"Although the concerto is in one continuous movement, the piece is divided into six major episodes. A gradual metamorphosis, sometimes supported by brief transitional phrases between episodes, occurs throughout the course of the work. The principal episodes are:

1) Atonal Images (slow)
2) Balinese Scherzo (fast and light)
3) Introspection (slow and free)
4) Macedonian Dance (rhythmic, ultimately driving)
5) The Romantic Age (slow, then very grandiose)
6a) Modern Jazz Cadenza (on the fast side)
6b) Funky Jazz Combo (bright tempo)

"In section 6b, the Funky Jazz Combo, one taped piano part creates 'jazz drum' and 'jazz bass' effects by plucking, strumming or beating inside the piano.

"I composed THE GARDEN OF MY FATHER'S HOUSE in 1972 in memory of my father, who was my first music teacher. Although he played many instruments and loved to sing, he could not read a note of music. When I was very young he would sing Gypsy songs, Yiddish folk-songs and Rumanian tunes to me and I would play them back on my clarinet, often with omaments and variations. Sometimes he would accompany me on the piano; he had a few favorite chords which always seemed to pop up no matter what the tune.

"The piece is a musical ritual, based on a C-sharp drone, or pedal note, that is heard without interruption, across several ranges, throughout the piece. The violin's drone tremolos, often combined with perfect fifths and quarter-tone tunings, imply the key of C-sharp minor. The violin part is always rubato -lyrical, expressive and frequently very passionate. But, most importantly, the violin is always tonal.

"The clarinet, on the other hand, is atonal, its pitches drawn from the twelve-tone row that I used to write my Cycles of Infinities. The style of the clarinet is contemporary, using wide-range intervals, biting accents and unusual instrumental effects, including fluttertonguing and quarter-tone trills.

"In combining the 'contrasting' roles of the two instruments, I sought to create a musical ritual-game that would draw energy and bits of information from the polarized instruments. The language of the piece calls the listener's attention to the cogent features of both instrumental personalities in a manner that is somewhat similar to the way in which Yiddish combines German and Hebrew. The drone becomes more and more magnetic and begins to join the parts together until they become one in the final C-sharp unison."

"ANGEL FOOTPRINTS, commissioned by Max Pollikoff, was completed in 1973. The use of a tape part, consisting of two tracks of pre-recorded violin, continues my experiments with 'mirror' tape procedures begun more than a decade earlier.

"Written for violin, the work is a 'treble' piece by nature. While composing it, I discovered that my melodies always seemed to ascend, creating additional emphasis on the music's treble character (I soon realized that it was best not to fight this tendency, so I just let it happen.) A considerable range of coloristic, melodic, harmonic and rhythmic devices were therefore required to compensate for the absence of low notes, but no electronic tape manipulations were necessary.

"Much of the focus of the work is on melody, and, in creating the tape parts, I chose to stress similarities, rather than contrasts, among the different lines; for example, stretto-like canons are frequently draped around the live violin line.

"ANGEL FOOTPRINTS is in one continuous movement, but many of its episodes are long enough to be miniature movements in themselves. I found it imperative to close the compositional circle of the piece by creating the suggestion of an arch form; therefore, the opening and finale turned out to be exactly the same, except for the use of mutes in the recapitulation.

"The individual episodes vary quite dramatically in tempo, rhythmic style and scale. Sharp dissonance is an important tool for certain sections; the overall mood, however, is one of innocent, even temperament. While we were taking a walk after I had played her excerpts of the piece, my wife stopped and said, 'It sounds like angel footprints.'"

GILBERT KALISH fully deserves his reputation as a master pianist. All of his performances and recordings seem to generate superlatives. In addition to a heavy schedule of recitals and master classes, he is pianist with the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, head of keyboard activities at T anglewood and frequent guest artist with leading ensembles.

MAX POLLIKOFF is one of the wonders of today's music world. A former child prodigy, he is known as a recitalist extraordinary and creator of New York's Music in Our Time, a series that has introduced more than 250 contemporary works.



This record is sponsored by the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters as part of its music awards program. Four cash awards and a CRI recording are given annually to honor and encourage promising composers and to help them continue their creative work; Meyer Kupferman was a winner in 1981.

This recording employed hand-made ribbon microphones in pairs, spaced six feet apart, in the best available acoustical environment. Their output was fed to a 30 IPS Studer A-SO tape recorder, slightly modified for constant velocity record-playback characteristics, using half-inch tape with two channels, each channel almost V4-inch wide. In this way Y the need for conventional (and troublesome) noise reduction devices was eliminated and the resulting reproduction challenges the digital storage method so far as clarity and cleanliness of sound are concerned. Lacquer masters were cut from the original tapes, employing an Ortofon transducer system with motional feedback. To minimize groove echo, the lacquer masters were processed within twelve hours using the latest European equipment and techniques. Strict quality control pressings were made of the purest available vinyl.

This record was made possible by grants from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University and private donors.

THE CELESTIAL CITY - 24'56"
THE GARDEN - 8 min.
ANGEL FOOTPRINTS - 18'13"
Recorded by David Hancock, New York, October 1981
Produced by Carter Harman
Associate Producer: Carolyn Sachs
Art Director: Judith Lerner
Cover drawing by Meyer Kupferman
LC#: 82-743038
THIS IS A COMPOSER-SUPERVISED RECORDING
Printed in the U.S.A

AGP 155

The Vienna Wind Soloists

Side One
Ibert
Trois Pièces brèves
1. Allegro 2:10
2. Andante 1:33
3. Assez lent-allegro scherzando 2:45

Janáček
Mládí
1. Allegro 3:37
2. Andante sostenuto 4:52
3. Vivace 3:51
4. Allegro animato 4:56
with Horst Hajek (bass clarinet)

Side Two
Hindemith
Kleine Kammermusik, Op. 24, No. 2
1. Lustig. Mässig schnelle Viertel 2:50
2. Walzer. Durchweg sehr leise 1:42
3. Ruhig und einfach. Achtel 4:56
4. Schnelle Vierte
5. Sehr lebhaft 3:31

Ligeti
Ten Pieces for Wind Quintet 13:02
1. Molto sostenuto e calmo
2. Prestissimo minaccioso e burlesco
3. Lento
4. Prestissimo leggiero e virtuoso
5. Presto staccatissimo e leggiero
6. Presto staccatissimo e leggiero
7. Vivo. energico
8. Allegro con delicatezza
9. Sostenuto. stridente
10. Presto bizzarro e rubato, so schnell wie möglich

Wolfgang Schulz (flute) • Gerhard Turetschek (oboe) • Peter Schmidl (clarinet) • Volker Altman (horn) • Fritz Faltl (bassoon)

-- LINER NOTES --

Jacques Ibert (1890-1962) was born in Paris and held the posts of director of both the Academie de France in Rome and later the Paris Opera. In some ways Ibert might be regarded as an off-shoot of "Les Six," in his rejection of Debussian impressionism, favoring the simpler, more direct, often satirical language of Satie and his followers. The Trois Pièces brèves sparkle with wit and virtuosity. The first piece (Allegro) opens with an arresting ostinato figure which straight away leads into a lilting dance-like melody on the oboe. After a middle section in which the material is subjected to mild development, the oboe theme returns, jubilant, and the piece ends in a blaze of color. The Andante movement is similarly economic and to the point, consisting of a delicate two-part invention for flute and clarinet, the rest of the quintet entering only in the final bars forming a short codetta. The final movement, after a slow introduction, returns to the spirit of the dance featuring a parody of an Austrian ländler.

Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) made extensive studies into Moravian and Slavonic folksong, the influences of which are particularly evident in the first and third movements of the sextet Mládí (Youth) written in 1924. The first movement (Allegro) contrasts a folk-like modal melody on the oboe with a more four-square bassoon theme which has an almost martial accompaniment figure. Both are developed side by side, but it is the more robust music that eventually dominates. In the second movement (Andante sostenuto) one melodic unit--a phrase comprising the intervals of a descending second and third--permeates the whole piece, a kind of continuous variation structure. The third movement, the Scherzo of the suite, is typical of Janáček's more "rustic" mood, based on a lively modal tune in folksong style, accompanied by harmonically static ostinati, and with much exact repetition of sections. The final movement (Allegro animato), like the second, is basically the melodic metamorphosis of a single idea heard initially on the flute. As the piece gathers momentum and a climax is reached, the opening material of the first movement is restated and, together with fragments from the other movements, is integrated into the melodic continuum. The idiomatic writing for the wind instruments is characteristic of Janáček: the double-tonguing and flutter-tonguing, for example, in the finale, and the trills in the first movement. The addition of a bass clarinet to the normal quintet means that lower bass notes can be sustained very softly (as in the second movement), an effect difficult to bring off on the larger bassoon. Also by reinforcing the bass register, it releases the horn more frequently from the murky lower region of the compass where it is often forced to operate in many works in the quintet medium.

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) composed the Kleine Kammermusik (Little Chamber Music) opus 24, number 2, in 1922. Like the Trois Pièces brèves it is essentially light in character but extremely refined, and was written during what might be labelled Hindemith's "neo-classical" period, before the opera Mathis der Maler. The forms of each of the five short movements are very clear cut and easily perceptible, the material well defined. Although not diatonic in the traditional sense, tonalities are nevertheless always inherent although rarely established, and constantly veiled by the superimposition of different keys.

György Ligeti (born 1923) was commissioned to write a work for the Stockholm Philharmonic Wind Quintet in 1968, and the Ten Pieces were first performed in Malmö the following year. The structure of the whole alternates tutti and concertante sections, so that pieces two, four, six, eight and ten, feature respectively clarinet, flute, oboe, horn and bassoon, whereas in the other movements all the instruments are of equal importance. Ligeti has described the work as a series of kaleidoscopic images. A limited number of musical ideas and techniques appear in constantly changing relationships and juxtapositions: sometimes expanded, sometimes compressed but never developing thematically in a traditional manner. Various new playing techniques are used: pitchless double-tonguing (in the case of the bassoon, with the reed taken out), and "muted" bassoon, with a cloth stuffed into the upper joint at the beginning of the eighth piece. The work ends abruptly, and here Ligeti quotes Lewis Carroll in the score:

" ... but-"
There was a long pause.
"Is that all?" Alice timidly asked.
"That's all," said Humpty Dumpty. "Good-bye."

