Tenor & String Quartet SKU: PE.EP72822 Composed by Jonathan Dove. Voice(s...(+)
Tenor & String Quartet
SKU: PE.EP72822
Composed by Jonathan
Dove. Voice(s) & Various
Instruments. Edition
Peters. Living Composer.
Score and Part(s). 164
pages. Duration 00:30:00.
Edition Peters
#98-EP72822. Published by
Edition Peters
(PE.EP72822).
ISBN
9790577011769. 232 x
303mm inches.
English.
I have
only visited Damascus
once, twenty years ago,
on the way to
Palmyra. I had a
purpose (I was writing
music for a play about
Palmyra’s Queen
Zenobia) but essentially
I was a tourist.
Like any visitor, I was
thrilled to step out of
the noisy modern city
into the magical ancient
world of the walled Old
City, its vibrant souk
leading to the
magnificent mosque, and a
labyrinth of winding,
narrow streets filled
with the smell of
unleavened
bread.
In Palmyra,
I was met with
extraordinary kindness
everywhere. On one
occasion, a little
Bedouin boy noticed that
I was risking sunstroke
wandering bare-headed
among the spectacular
ruins: he showed me how
to tie a turban, then
took me to have tea with
his family in their
tent.
Since then, I
have watched helplessly
as these places of wonder
have been devastated and
their inhabitants
scattered and
killed. When the
Sacconi Quartet suggested
that I might choose a
Syrian poet for our
collaboration, I welcomed
the idea.
I
searched for a long time
to find a contemporary
poet whose work might
gain from any music I
could imagine. I
felt it was important to
find first-hand accounts
of the Syrian experience
– but, of course, I
was always reading them
in translation. In
an anthology
called Syria
Speaks, I was
astonished to read
something that looked
like prose, but was full
of poetry. It was
Anne-Marie
McManus’s fine
translation of Ali
Safar’s A
Black Cloud in a Leaden
White Sky
– an
eloquent, thoughtful,
contained yet vivid
account of life in a
war-torn country, all the
more moving for its
restraint.
In
setting these words, I
have not attempted to
imitate Syrian
music. However,
there is what might be
called a linguistic
accommodation in my
choice of scale, or
mode. Several
movements are in a mode
that I first discovered
while writing a cantata
commemorating the First
World War: it has a
tuning that I associate
with war, its violence
and desolation.
This eight-note
mode is similar to scales
found in Syrian
music. I did not
choose it in the
abstract: it emerged from
the harmonies I was
exploring in the earlier
work, and emerged again
as I was looking for the
right musical colours to
set Ali Safar’s
words. In this
work, its Arabic aspect
is more prominent. -
Jonathan
Dove
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(Revised Edition Woodwind Quintet Playing Score). By Gyorgy Kurtag (1926-). EMB....(+)
(Revised Edition Woodwind
Quintet Playing Score).
By Gyorgy Kurtag (1926-).
EMB. Book only. 17 pages.
Editio Musica Budapest
#Z14638. Published by
Editio Musica Budapest
SKU: PR.16400212S Composed by Dan Welcher. With Standard notation. Durati...(+)
SKU: PR.16400212S
Composed by Dan Welcher.
With Standard notation.
Duration 16 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#164-00212S. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.16400212S).
UPC:
680160037605.
Works
of chamber music
including flute and
strings are not nearly as
numerous as those for
clarinet, or even the
oboe. Probably the reason
for this is the less
assertive, more pure tone
the flute possesses - it
can't compete for volume
or range with the
clarinet, except in its
top octave, and the
oboe's tone is more
penetrating and easily
discerned from within a
string texture.
Consequently, composers
who have written for
flute and strings have
done so in lightweight
divertimento works:
compare, for instance,
the delicate flute
quartets of Mozart with
his monumental quintet
for clarinet and strings.
When Karl and Joan
Karber approached me with
the ideas of writing a
work for flute and string
trio, I originally
thought it would be best
to write a humorous,
rather offhand piece -
but a look at their
repertoire (mostly
comprised of smaller
works of the Rococo
period) convinced me that
it was the last thing
they needed. In spite of
the challenge (or maybe
because of it?), I
determined to write a
large work, and a serious
work. Zephyrus (named for
the God of the West Wind,
in deference to the
flute) is a
three-movement work, with
each movement cast in a
very different form, but
all three being built of
the same twelve-note
series. There is also a
rhythmic motive and a
pair of themes that
appear in all three
movements. The
first movement plays with
the idea of contrast and
persuasion. The flute, at
the outset, is the
hell-for-leather
protagonist, charging and
swooping around the
strings - who seem oddly
unconcerned by his
passion. Indeed, they
have a more somber song
to sing - and as the
movement unfolds, the
flute becomes less and
less active, while the
strings become
increasingly enlivened.
