Program notes
Phantasy, No. 47 (1949)
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
The title of the Fantasy is appropriate, given the process used in its composition: Schoenberg composed the solo violin melody first alone, and then wrote a separate piano accompaniment to go with it. The composition of the melody apart from the accompaniment was no doubt facilitated by the twelve-note idiom, applied here with the same kind of rigor as in the much earlier Piano Pieces, Op. 33a & b.
The Fantasy was composed for violinist Adolf Koldofsky, a native of Los Angeles, and was first performed by him on the International Society for Contemporary Music's concert in commemoration of Schoenberg's seventy-fifth birthday in 1949.
— John Palmer
Three Mazurkas (2009)
Thomas Adès (b. 1971)
The Three Mazurkas were premiered by Emanuel Ax in February at Carnegie Hall, one of the co-commissioners of the pieces along with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Barbican Centre (London), and Het Concertgebouw NV.
After Chopin, composers were understandably satisfied to give that master the final word on the mazurka. Yet Thomas Adès, with his keen interest in early music, has sought to make a contemporary statement on this distinctly historical Polish dance form. The likeness of his Mazurkas to the Chopin model is seen primarily in the matters of rhythm: the three-quarter time signature is most often used, although the time changes in the second mazurka are a stylistic departure; the direction for rubato (the Chopinesque characteristic rhythmic freedom), and the use of the drone, or consecutive-repeated bass that is typical of folk music.
— Orrin Howard
The Riot (1993)
Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012)
The Riot is a work in which virtuoso exhilaration is predominant. The game is to throw around themes which retain their identity sufficiently to bounce off each other sharply, even when combined polyphonically or mixed up together in new configurations. Each theme belongs to a distinctive harmonic field characterised by about two intervals, for example the first is based on fourths and whole tones creating also minor sevenths and, as a further development, linear unfoldings in circles of fourths (or fifths). From time to time energy runs out and a mechanical repetition of an element takes over, dying away like an electronic ‘delay’. Such a process in extended form provides the ending. The work was written for HET TRIO and commissioned by Bristol University Music Department, with funds provided in part by South West Arts, especially for the Colston Symposium 1994.
— Jonathan Harvey
Sonate (1948-53)
György Ligeti (1923-2006)
The two movements of this nine-minute sonata were written five years apart in very different character, though the composer refers to this period of his stylistic development as “prehistoric.” “Dialogo,” composed in 1948, consists of alternating statements of pizzicato chords – brief, submissive, conciliatory – and lyrical outpourings – expansive, reflective, ruminative. “Capriccio” is a virtuosic display of madly scurrying fragments of varying lengths that exploit to the fullest the cello’s enormous range.
Due to the repressive Hungarian regime under which Ligeti lived until 1956 (when he fled the country) and to his unsettled life for years thereafter, the first public performance of the sonata was given only in 1983. The score was published in 1990 and first recorded that year.
— Matt Haimovitz
Synchronism 12 (2006)
Mario Davidovsky (1934-2019)
During the "Sixties," I mentioned to Allen Blustine, a good friend of mine, my desire to write for him a new Synchronisms. When I recently retired from Harvard, the composer, Eric Chase/ow, took upon himself the task of getting other ex-students of mine to commission the piece which was by then almost forty years overdue. 1 was pleased and honored when SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States) took over the project. 1 completed the clarinet piece at Rice University, assisted by Kurt Stallmann, the Director of REM LABS, the computer music studio. The difference between this Synchronisms and the previous ones is that all the "electronic" sounds were originated by sampling different sounds from the clarinet and subjecting them to processes of additive synthesis and editing via the dazzling technology available today. I very much wanted to write a concise virtuoso piece with a celebratory mood to honor, through one of its members, the exceptional accomplishments and contributions of Speculum Musicae to our artistic world.
— Mario Davidovsky
Uttered (2018)
Anna-Louise Walton (b. 1991)
Many of the gestures in this piece are based on the rhythms and cadence of speech. The piano “speaks” the most clearly, while the clarinet and cello at times orchestrate the piano, creating a super-instrument, and at other times provide imitation and counterpoint.
