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I haven't written program notes for every piece I've ever composed (in truth, I haven't even typed up all the ones I've written yet!) but here are the ones that I've managed to cram into HTML. Note that these are almost all excerpted from notes written for the premiere performances and thus, mention is sometimes made to specific times and places. I assume you've gotten to this page by following a link from the Classical Compositions page but, in case you haven't, here's a list of the notes you can check out here:
DepartureThe text of Departure is drawn from poems and fragments of poems by John Keats (1795-1821) and tells the story of a young man's gradual withdrawal from reality into his own private world of madness. With this withdrawal, he becomes increasingly incapable of communicating with those around him or or reconciling the remaining rational elements of his own mind (the latter two being depicted by the texts sung by the soprano). The music was composed mostly in December, 1976 and January, 1977 and makes use of a wide variety of compositional styles. Thus, Lines is gently modal, Were I of Ample Strength and The Dove are freely serial, Like a Sick Eagle uses microtonal harmony and Interlude and To Sleep are built upon centrally placed quotations of tonal music (Ebarme Dich from Bach's St. Matthew Passion and the funeral march from Scriabin's First Piano Sonata, respectively). To Sleep also makes extensive quotations, often in distorted forms, from the preceding five songs. --notes from the premiere performance (Philadelphia, PA: 4/24/77)
Quintus ObscurusQuintus Obscurus was commissioned in the summer of 1977 by Nancy Baron, at that time the only classical flutist in the Philadelphia area who both owned a bass flute and showed an interest in new literature for that rather unusual instrument. Having long been fascinated by the rich, dark timbre of the instrument, I eagerly accepted her invitation. In November of that year, then, I began to compose a duet for bass flute and percussion. As the piece grew, I found myself drawn more and more to the idea of complementing the bass flute with a viola, an instrument which began to seem an increasingly natural counterpart to it for me. At this same time, the ever-growing density of the percussion music suggested the addition of a second percussionist as well as a seperate celeste player to serve as a kind of "moderator" in the dialogue between the two percussionists. When the completed score was presented to Ms. Baron the following month, she declared that it was unplayable on the bass flute and refused to accept it. Thus, the premiere of the piece was a revised version for alto flute performed by members of The Penn Composers Guild at the University of Pennsylvania in April of 1978. Tonight is the first performance of the work in it's original scoring. The title of the piece may be translated literally as "The Obscure Fifth," but the Latin word "obscurus" may alsom mean "dark," "hidden" or "mysterious." In the course of the piece, all these meanings become relevant. Fifths and five-fold structures play important roles. The predominant interval is the perfect fifth, for instance. It is often "hidden" by the presence of a minor ninth and frequently scored in "dark" timbres. The formal layout of the piece also reflects the title. It is in five large sections with sections one, three and five being further divided into five subsections each while sections two and four are based almost exclusively on perfect fifths. Many other manifestations of the title may be found in the music but while this numerological gaming may be of interest or amusement to some, it should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the piece was conceived of as being essentially improvisatory, at times even rhapsodic in both its moods and gestures. It should be experienced primarily as a study of contrasts in sonority and roles. --from the premiere of the original version of the piece (Boston, MA: 11/7/78)
Residual EntropyThe Two Portraits form the first and second movement of the quintet Residual Entropy. The nature of the music is deeply tied up in its origins: a request from the Philadelphia-based chamber ensemble Musica Gratis for a "personalized" piece. When the group first approached me, I was happyto oblige their request but I was at a loss as to how to incorporate their highly diverse personalities into a single piece. Their backgrounds, musical personalities and even their musical tatstes were extremely different, almost irreconcilably so. I soon realized that the most efficacious way to treat the problem was not to search for a common ground but todeal with the differences directly. Thus, I found myself writing a music of constant contrasts (or contradictions, depending on one's biases). Atonal versus quasi-tonal, lyrical versus mechanistic, simplicity versus complexity...these dichotomies are at the heart of the piece's structure. The first movement opens with an expansive cello solo which is interrupted by nervous twitterings from the other players. These suddenly burst into an explosive flurry of activity. The strings try to re-establish the character of the opening solo but the highly rhytmicized nature of the piano/wind music prevails and the movement continues to weave a dense polyrhythmic web of ever-growing complexity. It is in this mood that the movement ends. The Nocturne grows slowly out of the confusion of the first movement. High, soft chords in the strings and winds begin to unfold music of a strikingly different character which, despite its serial organization bears an uncanny resemblance to Db major! This movement is in a rather straightforward ABA form which, depsite its lush, Mahlerian lyricism, uses virtually no thematic material per se. When the opening chords return at the climax, they take on a very different character. No longer the tentative, embryonic gestures they once were, they now represent a powerful culmination which arrests the long build-up which has led to them. In their aftermath, faint reminiscences of the opening fade in and out until everything dissipates in a soft, misty conclusion. --from the premiere performance of the first two movements (Boston, MA: 4/30/79).