By the midpoint, when all
four instruments are
finally in the same meter
and the same tempo, the
flute's energy has
finally infected the
other three players, and
this energy does not let
up until the movement's
abrupt final cadence.
The second
movement begins with a
tag from the first - as
if the energy left over
was too great to simply
stop. At length, though,
a very poignant flute
melody appears over an
almost bluesy harmony in
the strings. After this
has been fully exposed, a
slight increase in
motion, marked gently
rocking in triplets,
features a theme-fragment
from Leonard Bernstein's
Symphony No. 2 (Kaddish).
Bernstein died as I was
writing this work, and it
seemed quite natural to
encourage what was
already implicit in the
music, and create an
Elegy for L.B. The music
rises and peaks, then in
the recapitulation of the
opening the Kaddish theme
reappears, as the
ensemble suggests a
gentle song of sleep.
The final movement
is a Rondo-Variations
form, with the slight
alteration of adding the
main theme of the second
movement in what would be
the trio of the form. The
ritornello theme is a
kind of ethnic dance
music, almost an allusion
to the Klezmer ensembles
of Eastern Europe. The
successive episodes
between the ritornelli
are loosely organized
variations on the basic
theme, but always
beginning with a metric
modulation, a rhythmic
changing of gears. The
movement reaches and apex
of speed and furious
pulsing, then abruptly
pirouttes, and finishes.
Zephyrus was
written between April and
November of 1990 in
Austin, Aspen, and
Honolulu, and is
dedicated to Karl Kraber
and The Chamber Soloists
of Austin. --Dan
Welcher.
Dan Welcher’s most enduringly and frequently played orchestral work, Prai...(+)
Dan Welcher’s most
enduringly and frequently
played orchestral work,
Prairie Light is a
fascinating musical
companion to three of
Georgia
O’Keeffe’s
most unusual paintings,
Light Coming on the
Plains, Canyon with
Crows, and Starlight
Night. This work is ideal
for performances using
visual projections of the
paintings, and is
frequently programmed for
subscription concerts as
well as those for
educational settings.
Duration: 14’
Parts available on
rental. This work for
full orchestra was
inspired by three
paintings of the noted
Americanartist Georgia
O’Keeffe. These
three watercolors were
done in 1917 while the
artist was living in
Canyon, Texas (near
Amarillo), and deal
primarily with color and
shape. Consequently, the
music is primarily
concerned with broad
lines and shapes rather
than rhythms, with subtle
washes of color rather
than constant harmonic
movement, and with
arching melody instead of
linear counterpoint.The
first movement, Light
Coming on the Plains, is
an elliptical-shaped
painting, deep blue to
indigo with a
“horizon†at
the bottom that seems
flat and unchanging. The
sun hasn’t risen
yet, although it does in
the course of this
movement, but it seems
instead to be providing
light from behind the
canvas. The music is
unmoving in terms of
rhythm or harmony
(although there is a
modulation midway
through), a color-infused
mantra of sound that is
almost Eastern.At the
height of the sun, we
proceed to the second
movement, entitled Canyon
with Crows. The canyon is
red-orange, with black
crows circling above
friendly unfolding hills.
The music is gentle but
lively and more rhythmic,
with the birds
represented by solo oboe,
clarinet, and sometimes
flute. Halfway through,
the brass have a chorale
version of the opening
motive, played very
slowly, over the unending
triplets of woodwinds and
strings. At the end of
the movement, the
birds return for a
duo-cadenza, accompanied
by the dying rays of the
sun in muted strings and
the ongoing triplets of
the solo quartet.The
stage is set for the
final movement, Starlight
Night. In
O’Keeffe’s
painting, the stars are
represented by
regularly-spaced
rectangles of bright pale
yellow on a blue-black
sky, with the same shape
to the field of vision
and the horizon that is
found in Light Coming on
the Plains. The stars
become audible: harp,
celesta, glockenspiel,
and string pizzicati all
lend a sparkle while a
solo flute introduces a
slowly unfolding theme.
After this theme has been
heard twice and the sky
has begun to really
brighten, there is a
sudden interruption: a
xylophone and a piano
begin another
“mantra†in
brittle staccato chords.
This is the same
mechanical eternity as
O’Keeffe’s
regularly-spaced square
stars, and it continues
on its own as the night
progresses. The music
builds and grows as the
moon rises and arcs, then
falls as the pre-dawn
light that opened the
work returns to bring it
to a close. Acycle of
light, changing with the
movements of sun, moon,
and stars, appearing
differently from various
points of view