-- David Sutton, February 1977

AGP 154

Paul Hindemith, "The Seven Chamber Musics"

SEITE 1
Kammermusik Nr. 1 für kleines Orchester op. 24 Nr. 1
Sehr schnell und wild
Maessig schnelle Halbe - Sehr streng im Rhythmus Quartett: Sehr langsam und mit Ausdruck Finale: 1921 Ausserst lebhaft

Kammermusik Nr. 2 für obligates Klavier und 12 Soloinstrumente op. 36 Nr. 1
Sehr lebhafte Achtel
Sehr langsame Achtel

SEITE 2
Kleines Potpourri. Sehr lebhafte Achtel Finale - Schnelle Viertel
Solo: Maria Bergmann, Klavier

Kammermusik Nr. 6 für Viola d'amore und Kammerorchester op. 46 Nr. 1
Maessig schnell, majestatisch - Doppelt so schnell - Langsam - Sehr zart und ruhig - Im Hauptzeitmass -Variationen Maessig schnell bewegt - Lebhaft, wie fruher
Solo: Ulrich Koch, Viola d'amore

SEITE 3
Kammermusik Nr. 3 für obligates Violoncello und 10 Soloinstrumente op. 36 Nr. 2
Majestatisch und stark. MaBig schnelle Achtel Lebhaft und lustig Sehr ruhig und gemessen schreitende Viertel MaBig bewegte Halbe. Munter, aber immer gemachlich Solo: Martin Ostertag, Violoncello

SEITE4
Kammermusik Nr. 4 für Solovioline und groBeres Kammerorchester op. 36 Nr. 3
Signal. Breite, majestatische Halbe - Sehr lebhaft
Nachtstuck
Lebhafte Viertel - So schnell wie moglich
Solo: Wolfgang Hock, Violine

SEITE 5
Kammermusik Nr. 5 für Solobratsche und grosseres Kammerorchester op. 36 Nr. 4
Schnelle Halbe
Langsam
Maessig schnell
Variante eines Militaermarsches
Solo: Ulrich Koch, Viola

SEITE 6
Kammermusik Nr. 7, Konzert für Orgel und Kammerorchester op. 46 Nr. 2
Nicht zu schnell Sehr langsam und ganz Dritter Satz ohne Titel Solo: Martha Schuster, Orgel

AUSFUHRENDE:
ensemble 13 baden-baden Leitung: Manfred Reichert
Michael Loeckle, Horst Meyer, Flote
Helmut Koch, Oboe Karl Schlechta, Hermann Herbert Fritsch, Klarinette Karl Meiser, Bassklarinette
Helmut Muller, Helmut Backer, Fagott Alfred Steinmuller, Kontrafagott
Robert Bodenroeder,
Baldur Hahne, Trompete
Karl Arnold, Horn
Juergen Ramin, Richard Meyer, Posaune
Gerhard Georgi. Basstuba
Wolfgang Hock, Toshio Mizuno, Violine
Joachim Lemme, Sibylle Haass, Christina Lohss, Elisabeth Wolfgang Roccor, Bratsche
Martin Ostertag, Anton Kasmeier, Albrecht Kuen, Martin Ekkehard Opitz, Violoncello
Sigismund Schwieger, Erik Erker, Konrad Neander, Alek Band, Kontrabass
Maria Bergmann, Klavier
Jurgen Ehret, Akkordeon
Gerold Forker, Schlagzeug


Paul Hindemith's "Kammermusik" works
An introduction by Andres Briner

At first sight the title Kammermusik ("chamber music"), given by Paul Hindemith to a series of his works, seems badly chosen. In the pieces so named, composed between 1921 and 1928, are found a piano concerto, a cello concerto, a violin concerto and a viola concerto, that is to say works of a nature which unquestionably presupposes an orchestra. Uncertainty momentarily increases if one looks around the work of this first mature period of the composer (who was born in 1895 at Hanau, near Frankfurt am Main): the title Kammermusik was employed in the first of the series (Op. 24 No.1) for an ensemble of twelve solo instruments, in the four works of Op. 36 or an orchestra-like ensemble of changing constitution, but in No. 2 of Op. 24-which does not officially belong to the series-for a wind quintet (Kleine Kammermusik). If ensembles with such differing traditions bear the same title, this can be understood only as a conscious stylistic marking, as a trade-mark bestowed by the composer, and as such it then appears clear. Paul Hindemith was concerned that these works should already by their title be clearly contrasted with late Romantic instrumental ensemble music, in which the individual instruments were used above all to produce an atmospheric overall effect, an ensemble of impressionistic tone-values. In the twenties Paul Hindemith lived and composed in opposition to the Romantics, indeed he was one of the most energetic leaders of this opposition in Germany and outside it too. The rallying-point of this musical activity, as sparing in words as highly active in musical deeds, was Donaueschingen in South Germany, where in 1921 were held the first "Chamber-music Performances" (Kammermusik-Auffuehrungen) for the Promotion of Contemporary Music". Hindemith himself celebrated the year of foundation by calling the finale of his first Kammermusik "Finale: 1921". Even in the title "Kammermusik-Auffuehrungen" there was the password "Kammermusik", in very conscious renunciation of the cult of the large symphonic orchestra which the late Romantics had pursued in ever more extravagant fashion.

The first impulses of an artistic opposition movement are mostly the most uncompromising and severe, and it was not otherwise then with Hindemith, who soon became the leading spirit of the Donaueschingen gatherings. His first Kammermusik i.e. Op. 24 No.1 (1921) was not enough to overthrow what was then cherished. This music could be called impudent, if it were realised that an aggressiveness based on art has a legitimate artistic effecr. In this first Kammermusik instruments which the Romantics specially loved, like horns and trombones, are missing. The strings are employed no longer in sensuous profusion, but for a rhythmic pulse and a vital, entirely unsentimental play of movement. Rhythm is the first supporting component in this play, and this rhythm has already taken over much from jazz, which precisely at this time had swept Germany like a mass hypnosis. While Hindemith as composer employed elements of jazz in his work-as Igor Stravinsky had already done before him-he did not fall under the power of this hypnosis: he stole from it a principal means of its seduction and made it serviceable to himself. Moreover, piano and accordion brought this music close to the jazz ensembles of that time, and these ensembles themselves certainly presented chamber music in the original meaning of the term: each part is performed by one player, who was thus as a soloist. Only the direction, in the Kammermusik No.1, that the performers should be placed out of sight of the audience, seems to smack of Romanticism, with its predilection for background ensembles and sunken orchestras, but it in fact leads, from a conception carried to the extreme, to the work's abstraction and the listener's objectivity. In his later Kammermusik works Hindemith no longer asked for the players to be invisible-as they are to the gramophone listener-but this invisibility is in full accord with the consciously objective performance characteristic of this music.

The four concertos of Op. 36 were composed in the years 1924 to 1927; three years thus lie between the first Kammermusik of 1921 and the second, the Piano Concerto of Op. 36-three years in which the Donaueschingen gatherings were consolidated into an institution in which anti-Romantic music in Central Europe found an increasing interest, and in which Hindemith himself (who with the first performance of his Op. 16 Second String Quartet in that same year, 1921, sprang into the centre of the arena) found an immense number of followers. But in accordance with our observation that opposition movements in art, as time goes by, lose their spirit of opposition, in place of which however they may develop a new special sensibility not necessarily, perhaps, opposed to the earlier revolutionary spirit, we find Hindemith in the year 1924 an already changed musician, certainly less bellicose, but settled and far-seeing. He still embodied and had increasingly done so for some time-the type of the "all-round" musician; he not only composed at incredible speed and in astonishing abundance, but played the piano, clarinet and other wind instruments brilliantly, while his principal instruments remained the violin and viola-his instrumental gifts were one of the wonders of musical life at that time. In his Op. 36 (and not only here) he wrote no instrumental part that he himself could not play if-as he himself said-he did a little practice. His thorough practical knowledge of all the instruments employed enabled him to obtain in each case exactly the desired effect, the sought-for coloration, the tested instrumental technique. Much of that which Hindemith demanded of the instruments in these Kammermusik compositions, which have now become, in their own way, classics, has meanwhile entered into the technical equipment of all professional musicians, for Hindemith, like Bartok and Stravinsky also, had written in such a way as to extend the technical possibilities of the instruments through the nature of the music given them. The Op. 36 constitutes, after the aggressive works of the early twenties, the central point of Hindemith the mature, experienced, stylistically far-reaching instrumental composer.

Now the apparent contradictions between the title Kammermusik and the fact that each of the four works of Op. 36 includes an instrument treated as a prominent soloist gradually dissolves for us. While in his first Kammermusik of 1921 the composer threw overboard everything which recalled classical and Romantic usage in orchestral composition, he was now able, in his tolerant mood, to integrate features of the orchestra's symphonic past into his own music. To be sure, in all four concertos he remains far removed from the type of the Romantic solo concertos; the solo parts are set in opposition to the accompanying ensemble, but in a playful way primarily appealing to the performer that recalls baroque or early classical solo concertos. The proportions correspond exactly, the management of form is concise; in each movement one basic mood, one underlying emotion is normally maintained throughout-just as we know from 18th century Italian concertos. In none of the four concertos has the solo instrument to take on a struggle with the Hydra-headed late-Romantic symphony orchestra; here the significance of the term Kammermusik is confirmed: it is music of a small, indeed intimate, cast, though a powerful energy, occasionally indeed a flourish or protest, a signal of revolt, also animates the music. "Kammermusik" here does not imply a seclusion or a restriction to the private or the idyllic; on the contrary, we are dealing with music open to the world, which picks up stimuli from everywhere, from the past as well as from the present. The Italian solo concerto as well as the concerti grossi of Corelli and Handel, the Brandenburg Concertos of Bach as well as the "Sinfonie concertante" works of the early classics, of the Mannheim school, of Haydn and Mozart, with their changing choice of solo instrument-all these influences are brought forward into tre present of the new de-sentimentalised music, which does not on occasion shrink from reminiscences of favourite marches or of dance music of the day. In the work of a composer of less clear-cut individuality this openness could lead to stylistic chaos, to disorientation, to mere imitation or to cheap montage. With Paul Hindemith the first of creative energy is so great, the heat of the crucible of his imagination so intense, that all ingredients are melted down free from dross. The result is four works of unmistakable personality, stamped with unerring individuality and yet belonging to a clearly delineated stylistic range-four works belonging among the best that modern music contains for small instrumental ensembles.

The ensemble for the Piano Concerto (1924) consists (apart from the solo instrument) of twelve instruments. Five of these are woodwind (flute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon), three brass (horn, trumpet and trombone) and four single strings (violin, viola, cello and bass). The Cello Concerto limits itself to ten instruments, not counting the solo cello: four are woodwind, three brass, and the viola is missing from the strings. The four movement Piano Concerto takes over the outward model of the three-movement concerto form with a divertimento movement interpolated - for Hindemith this is, in his own words, a "little potpourri". Particularly the first movement and the finale recall the baroque concertos in their consistent basic emotion. Certainly rhythmic accents here are sharp and frequently irregular-as the number of beats also changes frequently. This so-called changeable metre is a direct expression of the overflowing musical energy, difficult to restrain, which manifests itself in the jagged motives, the sharply-etched contributions of the individual instruments and the occasional tuttis. The piano writing almost entirely renounces the chordal, such as distinguishes the Romantic usage of the piano-Hindemith plainly writes for the two hands of a pianist, that is to say mostly in a two-part and therefore "polyphonic" layout...