Les VoyageursLes Voyageurs was composed in the fall of 1979 in Cambridge, MA. It was premiered at the New England Conservatory in the Winter of 1981. I had long been intrigued by the idea of a work for horn and multiple cellos. Both instruments were very dear to me and the composition of this work found me very wrapped up with the wealth of sonic lushness available from their combination. What resulted is a kind of chamber concerto for horn and string "orchestra." Although the first cello often shares the spotlight with the horn, the strings function primarily as a velvety background against which the horn spins its long, lyrical rhapsodies. There are, to be sure, interruptions (both playful and antagonistic) during the piece but in the end, the spirits of Mahler and Richard Strauss (both of whom I associate very strongly with these instruments) prevail in a richly romantic finale which fully exploits the vast coloristic resources of this small but powerful ensemble.
Double HelixDouble Helix (Dissolutions II) was composed in Boston, Massachusetts in late 1980. After winning the first Quinto Maganini Award the following year, it received it's premiere performances by the Norwalk Symphony Orchestra in May of 1982. The work was extensively revised in 1992. In it's present form, the work is scored for piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, piano, a large percussion section and strings. The work is in one movement and is approximately 10 minutes long. The title Double Helix is rich in multiple entendres which include allusions of a purely personal nature as well as puns on some of the compositional structures employed in the work. For the listener hearing the work for the first time, however, the sub-title (Dissolutions II) may be more meaningful, for the work deals, to a large extent, with the dissolving of one musical personality into another and the subsequent emergence of ever-new personalities (the II indicates only that this is the second of a series of such works). Double Helix breaks the orchestra into four choirs of instruments (woodwinds, brass, percussion and strings) each of which is assigned a very different musical personality. The "characters" on this stage are highly volatile, however, and the specific vocabularly of gestures, rhythms and pitches which define any one group are in a constant state of flux. Choirs come to the fore only to have their "personalities" usurped by other choirs who, in turn, use their newly-enhanced repertoire of sounds to generate still newer personalities. These relations are expressed on many levels and the aurally acute listener may be able to recognize the multiplicity of meanings associated with any given musical event in the score. Because the manifestation of personalities is so multifarious, however, such acuity is by no means requisite to understanding the work. One need only be aware of the presence of four "individuals" who interact in many ways. The work, then, is indeed a kind of quartet grown to massive proportions. For example, after a few bars of introduction, the first passage presents the four groups as rather independant entities. Sustained brass chords and fleeting murmurs from the woodwinds form a backdrop for the more jittery staccato outbursts of the strings. The percussion, meanwhile, begin to tick off a very slowly moving pulse which begins as sporadic rhythmic interjections and gradually accelerates throughout the first half of the piece. Little by little the groups pull towards one another, but just as they begin to converge into a single homophonic statement, a very new character appears in the strings...one whose appearance could only have been vaguely surmised before this point. This "solo" meets opposition in the form of that ever-present "ticking" which has left the percussion "solo" but which now resurfaces in a "trio" of winds, brass and percussion. After some rather extreme "pulling-aparts" and "coming-togethers," the piece settles down into a long passage in which the contrapuntal texture is re-established but with individual choirs waxing and waning prominent at an increasingly rapid rate. Very important here, too, is the fact that for the first time in the piece, each choir's basic material is the same, being a synthesis of many heretofore disparate elements. The ensuing coda is a brief series of "solos" which culminate with a single "soloist's" macabre 'marcia funebre,' the extra-musical implications of which are left for the listener to draw. As this sketchy outline may imply, there are many dramatic moments in the work which I do not wish to spoil with a detailed synopsis. Double Helix is not intended as an accompaniment to the program notes. It is a piece of music that should be approached on its own ground and the foregoing is intended only as a general guide.