— Anna-Louise Walton
Alligator Crawl Improvisation
Fats Waller (1904-1943)/Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)
Alligator Crawl was written as a solo piano piece by Fats Waller early in 1927. In May of the same year, Louis Armstrong and The Hot Seven recorded their version of the same work, but the two have little in common other than the use of the characteristic main motive in Waller’s original. It’s generally assumed that Lil Hardin, the Hot Seven’s pianist, and arranger of many of their tunes, laid out the structure, harmonies, and general strategy for their version of this number. Although time has diminished the distinction between divergent approaches to jazz in its early years, several distinctive styles existed at the time and rarely comingled. The Hot Seven rendition of the song is significant in that it was one of the earliest recordings, and possibly the first, to incorporate the three most prominent styles that existed at the time into a single work. Our approach to Alligator Crawl is taken from Hardin/Armstrong’s basic framework laced with our improvisations. After a brief opening call, two choruses of blues follow, the second of which contains the main motive and tune. The following section consists of reconfigured march-style music in several 8-bar units, during which elements can be found in our version of funk and a pinch of the harmonic approach used in Free Jazz. An echo of the guitar solo from Armstrong’s 1927 recording can be heard in the following section, played by pizzicato violin and cello in even, regular phrasing with an understated, limited use of syncopation. The last section is a highly polyphonic out-chorus with an abstract return of the main tune.
— Morris Rosenzweig
Hidden Motives (2018)
David Froom (b. 1951)
“Hidden Motives” was commissioned for the 21st Century Consort’s 2018-2019 season by Andy and Janice Molchon to honor their 50th wedding anniversary. The premiere performance, October 20, 2018, was planned to connect to an exhibition of work by Trevor Paglen at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Paglen’s images include landscapes upon which have been imposed secret governmental instruments of surveillance that present as violations of the peaceful scenery while, from certain perspectives, contributing to a kind of eerie beauty. My work (seven movement-like sections lasting altogether 11 minutes) unfolds motives of pitch, rhythm, tempo, timbre, and register that generate a set of fierce initial gestures, then bury themselves beneath the surface, reemerging (verbatim or transformed) in a variety of postures to provide a sense of overall coherence while disrupting the peace of straightforward expectations.
— David Froom
Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)
The title of the Fantasy is appropriate, given the process used in its composition: Schoenberg composed the solo violin melody first alone, and then wrote a separate piano accompaniment to go with it. The composition of the melody apart from the accompaniment was no doubt facilitated by the twelve-note idiom, applied here with the same kind of rigor as in the much earlier Piano Pieces, Op. 33a & b.
The Fantasy was composed for violinist Adolf Koldofsky, a native of Los Angeles, and was first performed by him on the International Society for Contemporary Music's concert in commemoration of Schoenberg's seventy-fifth birthday in 1949.
— John Palmer
Three Mazurkas (2009)
Thomas Adès (b. 1971)
The Three Mazurkas were premiered by Emanuel Ax in February at Carnegie Hall, one of the co-commissioners of the pieces along with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Barbican Centre (London), and Het Concertgebouw NV.
After Chopin, composers were understandably satisfied to give that master the final word on the mazurka. Yet Thomas Adès, with his keen interest in early music, has sought to make a contemporary statement on this distinctly historical Polish dance form. The likeness of his Mazurkas to the Chopin model is seen primarily in the matters of rhythm: the three-quarter time signature is most often used, although the time changes in the second mazurka are a stylistic departure; the direction for rubato (the Chopinesque characteristic rhythmic freedom), and the use of the drone, or consecutive-repeated bass that is typical of folk music.
— Orrin Howard
The Riot (1993)
Jonathan Harvey (1939-2012)
The Riot is a work in which virtuoso exhilaration is predominant. The game is to throw around themes which retain their identity sufficiently to bounce off each other sharply, even when combined polyphonically or mixed up together in new configurations. Each theme belongs to a distinctive harmonic field characterised by about two intervals, for example the first is based on fourths and whole tones creating also minor sevenths and, as a further development, linear unfoldings in circles of fourths (or fifths). From time to time energy runs out and a mechanical repetition of an element takes over, dying away like an electronic ‘delay’. Such a process in extended form provides the ending. The work was written for HET TRIO and commissioned by Bristol University Music Department, with funds provided in part by South West Arts, especially for the Colston Symposium 1994.