...The two last works entitled Kammermusik belong to Op. 46 but were both produced in 1927, that is to say almost at the same time as the Viola Concerto. Op. 46 No.1 (Kammermusik No.6) introduces as solo instrument the viola d'amore, much favoured in the baroque period and distinguished by a delicate and warm timbre; in the wind the clarinets, akin in tone, are significantly employed doubled, the other woodwind and brass single. Here too Hindemith primes a solo instrument of relatively low-lying compass with the deepest of the strings, three cellos and a bass. This Kammermusik for viola d'amore and chamber orchestra, with its intimate, singing quality of tone, was first presented by the composer, an honour which had befallen only the Viola Concerto from the Op. 36 concertos. Hindemith, who in those years preferred to appear in public as a violist, took an exceptional interest in the viola d'amore, this quiet sister of the viola; the Kammermusik No.6 is the witness of a private affinity between a musician who was often noticed only in his extravert vein and a rare and sensitive instrument.


An Organ Concerto, as No. 2 of Op. 46, concludes the series of Kammermusik works. Again a personal wish is involved in its origin; this work, which has an inner kinship with the Op. 36 Viola Concerto, was written for the inauguration of a new organ of the Frankfurt Radio, which Hindemith's brother-in-law Hans Flesch directed. The first performance took place on 8 January 1928 in the Frankfurt radio station. In that same year Hindemith had to leave the city of Frankfurt, in which he had made a phenomenal rise, for Berlin, which had appointed him professor of composition at its Musikhochschule. The composer gave the solo instrument in this Kammermusik No.7 an instrumental ensemble of eight woodwind (including a bass clarinet and a double-bassoon), three brass-the trumpet opens the outer movements with a ceremonial call-and three low strings. This score demonstrates in its combination of linear polyphony, such as had for centuries been appropriate to the organ, and modern concerto spirit the unprecedented mastery of musical composition which Paul Hindemith now had at his command. This earlier of Hindemith's two organ concertos crowns the series of Kammermusik works with an incomparable freshness of musical imagination.

AGP 152

AGP 153

Alban Berg

String Quartet, op. 3
Alban Berg Quartett

II. Langsam
II. Mässige Viertel

Violin Concerto
Kölner Rundfunk Sinfonie-Orchester, conducted by Hiroshi Wakasugi, violin by Ulf Hoelscher

Drei Orchesterstucke, op. 6
Kölner Rundfunk Sinfonie-Orchester, conducted by Hiroshi Wakasugi

AGP151

The Avant Garde Project

Now that we've caught up with every installment of the Avant Garde Project, it's an opportune time to clarify a few things about our reposts of Lou's extraordinary site. AGP is a collection of LP transcriptions and liner scans. The music is generally from the 20th century avant-garde, and extremely hard to find.

Every post tagged 'Avant Garde Project' originates from avantgardeproject.org. Blogger didn't introduce labels until we were pretty far along; so, many AGP reposts are not properly tagged (we'll fix that). The reason we started syndicating Lou's content is because he posts his audio in FLAC. It's a format that retains most of the audio quality of the LP's that he transcribes, which is great for audiophiles but too much work for more casual listeners who are used to mp3's. His liner note scans are also PDF's, and as invaluable as they are, it's not the most accessible format. By tagging the mp3's and posting the liner notes in HTML, we make the material more accessible to everything from hardcore fans looking for the music on Google to the windowshoppers who tend to frequent this blog.

By the way, none of the text accompanying AGP posts is written by us. It's all from the original liner notes.

The most common comments we receive are requests for us to repost files. We generally take files down after 2 weeks, and we never repost anything. But all of the AGP files are still at Lou's original site, as well as several mirrors. The mirrors are light years faster than Lou's site; so, always use them, and there are two archives which are hosting mp3 versions of the files. (Caveat: they are untagged)

In the coming years, a lot of Lou's content will be taken off the site, because it comes from those old CRI recordings, which are being reissued by New World Records. Lou is quite assiduous about insuring that he is only archiving out-of-print LP's, and several installments are already offline because they have been reissued. His intent, like all of us music bloggers, is to share his awareness of great music. He likes to use the allegory of the Man Who Planted Trees as a metaphor for his site's mission. It's apt. If you've enjoyed our Avant Garde Project posts, you have Lou to thank. We've learned a ton from his site, and some of the music has even made its way into our programs. We can't wait for the next installment.

Spanish Vocal Music

Tomás Marco, Ecos de Antonio Machado (Opera Imaginaria no. 1)


Carmelo Bernaola, Ayer...soñe que soñaba

Soprano: Adelina Alvarez
Mezzo soprano: Rosa Alonso
Contralto: Evelia Marcote
Bar itono: Jose Gabriel Serrano
Bajo: Carlos Chausson

CONJUNTO INSTRUMENTAL
Flauta barroca: Miguel Borja Castaiios; Julian Llinas Mascaro
Oboe: Roberto Liiiana Candel
Corno ingles: Miguel Saez Sanuy
Trompeta: Juan Sanchez Luque, Enrique Rioja Lis, Juan Foriscot Riva
Arpa: Jose Adolfo Vaya Andres
Piano: Maria Elena Barrientos
Organo: Francisco Guerrero Marin
Mandolina: Miguel lniesta Lopez
Bandurria: Roberto Grandio Arcis
Laud: Manuel Grandio Rojo
Guitarra: Luis Carmona Aldabalde
Guitarra bajo electrica: Miguel Varona Asenjo
Percusion: Felix Puerta Villanoz, Luis Miguel Alvarez Ruiz
Violin: Juan Luis Jorda Ayats
Viola: Pablo Ceballos Gomez
Violoncello: Angel Gonzalez Quiiiones

CONJUNTO VOCAL
Sopranos: Maria Jose Sanchez Sanchez, Beatriz Melero Miembro, Adelina Alvarez Jimenez, Rosa Zaragoza Lopez
Contraltos: Rosa Alonso Miranda, Maria Luz Fernandez Candoci, Evelia Marcote Calvo, Teresa Eguren Garaizabal
Tenores: Fernando Baiio, Alfonso Ferrer Prieto, Jose Gabriel Vivas Sayas, Carlos Soto Chavarria
Bajos: Luis Celada, Luis Alvarez Sastre, Carlos Chausson Gracia, Fernando Gallego
Director: Jose Maria Franco Gil

ORGAN0 YAMAHA - EX - 42
Casa Hazen
-----------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------
Face A
Sino (1981)
pour choeur mixte, cuivres et percussions

Jacques Jarmasson, Michel Testeniere, trompettes
Michel Di Meo, Claude Colon, cors
Jean-Pol Marchand, Claude Dorel, trombones
Christian de Cormis, tuba
Ceorges van Gucht,Pierre Gasquet, percussions
Mireille Quercia, soprano
Choeur Contemporain de I'Uniuersite d'Aix-en-Provence
Direction Roland Hayrabedian

Face B
Odolez (1979)
Zoro dantzak (1981)
Argiruntz (1983)

Mireille Guigui, soprano - Delphine Pourment, alto
Choeur Contemporain de I'Uniuersite d'Aix-en-Provence
Direction Roland Hayrabedian

FELIX IBARRONDO IS ONE OF THOSE COMPOSERS who bear witness to their time, who carry a message and who dare to express it. He also belongs to those who have the courage to watch the passing of snobberies and of fashions and do not seek to make people believe that they originated them. His music is lyrical at a period when no more than computation is in itself enough for the great majority. He does not shrink from writing melodic lines in small intervals when widely spaced leaps are taken for tokens of modernism. Is he then, in the end, a neoclassic? By no means. Like all modem composers one will find him in the atonal forest. It is not with impunity that he was the disciple of a Frenchman of Austrian origin who taught for some time in Madrid: Max Deutsch.

We find tone clusters, but they are finely calibrated: it is a far cry from Cowell, Cage and Stockhausen. One thinks rather of Bartok's aggregates, but much denser in character. He makes use of the aleatory, but with him chance is strictly ((filtered)). As for phonemes, they are omnipresent in his vocal music. But they do not constitute either an ante-, a para-, or a meta-language; they are neither a gimmick, nor a flight from the literary: they are the quasi natural means of creating a melody and aggregations of vocal tone colour, a manner of orchestrating, as it were. And so it is that the same phonemes mean both ((bloodied)) and ((light)). But then, do not the same oboes and the same strings in the orchestra express both joy and tragedy?

All these techniques are here the elements of a profoundly consistent style.

Felix Ibarrondo (b. 1943) is, with Francesco Guerrero (b. 1951) and Josk Ramon Encinar (b. 1954), his younger contemporaries, one of the leading representatives of the young Spanish school. But more than that; we are a far from the stereotype Spain of the picture postcards, from the Andalusia of Gypsy flamenco. This is Basque country; this land tormented by fratricidal struggle whose folk music - particularly the folk music of the dance - is the most strictly classical, the most controlled folk music imaginable. It is, perhaps, to this spirit of rigorous severity that the desire for a classical control of modemism which can be observed in Ibarrondo's music is due. The Basque country is also the country of speech in extravagant outbursts, of anger as well as of laughter. And it is, perhaps, from these depths that the extraordinarily "musicalized" cries we hear in this recording surge forth. I will not forget the contained rages - contained, but in vain - of a Basque ballet master. I can hear them again here, in many of these long-held vocal lines, contained, and then wearing themselves out in rending sounds. But let there be no misunderstanding: it is not rage that I find here, but rather a manner of being become a feature of musical style. Need one, in the end, remind oneself of the mountains and the Atlantic? They are here, too, in these distinctive waves moving from the basses to the sopranos of the choir.

The ((Chceur Contemporain de l'Universit6 de Provence)) was founded in 1978 and is now conducted by Roland Hayrabedian. It devotes itself particularly to the performance of contemporary works by composers like Ives, Stravinsky, Xenakis, etc. The Choir has also undertaken the first performance of compositions by Betsy Jolas, Guy Reibel, Raymond Vailland, Marcel Frkrniot, Felix Ibarrondo among others.

For each of the choristers, recruited from Aix en Provence as well as from other regions, the choice of the contemporary repertory is not a stratagem designed to help them to easy advancement in a field that is hardly crowded and where it is not difficult to attract the notice of creative musicians. It is, rather, a way of boldly and lovingly living and participating in their time.

This is a record to give to your friends who have misgivings about modem music.

