Composers
Now and Then
The New York Bassoon Quartet
Christopher Weait, whose musical works include
nearly 100 compositions, has been Professor of Bassoon at Ohio State
University since 1984. He was principal bassoonist of the Toronto Symphony
for 17 years, where he worked under music directors Ozawa, Ancerl, and
Andrew Davis and founded the Toronto Chamber Winds. He played with the
Chamber Symphony of Philadelphia and the U.S. Military Academy Band
at West Point. Weait has been a visiting professor at the Eastman School
of Music and Indiana University and has recorded solo and chamber albums
on the CBC, Coronet, Crystal, d'Note, Kneptune, Lyrichord and Innova
labels. His book Bassoon Reed-Making: A Basic Technique [3rd
edition] is available from McGinnis & Marx.
Suite of Early American Tunes was Weait's
first published work. "The arrangements were made partly to provide
music for the charming and exotic sound of the bassoon quartet and partly
out of my interest in American music from the 19th century. The first,
third and fourth movements. are drawn from the Merrimac Collection,
edited by American lexicographer Henry Eaton Moore (1803-1841) and published
in Concord, New Hampshire in 1833. The second movement is based on the
hymn tune Work, for the Night is Coming by the important American
musician and educator Lowell Mason (1792-1872)." C. Weait
John Corigliano, internationally celebrated
as one of the leading composers of his generation, is widely known for
such works as The Ghosts of Versailles, written to commemorate
the centenary of the Metropolitan Opera in New York; his Clarinet
Concerto; and soundtracks for three movies, including The Red
Violin, which won him the Academy Award. Commissioned by the Chicago
Symphony when he was Composer-in-Residence there (1987-90), Corigliano's
Symphony No. 1, an impassioned response the AIDS crisis, won
the Grammy awards for both "Best New Composition" and "Best
Orchestral Performance." The Symphony has already has been
played by nearly 125 different orchestras worldwide, and continues to
be scheduled by virtually all of the leading U.S. orchestras. The recording
of Corigliano's 40-minute String Quartet won Grammy Awards both
for "Best Performance" and again for "Best New Composition,"
making Corigliano the first composer to win twice in the history of
that award.
How Like Pellucid Statutes displays a number
of Corigliano's trademarks, including a descriptive nature and the element
of chance. "The frozen translucent statues seemed to me to be a
marvelous foil for the pulsating hot energy of an engine both
images, as seen through the eyes of a child, readily evoked musical
ideas. The unique sound of double reeds seemed at once to be the right
choice, and fulfilled a desire I have always had to write for multiple
bassoons. The work utilizes row techniques and is in two parts the
first a picture of the frozen pellucid statues and the second, an aural
portrait of the energy and acceleration inherent in the words "...an
engine." J. C.
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) was born in
the Ukraine. His mother, a well-educated woman, was the most important
influence on his early musical development. He often lay awake in bed
at night listening to her play works by Beethoven, Anton Rubinstein,
Chopin, Liszt and others. By age five, he had written his first piece.
His mother let him discover music on his own, and did not give him formal
piano lessons until he was 7. After hearing two operas on a family trip
in 1901, he wrote the libretto and music for an opera of his own, "staging"
a production of the work with family members and friends. Recognizing
his exceptional talent, and leaving Sergei's father behind, mother and
son moved to St. Petersburg when Sergei was 13 so he could pursue further
studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory (1904-1914). His music was
in many ways much more advanced than that of his teachers, and he gained
the nickname "enfant terrible" at the conservatory,
a name he actually enjoyed.
Prokofieff traveled widely, spending many years in London and Paris,
and toured the United States five times. His music was both reviled
and triumphed in the musical press of the time, and he received many
scathing reviews, often even as audiences embraced his music. He returned
to his homeland permanently in 1936. Like other great composers, he
mastered a wide range of musical genres, including symphonies, concerti,
film music, operas, ballets, and program pieces. In his time, his works
were considered both ultra-modern and innovative. Referred to as Humerous
Scherzo for Four Bassoons or just Scherzo
for Four Bassoons, Op 12 bis, this piece is based on the ninth
work from Ten Pieces for Piano, Op 12, written between 1906 and 1913.
Prokofiev wrote this arrangement in 1915. (These Prokofieff notes were
condensed and edited from extensive biographical materials at www.prokofiev.org.