— Jonathan Harvey
Sonate (1948-53)
György Ligeti (1923-2006)
The two movements of this nine-minute sonata were written five years apart in very different character, though the composer refers to this period of his stylistic development as “prehistoric.” “Dialogo,” composed in 1948, consists of alternating statements of pizzicato chords – brief, submissive, conciliatory – and lyrical outpourings – expansive, reflective, ruminative. “Capriccio” is a virtuosic display of madly scurrying fragments of varying lengths that exploit to the fullest the cello’s enormous range.
Due to the repressive Hungarian regime under which Ligeti lived until 1956 (when he fled the country) and to his unsettled life for years thereafter, the first public performance of the sonata was given only in 1983. The score was published in 1990 and first recorded that year.
— Matt Haimovitz
Synchronism 12 (2006)
Mario Davidovsky (1934-2019)
During the "Sixties," I mentioned to Allen Blustine, a good friend of mine, my desire to write for him a new Synchronisms. When I recently retired from Harvard, the composer, Eric Chase/ow, took upon himself the task of getting other ex-students of mine to commission the piece which was by then almost forty years overdue. 1 was pleased and honored when SEAMUS (Society for Electro-Acoustic Music in the United States) took over the project. 1 completed the clarinet piece at Rice University, assisted by Kurt Stallmann, the Director of REM LABS, the computer music studio. The difference between this Synchronisms and the previous ones is that all the "electronic" sounds were originated by sampling different sounds from the clarinet and subjecting them to processes of additive synthesis and editing via the dazzling technology available today. I very much wanted to write a concise virtuoso piece with a celebratory mood to honor, through one of its members, the exceptional accomplishments and contributions of Speculum Musicae to our artistic world.
— Mario Davidovsky
Uttered (2018)
Anna-Louise Walton (b. 1991)
Many of the gestures in this piece are based on the rhythms and cadence of speech. The piano “speaks” the most clearly, while the clarinet and cello at times orchestrate the piano, creating a super-instrument, and at other times provide imitation and counterpoint.
— Anna-Louise Walton
Alligator Crawl Improvisation
Fats Waller (1904-1943)/Louis Armstrong (1901-1971)
Alligator Crawl was written as a solo piano piece by Fats Waller early in 1927. In May of the same year, Louis Armstrong and The Hot Seven recorded their version of the same work, but the two have little in common other than the use of the characteristic main motive in Waller’s original. It’s generally assumed that Lil Hardin, the Hot Seven’s pianist, and arranger of many of their tunes, laid out the structure, harmonies, and general strategy for their version of this number. Although time has diminished the distinction between divergent approaches to jazz in its early years, several distinctive styles existed at the time and rarely comingled. The Hot Seven rendition of the song is significant in that it was one of the earliest recordings, and possibly the first, to incorporate the three most prominent styles that existed at the time into a single work. Our approach to Alligator Crawl is taken from Hardin/Armstrong’s basic framework laced with our improvisations. After a brief opening call, two choruses of blues follow, the second of which contains the main motive and tune. The following section consists of reconfigured march-style music in several 8-bar units, during which elements can be found in our version of funk and a pinch of the harmonic approach used in Free Jazz. An echo of the guitar solo from Armstrong’s 1927 recording can be heard in the following section, played by pizzicato violin and cello in even, regular phrasing with an understated, limited use of syncopation. The last section is a highly polyphonic out-chorus with an abstract return of the main tune.
— Morris Rosenzweig
Hidden Motives (2018)
David Froom (b. 1951)
“Hidden Motives” was commissioned for the 21st Century Consort’s 2018-2019 season by Andy and Janice Molchon to honor their 50th wedding anniversary. The premiere performance, October 20, 2018, was planned to connect to an exhibition of work by Trevor Paglen at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Paglen’s images include landscapes upon which have been imposed secret governmental instruments of surveillance that present as violations of the peaceful scenery while, from certain perspectives, contributing to a kind of eerie beauty. My work (seven movement-like sections lasting altogether 11 minutes) unfolds motives of pitch, rhythm, tempo, timbre, and register that generate a set of fierce initial gestures, then bury themselves beneath the surface, reemerging (verbatim or transformed) in a variety of postures to provide a sense of overall coherence while disrupting the peace of straightforward expectations.
— David Froom