ODOLEZ odol nere. hem'a ez dolorez negarrez baltzez, gorriz, oriz, zuriz ilda nun adi ?	-	bloodied blood my people no suffering weeping in black, in red, in yellow, in white he (it) is dead where are you ?
ZORO DANTZAF zoroak dantzan illargia dantzan Alona Mendiko sorginaren dantzak gabe baltzaren baltzan lur azpiren baltza Zaldi buru parre goietan gure Hem-aren dan tzaren illak gure Herriaren dantzaren mina nun ? zein ? naiz ? gaur ez da eguzkirik ikusten ez da ametzik egiten lano illun errekaldian izo tza o tza	-	dances of the mud the dancing fools the dancing moon the dances of the witches of Mount Alona in the black of the black night the black of the underside of the earth the laughter of the horses'heads on the heights the dead of the dances of our people the pain of the dances of our people where ? who ? when ? today one does not see the Iight one does not dream cloud dark the ice beside the river cold
ARGIRUNTZ pa ke b illa ego billa dabillen aizea urrun dira aurtxoen ametzak pake billa dabillen ametza	-	towards the Iight in search of peace the wind in search of wings the child's dreams are already far away the dreams in search of peace
SINO	-	destiny

Werner Heider

"Stendenbuch" (Book of hours) for 12 vocal parts and 12 windplayers
Text: Eugen Gomringer
Solisten des Chores und des Symphonieorchesters des Suddeutschen Rundfunks Stuttgart. Leitung: Werner Heider

One could refer to meditative constellations; perhaps the sacral form of the spoken litany is not so very remote, In correspondance with the number of hours per day the text is limited to 24 words (12 voices are therefore in proportion 3 sopranos, 3 altos, 3 tenors, 3 basses -and 12 wind instruments-2 flutes, oboe, english horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet and trombone), which are varied by the addition of "my" and "your".

The medium of style of the "Stundenbuch" could be designated as a reduction to essential material. All words are interrelated in their meaning, which is made plain by variations and combinations. So permanently new constellations are created by these words (and sounds), according to the arrangement of the connections. Thus a dialogue of many differenciated parts is created, a dialogue between and of interrelating subjects.

The clear and simple text of Eugen Gomringer was a factor which determined the rhythmical architecture of the musical constellations, the gesture of the whole, and the style altogether.

The composition consists of nine interconnecting parts, each of which modulates into the next part; these are preface and epilogue (both vocal only), four parts with texts and three "stations" which interrupt them (a - spreads of sound, b - mosaic of the windplayers, c - meditation).

There is one central tone which rises continuously, determining and interweaving the whole piece: D'.

The composition was written in 1972 on behalf of the St. Matthews congregation, Erlangen, and was played for the first time that same year.

"Plakat" (poster) for orchestra
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrucken. Leitung: Werner Heider

We are living in a world of posters. Everywhere we go our attention is diverted through optical, verbal or acoustical means. Good posters have always attracted me - I have a large collection myself. So the idea came about to compose a musical poster for orchestra. The following sentence is placed in front as a guide:

This piece is a poster,
A musical placard,
A notice, an advertisement,
A public announcement.
The composition canvasses for orchestra.

The one large poster consists of 13 small posters (notices, placards, announcements), which are all linked together. The whole orchestra is playing (tutti) for the most part, but with occasional smaller or larger groups. Single instruments rarely emerge in a soloistic character. The whole orchestra is meant to conjur up the effect of a poster. I intend to surprise, to arouse attention. A poster which, through its sinews of music, invites and compels. For, after all, this is a piece of musical propoganda for the orchestra.

With interruptions I worked on the score during a period of one and a half years, completing it on August the 1 st, 1974. "Plakat" was written on behalf of the city of Bonn, and was played there, for the first time, in December 1974.

"Commission" for vocal part and chamber orchestra
Text: Ezra Pound
ars nova ensemble nurnberg; William Pearson, Bariton. Leitung: Werner Heider

I have arranged several poems written by the american poet EZRA POUND (1885-1972) around the main poem "commission". It is sung in English but occasionally spoken in German, wherever necessary. At several points I took words from the poems and used them as connective phrases between the complete poems, thus a definite structure was formed.

Attendance: vocal part (baritone) and chamber ensemble (flute, clarinet, trombone, violin, violoncello, double bass, piano, electric organ, and two percussionists).

"Commission" was arranged in 1972 on behalf of the Suddeutscher Rundfunk and was played for the first time in December 1972 in Stuttgart. It was completely by chance that the news of the death of Ezra Pound was commonly known at the same time as the completion of the score.

1st Symphony for Orchestra
Bamberger Symphoniker. Leitung: Werner Heider

Monophone - polyphone - stagnation - animation I - resolution - animation II

1. Monophone (approx. 5') The whole orchestra is constantly playing in unison, sometimes in duplication of up to five octaves. Except for a few passages, the instruments play without vibrato, resulting in a colourless, morbid expression. Dissension of rhythm and dramatical gesture give the impression of a 19th to 20th century musical style.

2. Polyphone (approx. 4')
100 different polyphone episodes for the four instrument groups, woodwind, brass, strings, and piano and percussion, which superimpose each other into a kind of polyphony, detach, and doretail: "universal concerto".

3. Stagnation (approx. 3')
This "horizontal" part is formed by various harmonies, sometimes crescending and decrescending, which originate from all kinds of tonal, polytonal and atonal harmonies.

4. Animation I (approx. 1')
A decisive breaking down of tonal heights, under a predetermined rhythm, and a dynamic crescendo above.

5. Resolution (approx. 2')
A systematical delay appears in four different structures on four different levels (a concertating sextet, a tonal melody, a rhythm-group, and harmonic beats); they create a character of wane and dissolution.

6. Animation II (approx. 1')
Twelve different instrumental groups move together in one dynamic predescribed way: a ficticious union. The romantic and enthusiastic attempt of a reanimation is set in motion. A three-tone motif appears in six different variations at six different places like a sign post.

This composition was written in 1975 on behalf of the "Gemeinnutziger Verein Erlangen" for its 100th birthday, and was played for the first time in January 1976. -- Werner Heider (Translation by Elizabeth Upton)

Werner Heider & Hans Zender

Werner Heider
born 1930.
Composer. pianist, conductor.
Compositions:
Glimpses (F. M. Davis) for soprano, piano and orchestra (1958), Modi for piano (1959), Dialog for clarinet and piano (1960). Inventio I for violin solo (1961), Inventio II for clarinet solo (1962). Konflikte for percussion ensemble and orchestra (1963) Modelle for dancers, instruments. words (W. L. Fischer) and pictures (1964), Inventio III for harpsichord (1964), Konturen for violin and orchestra (1962-64), Katalog for a recorder player (1965), Katalog for a vibraphone player (1965) Strophen for clarinet and chamber orchestra (1965) PicassoMusik for voice and 3 instruments (1965-66), -da sein-music for 20 winds (1966). Plan for strings (1966), Passatempo for 7 soloists (1967). Inneres for organ (1967), Landschaftspartitur for piano (1968), Programm I for harpsichord and tape (1969) Edition, multiple music for variable ensembles (basic model 1969), Bezirk for piano and orchestra (1969), FauststOck for piano (1970), Musik im Diskant for sopranino recorder, harpsichord and percussion (1970), -einander for trombone and orchestra (1970), pyramide for Igor Strawlnsky, for ensemble (1971). Kunst-Stoff for electro-clarinet, prepared piano and tape (1971), Stundenbuch (Eugen Gomringer) for 12 voices and 12 winds (1972). Commission (Ezra Pound) for voice and chamber ensemble (1972).

Heider has conducted approx. 60 pieces by contemporary composers in concert, radio and records. He is the artistic director, pianist or conductor of the following ensembles: Colloquium musicale; Kammermusik + Jazz; Ars Nova ensemble Nurnberg. He is the recipient of numerous awards and scholarships including the composers prize from the city of Stuttgart. the Rome prize granting Heider a two year scholarship at the Villa Massimo in Rome. a scholarship from the city of Berlin and prizes from Nurnberg, Erlangen, Furth.

Werner Heider about his Konturen, Bezirk, -einander.

Between the years 1962 and 11370 I composed five "concertos": Konturen for violin and orchestra; Konflikte for percussion ensemble and orchestra (commissioned by the southwest radio station for Donaueschingen); Strophen for clarinet and chamber orchestra; Bezirk for piano and orchestra; -einander for trombone and orchestra (commissioned by the city of Nurnberg for the Durer year 1971).

Actually the title "concerto" is inappropriate for these works since the orchestra is by no means simply an accompaniment for the soloist. The solo instrument merges and blends with the orchestra, as a main artery embedded in the orchestral sound. The contours become clearly defined, then become covered and unclear and then again emerge in clear profile for a shorter or longer period of time.

Konturen: The arrangement of the five movements as well as their formal structure are symetrically formed. Ensemble J: Start -Allegro -AllegrettoPresto I Andante I Presto -Allegretto -Allegro finish. Monologue I: Violin solo-Orchestra cadenza-Violin solo. Revue: various artistic and humorous numbers-Reminiscences and anticipations as the supporting axis of the entire work and again, various numbers. Monologue II: Orchestra solo. Ensemble II: quasi Rondo.

-einander: The solo instrument engages in a 13-phase dialogue with the entire orchestra in which various forms of musical expression and contrast convey the idea of relationship as follows: in front of each other -round each other -away from each other towards each other and beside each other -over each other and through each other -into each other -for each other and beside each other with each other -under each other and on each other -from each other and after each other -to each other -alongside each other -behind each. other. Each division supersedes the preceding one either· abruptly of by merging into it imperceptibly. The opening, middle and final sections of the composition form stationary "monument like" triads in the keys A-D, conceived symbolically.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
HANS ZENDER
ELEMENTE (1976) 24'18
Radiophone Komposition fur zwei lautsprechergruppen aus MODELLE fur variable Besetzung (1971/73) und CANTO V (Kontinuum und Fragmente) fur Stimmen (1972/74)

-Anni und Gustav Stein herzlich zugeeignet -

Ausfuhrende der fur die Bandmontage verwendeten Stucke: MODELLE: Radio-Sinfonie-Drchester Frankfurt Dirigenten: Hans Zender, Lothar Zagrosek und Burkhard Rempe CANTO V: Vocalensemble Kassel, Dirigent: Klaus Martin Ziegler

Mischung und Realisation: Hans Zender, Richard Hauck und Detiev Kittler
Aufnahme: Juni 1977,
HESSISCHER RUNDFUNK

People more clever than I have already established the fact that there con no longer be a 'style' in the tradinonal sense of the word, and for this reason it should also prove impossible to coin a definition of the general criteria regarding the musico 'language' of today. It would seem to make more sense to search in a pluralistlc manner for various diametrically opposed forms of language. Certain points of extremety have been reached in composition and our experience moves and takes place between these points.