Used by permission.) Sergey, Sergei Prokofieff
William Schuman (1910-1992) was born in New
York and began composing in high school, forming a jazz ensemble in
which he played violin and banjo. He studied at Columbia University
Teachers College and at Juilliard with Roy Harris, who strongly influenced
him and brought him to the attention of Serge Koussevitzky, who championed
many of his early works. Schuman taught at Sarah Lawrence College from
1935 to 1945, and by the age of 35, he had been director of publications
for G. Schirmer, Inc. and appointed President of the Juilliard School,
a post he held until 1962, when he was appointed first president of
the newly-founded Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. He wrote a
plethora of works in virtually every musical genre, and incorporated
American jazz and folk traditions into works which ranged from a harmonically
conservative early style to later excursions into dissonance and polytonality.
In addition to his election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
and the Royal Academy of Music, Schuman received the National Medal
of Arts and was honored by Washington's Kennedy Center.
John Harbison is one of America's most prominent
composers. Among his principal works are three string quartets, three
symphonies, three operas, and the cantata The Flight Into Egypt, which
earned him a Pulitzer Prize. Harbison has been Composer-in-Residence
with the Pittsburgh Symphony; Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Tanglewood,
Marlboro, and Santa Fe Chamber Festivals; and the American Academy in
Rome. His music has been performed by many of the world's leading ensembles,
and more than thirty of his works have been recorded. Harbison did his
undergraduate work at Harvard and earned an MFA from Princeton. Following
completion of a junior fellowship at Harvard, he joined the faculty
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a MacArthur
Fellowship in 1989 and is currently on the faculty of the Aspen Music
Festival.
Composer, musician, author and satirist Peter Schickele
is internationally recognized as one of the most versatile artists
in the field of music. Mr. Schickele has created music for four feature
films, among them the prize-winning Silent Running, as well as
for documentaries, television commercials and several Sesame Street
segments. He was also one of the composer/ lyricists for Oh, Calcutta,
and has arranged for Joan Baez, Buffy Sainte-Marie and other folk singers.
Schickele arranged one of the musical segments for the Disney animated
feature film Fantasia 2000, and also created the musical score
for the film version of Maurice Sendak's children's classic Where
the Wild Things Are, issued on videocassette along with another
Sendak classic. Among his ongoing projects is a weekly syndicated radio
program, Schickele Mix, which has been heard nationwide over Public
Radio International since 1992 and which won ASCAP's prestigious Deems
Taylor Award.
Schickele's commissions are numerous and varied, ranging from works
for major orchestras, the Minnesota Opera, Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center, and the Audubon and Lark String Quartets, to compositions
for distinguished instrumentalists and singers. He is, of course, best
known as the inimitable Professor Peter Schickele, discoverer of the
works of history's most justifiably neglected composer, P.D.Q. Bach,
and instigator of numerous and delightful musical spoofs. In testimony,
Vanguard released 11 albums of the fabled genius' works, Random House
published 11 editions of The definitive Biography of P.D.Q. Bach,
Presser printed innumerable scores, and VideoArts International
produced a cassette of P.D.Q. Bach's only full-length opera. That all
adds up to "the greatest comedy-in-music act before the public
today." (Robert Marsh, Chicago Sun-Times) Last
Tango in Bayreuth, a tongue-in cheek tribute to Richard Wagner,
is based on motifs from his operas. In two brief sections, the first
is an expansion of the famous "Tristan" chord from Tristan
und Isolde, while the second is borrowed from the "Overture
to Act III" of Loehengrin. The coda abandons the tango rhythm
for a chorale-like setting, incorporating the "Tristan" chord
within a jazz-like tonality. The work ends in a final gesture to Bayreuth,
with the famous "transcendental" chord.
Katherine Hoover resides in New York, where
she maintains an active career as composer, conductor, and flutist.
She is the recipient of a National Endowment Composer's Fellowship and
many other awards, including an Academy of Arts and Letters Award in
Composition. Her tone poem Eleni: A Greek Tragedy has been performed
by 13 orchestras, including the Harrisburg and Fort Worth Symphonies.
Her Clarinet Concerto, written for jazz virtuoso Eddie Daniels,
was premiered with the Santa Fe Symphony and her Cello Concerto
was performed by Sharon Robinson with the Long Beach (CA) Symphony.
Ms. Hoover conducted the premiere of her Night Skies, a 25-minute
work for large orchestra, with the Harrisburg Symphony. The commissioning,
rehearsing, and premiere of Hoover's Dances and Variations at
Kennedy Center are the subject of Deborah Novak's Emmy-winning television
documentary, New Music.
he Montclaire and Colorado Quartets; Dorian, Sylvan and Richards Quintets;
and the Huntingdon, Verdehr and Eroica Trios have featured her work.