String Quartet #2Sorry but I haven't typed up this program note yet.
CirconspectionFrench has always struck me as a very sensuous sounding language and so, when I came to set Verlaine's poem, Circonspection, it was the sound of the language more than the semantic content that attracted me. The languid, peaceful reverie of which the text speaks is certainly much in evidence in the music but there is relatively little attempt at any kind of word-painting or small scale interpretation of phrases. Linguistically, the poem works quite well by itself and needs no music to clarify it. Instead, I have tried to create an "aura" around the text . . . highlighting and extending the sounds and colors of the poem without intruding on the words. Circonspection was completed in January, 1983 and was first performed by Michelle Disco and Beth Wiemann the following May. Since then, it has received numerous performances throughout the Northeast by these and other artists. Clarinet QuartetThe Clarinet Quartet was begun in the fall of 1982 and completed the following spring. The work is in one large movement which breaks into four large sections, each of which is preceeded by a brief refrain. The first section lays out the materials of the piece and sets up the basic dramatic conflict, namely, that of the violin and clarinet "dueling" to be the leading voice in a hoped-for trio(i.e., the violin wants this to be a violin, cello and piano trio, the clarinet wants it to be a clarinet, cello and piano trio). Neither is very successful although their struggles do produce new harmonic material. This material does give rise to a trio but it is, in fact, the piano which is silent in this trio and the moment is short-lived. When the piano re-enters, the ensemble begins to wander, not only in the ways the instruments group together but also in the harmonies the ensemble creates. Many textures come and go but, except for the gradually growing dominance of the cello, nothing definite takes hold. A rather fractured return to the opening material gives brief hope of bringing some kind of peace but this, too, quickly falls apart and soon even individual instrumental parts are fracturing into divergent registers and timbres. Finally, the cello, which had earlier demonstrated some ability to mediate between the warring factions, comes to the fore and is able to pull the group together. This gives rise to a richly harmonious ensemble passage which provides a large coda to the movement.
EchoesEchoes is a setting for soprano and computer-generated tape of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem, The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo. While the poem is most notable for its plethora of internal rhyme schemes, alliterations and assonances, one is also struck by the progression from darkness to light; from the opening strains of grief and despair over the transience of physical beauty to a resplendent, almost playful rejoicing over the discovery of a deeper, more lasting beauty. Musically, there is a parallel progression: the work opens with relatively thick, static music in a clear melody (soprano) plus accompaniment (tape) disposition (up through the words "Despair, despair, despair, despair"). This progresses through a more harmonically active "punctuated recitative," wherein the tape responds more directly on a line-by-line basis to the soprano's declamation of the text (beginning around the words "Spare! There is one . . .), to a very active section where many individual voices are allowed to emerge, often with fairly extended "riffs" and melodies (starting around "fastened with the tenderest truth"). This culminates in the soprano's unaccompanied line, "[Why are we so] haggard at the heart, so care-coiled, care-killed, so fagged, so fashed, so cogged, so cumbered." From here to the end of the piece, earlier textures are allowed to return, resulting in many individual accompanimental melodies responding to the final queries of the soprano. Echoes was composed in November and December of 1983. The tape part was generated on Princeton University's IBM 3081 computer in the fall of 1984.
Two SonnetsSorry but I haven't typed up this program note yet.
MasquesOriginally composed for bass oboe at the request of Nora Post, Masques was completed in the fall of 1984. Transcriptions for flute and for clarinet were done in early 1986. It is from the shakuhachi, however, that the work derives much of its flavor, especially in the frequent pitch-bending and glissandi of the opening and closing passages. The title, Masques has meaning at a number of levels but, most fundamentally, it is to be taken in the sense of a masquerade ball. There are a number of "characters" (distinguished most often as high voices versus low voices) which, at the beginning, appear very similar to one another. As the characters "dance" with one another at this ball, we begin to detect more and more individuality in them...two or three static high notes may be pitted against a more harmonically active low part, or rapid runs in a middle register may be interspersed with slower moving phrases in the outer registers. Once these individuals are fairly well differentiated, the pace of the piece begins to pick up. The alternations become increasingly frenetic, the leaps grow wider and the tempo runs ever faster until, in a brief coda Masques does not so much come to an end as it does whirl off over the horizon, rather like a hyperactive ballerina pirouhetting into the distance. |
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