On the one hand we have the concentration on the experience of the "surprising moment" -here the form turns into a series of, as it were, dot·like events, and this seems to me to be the essence of the development in music. at least since Beethoven, on other hand there is the new discovery of continuity, of periodicity, of extended static planes representng the "asiatic" approach to music.

Like many others today, I am fascinated by the intoxicating effects and the magical potentials of "static" music. However, mainly because of my own experiences with the preliminary structures of my "Models for Variable Instrumentation", but also because of the occasions when Earle Brown was conducting, it has become clear to me that an absolute static, or 'endless" and uncontrolled static state is, in music, an impossibility. In order to render the experience of a "state of rest" feasible, the static planes must be endowed with minimal variations which are accurately perceived by the 'inner ear". I also believe it would be mistaken to surrender completely to a tendency towards static music in composition. This can lead only too easily to music which has a saturating and "drug-like" effect. I have no objection to "trips" in music, but the composer must continually "fetch back' the listener.

I advocate the integration into musical thinking of various techniques on various levels. Because of its consistent and closed system, serialism developped a tendency towards sterility, and this seemed to be one of its weaknesses. But all the other techniques working with accidental occurrences are, if used consistently, also 'closed systems" even when are 'open' as regards their form: contain no integrated contradiction. I believe it makes sense If radically opposed systems are forced together. If serialism were to be overcome to the very roots, one would have to do without thinking in terms of quantites altogether, without the even-tempered tone for instance, or any kind of rhythm, etc. It would be better break up the closed rationalism with integrated 'undefined forms of thought".

Apart from all notations which are not expressed n quantities one might. for instance, investigate a method of thought consistenty based on overtones. It seems that the opportunities for with 'pure" intervals have so far hardly been exploited in a new manner. The coupling of several systems of overtones opens up new possibilities in the field of listening because of the many resulting micro-intervals. What seems to me to be of particular significance in the development of recent is listening on different levels, in the of using tone colours, the of extended planes, and the micro-intervals. I believe that in contrast to differentiations of this kind much is out of date today: the assembly en masse of the media employed, the orgies Of noise, the noncommittal use of accidental occurrences, and the reverence for electronic technology.
Hans Zender
(tronsoted by Stefan de Hoon)

Henry Kaiser, "Solo Guitar"

SIDE A
It's a Wonderful Life
SIDE B
Let's Drink 100% Healthy Milk and Study Hard!
The Book of Gold
Ear Trouble

This record is for KLG. Special thank-you's to: Alison Ashman, Stephen Ashman, Lloyd Austin, Nancy Breslau, Peggy Campbell, Evan Cornog, Lisa Davidson, Greg Goodman, John Hanes, Tadahisa Kinoshita, Owen Maercks, Diane Rayor, Ken Richards, Trisha Roberts, Cary Sheldon, Barbara Smith. Donna Sposato, Judith Stadtman, Tracy Strann, Craig Street and Alex Varty.

Equipment employed ror this recording: fender Telecaster with ModuIus Graphite neck and Bartolini LCH pickups. Fender Stratocaster with floyd Rose tremolo. Zeta polyfuzz. Dhx 160X compressor. MXR pitch transposer. Lexicon Super Prime Time and PCM-42 digital delays. Howard Dumble Steel String Singer amplfier. No synthesizer or oscillator sound sources. Epiphone Blackstone acoustic guitar

All selections arc live free improvisations recorded in real time without overdubbing. Let's Drink 100% Healthy Milk and Study Hard! also employs a Linn Drum Computer.

Recorded August and September 1984 by Henry Kaiser and Oliver DiCicco. Mastereel by George Horn, Fantasy Studio.
METALANGUAGE M L - 1 2 4 .
Metalanguage Records, 2639 Russell Street,

Charles Chaynes' Vocal Music

1 - Pour un pays perdu
2 - Pour un rituel oublie
3 - Pour la femme noire
4 - Pour la liberation

Soprano: Christiane Eda-Pierre
Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique
Direction: Gilbert Amy
Percussions africaines :
Jean-Claude Chazal
Gerard Lemaire
(Editions Ricordi-Amphion)

FACE 2 QUATRE POEMES DE SAPPHO
pour,Soprano et Trio a cordes

a) ... "Eros, qui donne la douleur" (6'56)
b) ... "Gongyla, Gongyla, si je te vois un instant" (3'13)
e) ... "Tu es venue Gyla, tu as bien fait, comme j'avais envie de toi" (6'22)
d) ... "Tiakika, Tiakika, Gygyla ao Gay Kaoe" (6'13)

MADY MESPLE, soprano
LE TRIO A CORDES FRANCAIS:
Gerard Jarry, violon
Serge Collot, alto
Michel Tournus, violoncelle
Enregistrement realise a Paris en juin et juillet 1971
Directeur artistique : Eric Macleod
Ingenieur du son: Paul Vavasseur

The first material in the Quatre poemes de Sappho (Four poems by Sappho) is obviously the text to be rendered by Mady Mesple's voice (a gift from one fellow "Toulousain" to another) and it was the singer's "vocal prowess" which initially prompted the score. In addition, there is also the composer's predilection for antiquity revealed in his use of these texts by Sappho, whether complete poems or fragments, forming an amalgamation of lines preserved by posterity. "I was fascinated by the musical possibilities presented by the interiority and intimacy of Sappho's work, as it establishes a poetic mood very rare in classical times. These short poems which excell in the art of suggesting and creating an atmosphere in few words (in this respect they can be compared to Oriental poetry) sound the depths of human sensitivity. It is this sensuous sensitivity, strongly tinged with eroticism I sought to translate into music."

This musical translation makes use of a very free language containing some serial elements. The composer takes maximum advantage of all the resources of the coloratura voice (including a murmur to be amplified microphonically) and of those of the string trio, and at times also uses the quarter tone.

The first poem "Eros qui donne la douleur, Eros qui tisse les mensonges" (Eros who gives suffering, Eros who weaves deceit) establishes a mood. The voice is not sung but murmured. The second poem "Tu me brules ... Je desire, j'aspire ardemment. Autour de toi tourne mon desir" (You burn me ... I desire, I ardently yearn. My desire wheels around you) is the song of waiting, waiting for Gongyla, the faithful friend. Then, with the third poem, desire is fulfilled: "Gongyla, j'offre ata beaute, comme en sacrifice, toute ma beaute" (Gongyla, I offer up to your beauty, as in a sacrifice, all my beauty). Finally, in the fourth poem, Sappho delivers her last song: "Dans ma douleur, qui coule goutte agoutte, un desir me vient de mourir, et de voir les rives humides de I'Acheron ou fleurit Ie lotus, et de descendre vers Hades" (In my suffering flowing drop by drop, the desire for death comes over me, a desire to see the moist banks of the Acheron where the lotus blooms and to descend towards Hades).

Quatre poemes de Sappho was finished in September 1968 and the recording of the work was awarded the "Prix du disque Iyrique" (lyric record prize) in 1974.

Charles Chaynes' Concerti

FACE 1
VISIONS CONCERTANTES pour guitare et douze cordes
· molto lontano · vigoroso
· ritmico e piu vivo · lento
· allegro ritmico · esaltato
· lent (calme) · vigoroso (18'05)

ALBERTO PONCE, guitare
Orchestre de Chambre National de Toulouse
direction: GEORGES ARMAND
Enregistrement realise en octobre 1978
ala Chapelle des Italiens, Toulouse

Charles Chaynes' life is all music. He owes his discovery of music in early childhood (he was born in Toulouse in 1925) to a violonist father and an organist mother. He himself says: "I was plunged into a sea of music. First of all into a sea of church music, for my earliest memories are linked to the organ, an instrument I admired considerably but one which also terrified me a fair deal, with its huge, full, overwhelming sounds ... I never worried myself about it after that: my acquaintance with music was a practical one, gained by listening to music lessons being given."
In turn, he too took lessons: piano lessons, and above all violin lessons. "Every evening, when I was fifteen, I used to play sonatas, by Franck, Lekeu, Debussy, Ravel, with my mother." Mother and son also used to play a very new sonata by the young Charles ...

At the age of eighteen, Charles Chaynes arrived in Paris and started on the national conservatory's great learning cycle: violin studies with Gabriel Bouillon, harmony with Jean and Noel Gallon, then composition with Darius MiIhaud and Jean Rivier. These studies were crowned with success-first prizes in fugue, harmony and composition. To earn a living. he spent his spare time making music, and on one occasion, was even to find himself playing tangos in a cabaret. Charles Chaynes' real musical calling, however, was composition and he decided to go in for the prestigious Prix de Rome, which he won in 1951 with his cantata Et l'homme vit se rouvrir les partes (And man saw the doors re·open). For him, the stay in Rome was not the drudgery decried by Berlioz and Debussy. "At the Villa Medicis, he says, one has time to think, to reconsider things, freed from care and the demands of a 'profession'."

Shortly after his return to Paris, he embarked on a two·fold career, combining his activities as a composer with important duties at the radio; as Director of France-Musique from 1965 to 1975, Charles Chaynes managed to institute a high quality station devoted to music. He is currently Head of the Music Creation Department at Radio·France. Despite these administrative responsibilities, Charles Chaynes has continued to build up his work, receiving recognition with the Award of the Prince Rainier of Monaco International Contest in 1960, the Grand Prix of the City of Paris in 1965, and several prizes' awarded by the French Record Academy (1968, 1970, 1975). His is a diversified work, but one revealing an innate taste for original instrumental combinations, which he uses either in small ensembles or in the symphonic field, where these sometimes limited groups lend a particular colouring to his scores.

Apart from a strong feeling for Bartok in his youth, his fundamental influences are to be sought in other disciplines, and more particularly in poetry. Charles Chaynes has set to music the Poemes de Sappho (Poems by Sappho), as well as Black African texts (Pour un monde nair, For a black world), but even in the absence of any textual quotation, other works are equally steeped in poetry: the spiritual canticle of St. John of the Cross for the Organ Concerto, ancient Chinese texts for Les lllustrations pour La flute de jade (Illustrations for the Jade Flute). At times the reference is an historical one, Roman history in L'Ode pour une mort tragique (Ode for a tragic death) 1954, at others it is pictorial, Dali in Les Visions concertantes (Concerted Visions) recorded here. At all times his work reflects his broad cultural background, his determination to apprehend the world more fully and to express it musically.

For expression is the key to Charles Chaynes' work. He has stated: "My aesthetics are dominated by a desire always to give the emotional element precedence over pure technique." Discussing technique, he adds: "Whatever language the composer uses, or whatever research he undertakes, music must always speak in terms other than the results of intellectual investigations. To be more explicit, I would say that I understand Berg better than Schoenberg. Moreover, all forms of music are such that one is entitled to say one is undertaking research, without necessarily being coldly calculating. The language I use is always atonal. Itoccurs within achromatic but totally free whole. Consequently, I always start with a basic series, but its use is not strict. This series is one, and only one, of the materials available to me."