The New Jersey Chamber Music Society premiered her Quintet (Da Pacem)
for piano and strings at Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center. Julius Baker,
Eugenia Zukerman, Carol Wincenc and Metropolitan Opera bass John Cheek
have also presented her pieces. Ms. Hoover attended the Eastman School
of Music and holds a Masters in Music Theory from the Manhattan School
of Music, where she taught for years. "The idea of writing a bassoon
quartet fascinated me, and the temptation to write for such fine players
was irresistible. The central section of Sinfonia,
the "Funeral March," was inspired by the form of a
scene from Stiffelio, an obscure Verdi opera. It features a repeating
bass motif with increasing layers and densities of sound. The "Introduction"
is a bit freer and more experimental in nature. The last movement is
an up tempo fugue, with elements of jazz and some rather silly and difficult
grace-note figures." K. H.
Relentlessly active as composer, performer, teacher, and administrator,
Alvin Brehm's credentials are well established
in virtually all areas of music. A distinguished composer, Brehm has
received numerous commissions from such organizations as the Naumburg
Foundation, American Brass Quintet, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and
the Y Orchestra. He has been guest composer at the American Academy
in Rome, Chairman of the National Endowment Chamber Music and New Music
Committees, Chairman of the New York State Arts Council Music Panel,
and Dean of Music at the Purchase campus of the State University of
New York. His performance credits as a double bassist include guest
appearances with the Guarneri, Budapest, Lenox, and Manhattan Quartets;
the Jacques Thibaud Trio; and many other groups. A former artist-member
of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society, when he is not busy pursuing
the muse, Brehm sails a 31 foot sloop, builds furniture, and suffers
an addiction to spy stories. "Colloquy and
Chorale was composed as a memorial to my good friend Eli Carmen,
the heroic and indomitable dean of American bassoonists who had suffered
a tragic death shortly before. The first movement is an attempt to convey
a sense of Eli's rhythmic vitality and buoyant humor; the second, a
quiet chorale a gentle farewell. A.B.
Vaclav Nelhybel (1919-1996) studied musicology
at Prague University and the University of Fribourg and composition
and conducting at the Conservatory of Music in Prague. He began his
career as a conductor at Radio Prague and the City Theater of Prague
from 1939 to 1942. After World War II, he was named conductor and composer-in-residence
at Swiss Radio and lecturer at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
Nelhybel was the musical director of Radio Free Europe in Munich from
1950 to 1957. His guest conducting appearances included the Salzburg
Mozarteum Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Munich Philharmonic
Orchestra and the Bavarian Symphony Orchestra, among others. Nelhybel
became a U.S. citizen in 1962 and worked as a composer, conductor and
lecturer. His more than 400 published works include operas and works
for orchestra, band, chorus, and smaller ensembles, especially wind
instruments. His works have been performed by the Vienna Symphony, Orchestra
de la Suisse Romande, Prague Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Cincinnati
Symphony and many other groups. "Concert Etudes
for Four Bassoons is an exploration of many musical elements:
various bassoon sonorities, contrasting contrapuntal ideas, snatches
of chorales, and lively rhythmic patterns. The effect is witty, and
altogether delightful." K. Hoover
Rudolph Palmer's compositional output comprises
numerous works for large symphonic and choral forces as well as chamber
pieces. His recently recorded works include Laudate Dominum,
a festival anthem for brass ensemble and choir; and O Magnum Mysterium
for mezzo-soprano, chorus and harp. Palmer's extensive discography as
conductor includes premiere recordings of Handel operas and oratorios
on original instruments: Deidamia, Alexander Balus, Siroe, Berenice,
Faramondo, Muzio, Imeneo (nominated for Ovation magazine's "Mumm's
Opera Recording of the Year") and Joshua (critics' "Best
Recording" lists in both Gramophone and Fanfare magazines).
Other recordings include Pergolesi's La Serva Padrona (best recording
in the early music magazine Alte Musik Aktuell), Alessandro Scarlatti's
Ishmael, Haydn's La Canterina and Telemann's Pimpinone.
Palmer received his doctorate from the Juilliard School of Music, where
he studied composition with David Diamond. He is on the conducting and
composition faculty at the Mannes College of Music and is director of
the Palmer Singers. Contrasts for Four Bassoons
was written when Palmer was a student. "My main concern
was to write a piece with equal activity for all the players. The first
movement is lyrical, consisting of long, breathless lines with an occasional
punctuation. The second is a highly contrapuntal tour de force with
a brief reminiscence of the first movement." R.P.