SKU: PR.16400272S

UPC: 680160588442. 8.5 x 11 inches.

My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change.   I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]   The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla.   Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional.   II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts]   This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture.   This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream.   III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts]   The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this.   Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.   String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.

SKU: PR.114423500

ISBN 9781491137758. UPC: 680160691531.

Commissioned by The Juilliard School’s Music Advancement Program, IMPRESSIONS FROM THE CHINESE ZODIAC is a suite of three characteristic pieces within reach of advanced pre-college saxophonists, and introducing advanced techniques. The work is equally satisfying and impressive for top-level performers. The movements are titled:1. Rooster Singing Out in the Morning2. Monkey Jumping Around in the Forest3. Tiger Walking Down from the Mountain.
Commissioned by The Juilliard School for Juilliard’s Music Advancement Program, Impressions from the Chinese Zodiac was composed for any size saxophone in 2022. It consists of three independent movements featuring different musical characteristics with various performing techniques. The inspiration for the music came from impressions of three animal signs (rooster, monkey, and tiger), from the twelve in the Chinese Zodiac.The first piece begins with a repeated phrase imitating a rooster’s loud singing in the morning; the pitch with fluttertongue sounds like the noise from the rooster’s throat), followed by phrases of a pentatonic melody drawn from The Sun Is Rising With Our Joy, a Chinese folk song from Sichuan province. There are descending passages, simulating the dropping-down sound of the singing. Each passage is different from others, each of which should be played accurately and smoothly. The melody is moved up a step with variation, followed by an echo of the rooster singing at the end of the piece. Now the sky is bright, so the rooster call returns up four scale steps!The second piece includes two Chinese folk songs: Thinking of My Darling (from Shanxi province) and Guessing (from Yunnan province). Both songs have large interval skips spanning different registers, as well as microtonal intervals in their original singing, which show the characteristics of the regional musical languages respectively. The tone colors should be matched when registers are changed. The microtonal pitches (quarter-tone flat or three-quarter-tone flat) may be done by bending the tone with one’s lips. The image is the monkey jumping around lively, and the music is played humorously. The high and long pitch with a yelling-down effect at the end of the piece brings the music to an exciting peak.The third piece features the strong and brave tiger, with accented tones in the lowest register. The first 3-pitch motive is developed throughout the piece, while peristaltic chromatic material is formed in various shapes and directions, to show the gestures of a mighty and fierce image.Getting accustomed to special fingerings for the chromatic passages and trills, along with precisely notated articulations, and the techniques of tongue slap and key clicks, are the basic goals to achieve in this piece.