...For Visions concertantes (Concerted Visions). a commentary on four paintings by Salvador Dali, Charles Chaynes himself has given us some indications which are of more assistance than any explanatory notes might be:
"Lines. forms. colours. the architecture of a landscape transcended and remodelled.
Remembrances of pictorial origin or based on a vision of nature.
The desire to express, to share a felt emotion.
Light, colours, the visual rhythms of solids and volumes becoming momentum, movement, various elements in the musical work. Its definitive form is no more than the outcome of the technical work. Fundamentally assimilated technique being no more than the necessary tool.
1 - Static vision of nature, oppressively calm, but surrounded by astonishing, ever growing ridges, by rapidly contrasted colours. A static vision in which the imagination creates phantasms.
2 - Harsh, linear vision. Clash of sharp lines, opposition between very violent spots and lines in a stark black/white contrast. Impetuses checked at the cef.ltre of a powerful but brilliant fight.
3 - Dream,sleep, temporary suspension ofthemind(and of reason). Emptiness but receptivity to the world of the imaginary. The mind fixated on one central, obsessional point. Sleep curiously filled with impalpable dreams.
4 - A moving vision. Blocks of dark, changing colours from which supple yet rhythmic characters emerge. Transformation, recreation of visions already fleetingly seen. Vitality and movement leading to a maximum intensity in the colours of the exaltation."

Visions concertantes was written for solo guitar and an ensemble of twelve string instruments. -- Claude SAMUEL

Concerto pour Orgue, Orchestre a Cordes, Timbales et Percussions
1. Lent-Mysterieux-Allegro-Lent-Allegro-Lento
2. Tres lent
3. Tres vif, scintillant

Marie-Claire Alain, orgue
Orchestre Philharmonique de l'ORTF
Direction: Serge Baudo

Concerto pour Piano
1. Lento misterioso. Allegro
2. Adagio molto espressivo
3. Allegro risoluto con esaltazione

Yvonne Loriod, piano
Orchestre de Chambre de L'ORTF
Direction: Serge Baudo

Charles Chaynes was born in Toulouse in 1925 and studied music at the Paris Conservatoire, where he was the pupil of Darius Milhaud and Jean Rivier. In 1951, be obtained the Premier Grand Prix de Rome, and remained at the Villa Medicis from 1952 to 1955. There, he wrote symphonic works in which his personality already asserted itself. In Rome, he composed his First Concerto for String Orchestra, premiered at the Bordeaux Festival in 1954, and the Ode for a tragic Death, first performed at the Vichy Festival in 1956, a piece of which Robert Bernard praises the "sober and virile eloquence" in his History of Music.

Charles Chaynes' list of compositions includes Concertos for Trumpet (Erato STU 70227), for Violin, for Piano, for Organ, a Symphony a Second Concerto for Orchestra, a Serenade for \Vind Quintet, a Sonata for Violin and Piano, "Illustrations pour la Flute de Jade" (Erato STU 70227), Etudes lineaires for Chamber Orchestra, thus showing the composer's partiality for instrumental music. though this is by now means exclusive. Charles Chaynes has defined his position himself, by writing: ..Always a partisan of a wholly atonal music, I wish to safeguard a total independence towards any school. The choice of the musical material must result only from taste, from instinct (of course, also from reflexion), but must not be conditioned by a technique fixed a priori. It is only the self-knowledge aequired by regular work tbat can fix a limit to that freedom. Above all, it is important, always to retain a great artistic curiosity, to remain always open and available for any kind of enrichment of the personality". One could not say it in clearer terms. Let us add, however, that this "atonal" musician has the faculty of enhancing, by dazzling colours and sturdy rhythms, a language of which it was believed for a long time (and quite wrongly) that it was only convenient for a morose and pessimistic expression. Primacy of the emotional element, respect and curiosity towards technique, rejection of pre-established schemes, independence towards the different schools, the will to express himself in clear terms, those are the leading lines which we find both in the Piano Concerto and in the Concerto for Organ, string orchestra, kettledrums and percussion.

The CONCERTO FOR ORGAN, STRING ORCHESTRA, KETTLEDRUMS AND PERCUSSION (after the Spiritual Canticle of the Holy John of the Cross) was completed on 3rd September, 1966. It has three movements: Slow, mysterious-Allegro; Very slow, Very fast. The composer himself is introducing this work: "The writing of this Concerto has been conditioned directly by the Firm ERATO. It is dedicated to Marie-Claire Alain, for whom I have a lively friendship and a great admiration since many years. The organ is an instrument that has fascinated me since my childhood, for every Sunday I· was at the organ loft next to my mother, who was an organist in Toulouse. The instrument's great possibilities impressed me and tempted me since a long time. Though I withdrew before the difficulty of writing a piece for organ alone, I went to work. with passion as soon as I was to write a piece for organ and orchestra. It is the care for tone-colour research that prompted me to choose the formula "string orchestra and percussion", the latter being often used in dialogue with the solo organ. The work is an illustration in three parts of poems taken from the Spiritual Canticle by the Holy John of the Cross. The recollection of my reading of these poems during a journey through Castile provoked the psychological shock which incited me to base my Organ Concerto on the extra-musical frame provided by the strange atmosphere of the poem of the Holy John of the Cross. Each movement is the musical comment of a precise poem. This comment tries to translate into music the thirst of love, of peace, of exaltation, of beaming joy, of dramatic feeling, that pervades these poems".

Where werest Thou hidden, my Beloved one?
Thou hast forsaken me amid my lamentations;
Thou hast taken to flight like a stag,
After having wounded me;
I have gone out after Thee, screaming,
But Thou werest already gone.

(The Soul and her divine Spouse).

After a long expectation
He climbed on a tree, and with stretched arms
He remained nailed and died,
His heart cruelly stricken by Love.

(The forsaken Shepherd).

With flowers and emeralds,
Chosen in the early morning,'
We shall make bunches,
Blossoming in Thy love,
And ticd with one of my hairs.

Into this paraphrase of a mystical text Charles Chaynes has put the better part of himself. The whole composition is subordinate to the ,expressive element (at the end of the second movement is to be found a musical translation of the beating of a heart, in accordance with the text by the Holy John of the Cross), but this primacy of feeling does not implicate a contempt of technique, on the contrary. Such a combination of tone-colours is dictated by the laws of absolute music: and it is "as a musician" that Charles Chaynes has wanted it and realized it, but in doing so, he followed the always unexplainable suggestion of the instant, or, if one prefers, his inspiration.

First performed in 1966 hy Yvonne Loriod, the PIANO CONCERTO only calls for a small orchestra: 2 flutes, trumpet, harp,. kettledrums, percussion and strings. It adopts the traditional division into three movements, but within each movement, it retains a very great freedom, devoid of any reference to classical schemes: "The architecture only depends upon the logical correspondence of the different elements and of the successive expressive values". In the first movement (Lento 'misterioso -Allegro), the music "gradually emerges from a short introduction made of wavering calls of the soloist over a pianissimo back-ground of the orchestra". This introduction leads, through a crescendo, to a rhythmic and vigorous Allegro, which gradually exalts itself. The second movement (Adagio molto espressivo) is conceived like "a succession of musical ideas, linked 'together in an order of growing feelings: crescendo of intensity and of lyricism". It ends in an atmosphere of appeasement. The third movement (Allegro risoluto con esaltazione) is overflowing with life, very colourful, and grants a great part to the soloist's virtuosity.

Charles Chaynes, "Erzsebet"

CHARLES CHAYNES
ERZSEBET (1983)
Opera pour une femme seule en six moments lyriques d'apres «Vers Bathory» de Ludovic Janvier
(Editions Ricordi)
Erzsebet -Christiane Eda-Pierre
Avec la participation de Michael Lonsdale: la voix parlee
Orchestre du Theatre National de l'Opera de Paris
Violon solo: Pierre Doukan
Direction: Elgar Howarth

SIDE A | SIDE B

Erzsebet Bathory, a member of one of hungary's most illustrious families, was born in 1560. She died on 21 August 1614, immured by a judicial decision in her castle of Csejthe, an eagle's nest perched on a rocky promontory.

From childhood Erzsebet Bathory inhabited a mysterious world, as if absent in the depths of her being behind the mask of her cold and Singular beauty. She became notorious for her acts of cruelty, torturing and having tortured a large number of young girls in the cellars of her castle. Caught in the act by the Palatine Thurzo, the «bloody Countess» was condemned to life imprisonment. Her accomplices were burnt at the stake.

Her life was lived outside of a human time scheme. Obsessed by a strange and unfathomable eroticism, and by witchcraft, she fell prey to a profound intoxication which engulfed her forever in her irremediable solitude.

The work is set in the room of the castle of Csejthe where Erzsebet, condemned to be immured, will spend the last three years of her life.

"It is not the agreeable but the unfathomable that is fascinating." This observation could be regarded as a key to all of Erzsebet's conduct during the six «moments» of the composition.

There are two important elements: the mirror in a double circle in which she obsessively looks at herself, and the dresses she keeps on changing in the unconscious hope of finding herself.

I -SITUATION
Setting the mood of the heroine and the spectator. After the trial, Erzsebet finds herself alone at the moment when the walls close upon her forever.
Slow realization of her situation by a reading of the sentence.
First resurgence of her past life, the emerging of several desires in the first stage of stupor in this dramatic new situation.
Resignation.

II -DOMINATION OF THE FEMININE
Narcissistic scene of erotic tenderness in front of her mirror. Evocation of happy times and the wishes of childhood, dialogue with her distant past. First profound questionings and the apparition of phantoms.
Regret at non-accomplishment, return of memories in a melancholy but calm state of waiting.

III-DIALOGUE · ACCUSATION - JUSTIFICATION
Brutal scene in which Erzsebet confronts the accusations of the pastor. Violent and dominating hallucination represented by a pre-recording of the heroine's voice. Quotations of the sentence provoke an increasingly acute dramatic tension. Erzsebet defends herself, evoking her ancestors, her moments of gentleness, her former power, but cannot bear the accusing ghost that dominates her.

IV -After this a brief return of calm and the memory of a song of childhood, scene of PROGRESSIVE POSSESSION by witchcraft.
First evocation of the taste of blood, its discovery; its regenerating powers, its mystical origin; recital of the first tortures.
Presence of a profound, irrepressible urge.

V -ILLUSION OF SENSUAL HAPPINESS
Total splitting of the personality by the imaginary appearance of Dona, the favourite young girl with the marvellously evocative voice (pre-recording of the voice of Ilona). Impassioned dialogue of the two characters, increasingly carnal presence.
Difficult frontier between eroticism and sadism; the latter dominant and leading to the inevitable murder. Desperate recourse to witchcraft.

VI - TRAGIC WAITING FOR THE INEVITABLE
Conscious, lucid, voluntary waiting, always seeking for the «why», the deep, hidden, mythical explanation of all her acts. In an atmosphere of carnal revolt, the emergence of a moment of total possession.
At this moment all apparent rationality vanishes, all that matters is the LIBERATING delirious exaltation in the fullness of her illusory erotic-ritualistic realization. The light finally recovered in the abstraction of the whole surrounding drama ...

MUSICAL ANALYSIS
The work is divided into six «moments». Clearly this is in accordance with Ludovic Janvier's text, but it is also in the interests of musical proportion and form. Each «moment» has a predominant musical colour.

The writing of this score was guided in the first place by the need to establish primordial cells which would be the basic material. The key points were therefore written before the continuity of the piece. The basic cells, a kind of Leitmotiv, move about throughout the work.

Each of these Leitmotivs corresponds to a psychological state of the heroine; because this work is more a subjective vision of the composer, of motivations, than of the acts of Erzsebet Bathory.

The musical language is extremely free, moving within the acquired sound universe of our time: Linearly. in a distant serial recollection; the sound aggregations unfolding dodecaphonically do not exclude harmonic warmth.

The continuity of the writing very frequently employs semialeatoric devices which permit a great deal of flexibility in the performance of the sung role, as well as a fluctuating and mysterious climate.

The orchestration, limited to 60 musicians, centres mainly around the experimentation with and combination of timbres. These are created by the use of all the possibilities of traditional instruments, but also by the addition of a Bronte. This instrument plays an important part in the composition:
1. by its ability to create sound colours . sometimes very strange ones similar to electro-acoustically produced sounds,
2. by its electrically amplified and «modulated» zither.

It is worth remarking on the distant origins of certain of the linear investigations.

In the 16th century the region in which Erzsebet Bathory lived was strongly marked by the immigration pf gipsy musicians whom she liked listening to. Apart from their music, it is their origins, their ancestral sources in Northem India and Azerbaijan to which the linear curves allude. This takes the form of meanders, arabesques, and melismas given to the solo violin. All of this is, of course, a re-creation based on pivot intervals and a feeling of flexible improvisation.

Libretto (pp. 10-13)

Ulpiu Vlad

01 - Poetica viselor (The poetry of dreams), 1 [14:20]
02 - Poetica viselor (The poetry of dreams), 2 [13:42]
03 - Poetica viselor (The poetry of dreams), 3 [17:35]

[three pieces for soloists and instrumental ensemble recorded on tape, 2003]

04 - De nuntă (Wedding songs), 1988, The Madrigal Chorus, conductor Dorel Paşcu Rădulescu [10:16]
05 - Dincolo de vise VI (Beyond dreams VI), 2006, The ensemble Partita Radicale (Germany) and tape [19:04]

Bernard Parmegiani, "De Natura Sonorum"

Side A
I. Incidences/Resonances 4'01
II. Accidents/Harmonics 4'47
III. Geologie sonore 4'36
IV. Elastic Etude 6'46
V. Conjugaison du timbre 5'03

Side B
I. Natures ephemeres 4'12
II. Matieres induites 2'58
III. Ondes croisees 2'35
IV. Pleins et delies 4'39
V. Points contre champs 8'39

ReR Quarterly, Volume 1, No. 4

LAST quarter I outlined some of the functions I hoped this magazine might serve, particularly with reference to making public and visible the nuts and bolts, the quotidian life of the music we 'like' so that we can develop and share a common 'expertise'; sit at the same table and play with the same, unmarked, deck. Much of this issue follows trails begun there. Robert Matthews pursues in more concrete detail the way specific technologies directly influence and broadly shape the musics they mediate: human imagination is not a freewheeling force disconnected from history and technology and able simply to create 'as it wishes' in a personal or even a purely social -vacuum: the instruments of labour inevitably reflect and reinforce a subtle and apparently 'natural' aesthetic -and they similarly make 'natural' (because effective, seamless) certain relations of production, not independent of, but always either for or against, the prevailing interests of a (temporarily) dominant economic class. Political battles are fought through and with these instruments, and their designers are not dispassionate. It is necessary for us to select the instruments that give us the possibilities we want, not to accept what is put in front of us; and it is important to recognise that the pressures which shape new instruments today are not like those that led to refinements in times past. L"ss and less now are they musical pressures, and less and less do they originate from musicians and needs grown from playing. Such suspicion of the newest instruments may seem conservative -each generation after all bemoans the passing of older, better days. But here I think we are dealing with a different issue: the issue of Power. To resist a particular application of new technology is not a straightforwardly conservative act, since what is at stake is who is to have the power to exercise control over the course of history. A technology, when applied, when condensed into a particular instrument, can only show that it is able successfully to solve a problem. If the problem is how to manipulate people more effectively -or how to control new markets -this may make the particular application not only useless to any but the would-be manipulators, but absolutely negative.
Steve Moore, in his working practice and in his music, has succeeded in using very 'modern' instruments (recording studio, blades and tape, processing devices, &c.) to enhance and distil what is essentially human and affective in the aesthetic currency of sound, This is a crucial area of work and one sadly much neglected: the attention of music criticism, theory and practice tends typically to be occupied with purely musical considerations and the solving of musical problems. Yet it is the weird of recording that it opens up new aesthetic possibilities for sound and sound organisation, including the basis for new principles of construction (beyond notation and the traditionally 'musical'), new motives for composition (for instance to move and affect through the orchestration of charged 'real', environmental sound, the language of whose meaning is more open and less formally constructed than that of previous 'musics') and new spheres of operation (including, most unlimited of all, the territory of the psychological). Steve broaches a subject here that I hope will be much more discussed -it is past time.

LAST month too we touched on the problem of the distance between performers and public in the degree and type of knowiedge each has about what is happening at a concert. This quarter Michael Gerzon writes about the PA system: typically the intermediary between performer and public -and not a neutral intermediary. The PA plays an enormous part in 'constructing' the meaning and the social relations engendered at a performance. Hence Michael's startling title 'The Politics of PA'. I hope we can go further into the psychological and ideological ramifications of this in a later issue. Like Robert Matthews, Michael not only illuminates and criticises, but also offers practical proposals.

Mr Utsunomiya of AFTER DINNER also writes of PA problems of a type encountered almost universally at electric music concerts and treated, strangely, as 'inevitable', accepted by groups and public alike without question. Groups either grumble or concern themselves only with the sound in their monitors (which, argues Mr Utsunomiya, makes the end sound even worse), leaving the sound the public hears to be dealt with as best it can by the sound mixer sitting in the hall. The public also usually grumbles, but feels powerless and in any case has no knowledge of what the problem is, since basic knowledge ,about the production and reproduction of music in the medium they like....Even though the event involves real human proximity, still an in expertise on the part of the public disconnects them from participation in the aesthetics of production and propagation. The powerlessnes that flows from this has to be compensated for by dehumanising -negating -the producers, making them abstractions and their work some kind of pure expression of their being, rather than the product of an imperfect struggle with materials and time. For the group the public becomes similarly alienated, one of the external factors to be worked upon and manipulated to a successful outcome; strangers who do not take part in the work but unpredictably operate on it -like the acoustics, the sound equipment or stimulants in the bloodstream, etc. On the aesthetic ground the only way a public ear can know the details and subtleties of a performance is if it is enabled to hear them. But clarity is not usual, not expected, and the concert ear -in direct contradiction to the record-listening ear or the concert ear of an 'Art music' audience, has hardly even learned HOW to listen critically: I mean, to hear inside the sound or to hear expression mediated by the sound. To learn these listening skills will be an empirical matter -and primary will be the provision of good quality sound through which to listen, sound that can give the ear a chance to educate itself. Initially it seems that it must rest with musicians and sound engineers working as equal partners in groups to solve the problems that impede this development. Some groups try not to get a 'good' commercial sound (Abba and many similar groups spend millions on this; but a good commercial stage sound is one that, far from letting the listener in, takes immense pains to keep them out: to dehumanise) -but a good sound for listeneing and getting inside (Discos and especially West Indian Sound Systems, dub and scratch record manipulators, &c., take great care of these things and it is extraordinary that players of live music, who could control the subtlety and expressivity of sound far more, tend not to -except, again, when they are making a record). Michael Gerzon mentions some attempts to tackle this lack and here Mr Utsunomiya reports on his practical innovations with AFTER DINNER.

I wanted only to draw these related articles together. The others, on broader topics, speak perfectly for themselves, I only add that it gives real pleasure to have Greil Marcus in these pages -rare as a writer in our field who finds the place where passion for the form (and those who give it life) is informed and deepened by an intellectual analysis and a political will. For the breadth of his position 'Mystery Train' is still easy to come by and indispensible to start with. For us (Europeans) particularly it gives an invaluable insight into the American experience of the growth and 'meaning' of our now shared musics an experience we never really knew yet which seemed to come implied but inchoate in the package as we imported it, mixed inextricably with the deeper elements which did have existential meaning for us -and which we could appropriate for our own purposes. Or try to. American and European rock still have very different and very divergent cultural teleologies, but should be able to understand and be enriched by one another. Greil, illuminating his own culture, also helps make our translation clearer. Here, however, he writes about politics, and this needs no translation.

FINALLY, when we began this venture we said we'd run it for one year and then assess how it had worked. This is the end of that year (although it has taken 16 months to get there!). We are happy with the way the project has slowly taken shape and with the responses to it -which have been very good, in quality certainly, if not SO much as we had hoped in quantity. Still, so long as we are able, we'll try to continue. This year too has been marked by a number of disasters and problems for our parent company, Recommended, all of which are not yet settled; and this is will' deadlines haven't always been met. But, with the best intentions. and 1000 plans and projects-on our pad, we now dot the i's and CROSS the t's on VOLUME 1 and prepare to open Volume 2. which will begin with a special issue devoted to questions raised through the new technology and the experience and practice of 'classical' or 'Art' music , about what music actually can be -what can be meant by it? -- Chris Cutler

After Dinner
Recorded at Musiam Square, Osaka on February 2nd 1986 by Manabu Takagi. This concert also included visual works and dance performance. It was part of a tour sponsored by ZERO records. The players were: Haco: Vocal Mutsuhiko Izumi: Guitar Ichiro Inoue: Percussion Seiichi Kuroda: Bass, Hichiriki Hideyuki Yamagata: Drums Tadahiko Yokogawa: Bass, Violin (Tapes and Singing on "RE") Kenji Konishi: Melotron, Keyboards Tomoko Tsunoda: Violin Also at the concert were: Yashushi Utsunomiya: Master conductor, tape operation & submixing Sanae Hamada: Dancing Akihiro Yamada & Masaichi Kaminuma: Slide composition The tape here was mixed down from 8 to 2 tracks at After Dinner's own M.U.E. Studio, I expect by Haco and Mr Utsunomiya.
Of the songs selected here
After Dinner
A Walnut
RE
A Man ofMarble
Glass Tube
-all words & music are by Haco, except for "RE", by Tadahiko Yokogawa. Tracks 1& 5 have appeared in different versions on the LP "After Dinner" (Recommended Records'-RR C20). The remainder have not appeared on record before. After Dinner's The Room of Hair-mobile (recorded with Fred Frith in July 1984) features on "Welcome to Dreamland" (Celluloid Records CELL 5013), an album of ten Japanese groups. Contact: c/o Zero Records, 32 Shimokawara-cho, Hukakusa, Hushimi-ku, Kyoto 612
Japan.
Many thanks particularly to Haco for her generous cooperation, Mr Utsunomiya for his article & expertise, and Charlie Charles, who carried the first concert cassette from After Dinner to us.

Wondeur Brass - L'Heure des Louves
Recorded at Studio de la Main Gauche, Montreal, Quebec, January 1986. Sound Engineer: Alain DeRoque Words: Danielle Roger Music: Joane Hetu and Diane Labrosse Arranged by Wondeur Brass
Ginette Bergeron: Tenor Saxophone, Vocals Judith Gruber-Stitzer: Bass Joane Hetu: Alto Saxophone
Diane Labrosse: Synthesisers Danielle Roger: Drums Contact c/o Diane Labrosse, CP323 Station Delorimier, Montreal, Quebec H2H 2N7
Wondeur Brass have one excellenl LP .ailable so far,
"RAVIR" (\VB 21385), on their own label. They recenlly
made a highly successful tour in Europe.

Strange Games - "One, Two"
The last time I had a chance to meet the Soviet New Wave band Strange Games was in 1984. I remember it was a dark, cold evening in early winter. With Grisha Sologub, the guitarist of the band, I was standing at the bus stop waiting for the bus which would take us to one of Leningrad's Trade Unions clubs, where the band usually held their rehearsals. The club was right in the centre of the city, its windows facing a beautiful square in the French classical style. Since 1982, when Strange Games registered themselves with the Leningrad House of People's Artistic Creativity as an amateur musical group (or, as it is called officially, a Vocal Instrumental Ensemble), they have been entitled to this kind of luxury -a free space provided by the Soviet authorities where they get themselves organised, store their instruments and (in this imd similar kinds of clubs in Leningrad) do gigs.

The day we met, Grisha explained to me, was a special one. The band's keyboard player, known by his nickname Skvorechnik, had just bought a synthesiser, the first the band had ever had. I! was Soviet made: "They say it's not so bad -a new model." Grisha commented. "But in general," he continued, "the situation with instruments in Leningrad for amateur pop groups is very difficult." Of course, good Western-made instruments can only be obtained on the black market and cost an enormous amount of money. so the group could not possibly afford them. As for Soviet instruments, getting them is also a problem. There aren't enough of them, and besides they are usually not of a very good quality. Grisha's mates always laugh when people try to compare the musical style of Strange Games with Western groups, or even accuse the band of apeing Western New Wave music. "I! would bea great pleasure for us," Grisha said, "to ape someone's style, but how could we do this? Nowadays, in order to model yourself on someone from the West -say, Lhe ew Romantics -you have to have at least a good drum kit and a sophisticated, high-quality synthesiser. We don't have them a'nd probably never will. So such talk in my opinion is pure nonsense."

Still. as Strange Games themselves recognise, particularly at the very beginning of the group's history and eVtJn before the group was formed, all of the musicians were very fond of such groups as Madness, Bod Manners, Police, Specials, UB 40 and the music of Bob Marley. They tried to create their own style on the basis of these influences. Nowadays, although they stiU like to play reggae and ska, their ambitions stretch wider and in new directions. for which, as I understand it, there is a word -experiment.

When Grisha and I turned up at last at the club (late, because the bus, already packed but trying to pick up more and more frozen citizens on their way home from work, moved slowly). the instruments were already set up in the rehearsal room -a club conference hall. Skvorechnik was playing with the new synthesiser. I! squeaked and howled like hell. Although he tried to look calm and confident, he seemed to know very little about what to do with it. His fellow musicians were very patient. As I found out later, Skvorechnik, an ex-graduate of the Leningrad Marxist Ideology School, had dreamt for many years of getting an electronic toy in order to "expand his creative imagination." He wanted to do things "no one had ever yet tried on the Leningrad pop scene."

I was introduced to the rest of the band: Viktor Sologub, second guitarist; Sasha Kondrashkin, drummer; Lesha, saxophonist. Viktor Sologub is Grisha's brother. He went to a musical school when he was a kid, but now works as a researcher is one of Leningrad's Scientific Centres. Like the rest of the band. he is in his late twenties. but is also a family man with two kids on his hands. His wife, a specialist in French langugae and literature, has' been to France, they told me proudly, and she also helps to find the right kind of lyrics for the band 's songs. That was when they found they could not compose their own verses. None of them, I was told, really had a gift for writing lyrics. So rescue came from French dada and surrealist poetry, which suits the band 's image very well. Their favourites are Jean Tardieu and Raymond Queneau.

With his younger brother Grisha and the band 's drummer Sasha Kondrashkin. Viktor Sologub founded Strange Games. He also composes most of the band's music and, what is perhaps not unimportant, his enthusiasm helped to push the band through the usual trials and tribulations any amateur band is bound to go through -find ing a place for rehearsals, dealing with arbitrary and unpredictable clubs and Komsomol administration, as well as the Soviet censors and artistic committees, in order to get permission to organise or take part in gigs. Three years ago. Strange Games went through a rather serious crisis: one of the band's members, a local bohemian, died of a drugs overdose. However, the band does not like to discuss this incident now.

Viktor. Grisha and the saxophonist Lesha do not consider themselves technically good musicians. They are referring to their lack of formal education. Lesha went to a jazz school opened in Leningrad a few years ago but had to quit because, he complained, he could not afford the fee -20 rubles a month (he also has a family). Grisha went to school but he studied mostly Russian folk instruments, so that now he tries to incorporate something from his past, such as balalaika or accordion, into the band's music. Grisha's dream is to base the band's sound more' on Russian traditional folk music and to bring a Russian spirit to Western pop styles. He said however that he really doesn't have enough experience of playing with a pop band. Strange Games is his first and he has played in it for less than three years.

The band see as their strongest point so far their stage shows at live concerts. They like to move and like to act and often do it in a very aggressive manner. They play the characters of their songs on the stage or simply improvise their music, making the gigs half a happening and half theatre. From their point of view a show is very important, so they put on leather jackets, chains and shades, make spikes on their heads and often use the most ghastly make-up. "Leningrad hooligans love us," Grisha admitted shyly. "They take us for nihilists, but really what we are doing is just fun."

Sasha Kondrashkin, the drummer, put away his Walkman and went to the instruments with the others. His friends told me earlier that he listened to music at any available moment : he was listening even during our conversation. He says he listens to all sorts of music. The day we met , for instance, he was listening to Buddhist music, some free jazz and German pop avant-garde. Incidentally, Kondrashkin's favourite band is Germany's Kraftwerk because they change their style all the time. In fact he does not have any favourites and, he says, he appreciates anything which is fresh and new, including, sometimes, Soviet official variety music. Sasha always shares his good musical finds with the rest of the band. For this reason they praise him as their main source of musical information, which is just as well sillce getting new records in Russia, particularly from the West, is always a big problem. Kondrashkin is also a star. He is one of the best drummers in Leningrad.

Lesha ends our talk with a rather unexpected and peculiar resolution: "We are not really fine musicians and, as individuals. perhaps are not fine people either, but as a band Strange Games are good." -- Marianne Dulac



Art Moulu Tréfin, "C'est Bon la Viande!"
Why is Art Moulu Trefin a synonym of houndstooth? Because the "Moulus" are at the same time disgusted, fascinated and above all amused by the consumer society. The houndstooth is the representative motif of a chain of French supermarkets which uses among other things: persusasive methods of advertising like: "meat is good".

Black Sheep, "Power"
Loek Van Saus: Voice
Colin Mclure: Accordion
Ron Krepel: Drums
Theo Olsthoon: Guitar
Recorded at Quarantineweg, Spring 1985
Other recordings: Animal Sounds Vol I (spyhole on reality) MCCB; and note the Zandkorrals cassette (MCCB).
Contact: c/o Loek Van Saus, I Quarantineweg, Heiplaat, Rotterdam, KP 3089 KP Holland

Andre Duchesne, Cantate 159
Composed By JS Bach
Arranged & words adapted to French by Andre Duchesne
Composed for "La Coleur Encerclee" (The encircled colour) a film by Serge &Jean Gagne (1984) -a film primarily about the 'civilised oppression' of the status quo. This Aria is dedicated to the death of Vincent Van Gogh.
Played by:
Bernard Cormier: Viola
Rene Lussier: Electric Guitars
Jean Corriveau: Synthesiser (basses)
Andre Duchesne: Singing

Andre Duchesne, apart from his work with CONVENTUM, has been wntlng music and lyrics since 1968 & music soundtracks for about 20 films since 1973. Other recordings: Andre, Rene Lussier & Bernard Cormier were all in the excellent CONVENTUM whose 2 LPs -"A L'affut D'un Complot" (1977) and "Le Bureau Central Des Utopies" (1979) have now been released, remixed and altered by A.D.M.O. (Association pour la ditTusion de musique ouvertes) as "CONVENTUM 77-79". Rene and Jean Derome also have excellent records (4 between them) on this label (enquiries from RRUK address). Andre's first solo project on disc is Les Temps des Bombes (1984). He is currently composing for the APO-CALYPSO bar guitar-quartet for the Victoriaville festival. Contact: 3913 Rivaad, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H2L 4H8

Adrian Mitchell
The murder of the poet Michael Smith by three men in Kingston, Jamaica and Staying awake Phonecall at 1.00 Tuesday 5th August 1986. Recorded by Bill Gilonis. Adrian Mitchell is a poet, novelist, performer and regular contributor to this Quarterly. His current activities include completing work on The Pied Piper, a play (with songs) for children to be performed at the National Theatre (November 1986). He is also writing two more plays: one based on Jules Verne's Mysterious Island; the other "about Maggie Thatcher" and titled The Coppers' Opera. Among his latest publications are three books for children -The Baron Rides Out, The Baron on the Island of Cheese and The Baron All At Sea (all published by Walker Books).