| String Quartet No. 3 Quatuor à cordes: 2 violons, alto, violoncelle Theodore Presser Co.
String quartet String Quartet SKU: PR.16400272S Cassatt. Composed ...(+)
String quartet String
Quartet SKU:
PR.16400272S
Cassatt. Composed
by Dan Welcher. Premiere:
Cassatt Quartet,
Northeastern Illinois
University, Chicago, IL.
Contemporary. Full score.
With Standard notation.
Composed 2007. WRT11142.
52 pages. Duration 24
minutes. Theodore Presser
Company #164-00272S.
Published by Theodore
Presser Company
(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. $38.99 - Voir plus => AcheterDélais: 2 to 3 weeks | | |
| String Quartet No. 3 Quatuor à cordes: 2 violons, alto, violoncelle Theodore Presser Co.
Chamber Music String Quartet SKU: PR.164002720 Cassatt. Composed b...(+)
Chamber Music String
Quartet SKU:
PR.164002720
Cassatt. Composed
by Dan Welcher. Spiral
and Saddle. Premiere:
Cassatt Quartet,
Northeastern Illinois
University, Chicago, IL.
Contemporary. Set of
Score and Parts. With
Standard notation.
Composed 2007. WRT11142.
52+16+16+16+16 pages.
Duration 24 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#164-00272. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.164002720). UPC:
680160573042. 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. $53.00 - Voir plus => AcheterDélais: 2 to 3 weeks | | |
| Spirit Realms Theodore Presser Co.
Chamber Music Flute, Piccolo, alto Flute SKU: PR.164002480 Composed by Da...(+)
Chamber Music Flute,
Piccolo, alto Flute
SKU: PR.164002480
Composed by Dan Welcher.
Set of performance
scores. With Standard
notation. 23 pages.
Duration 14 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#164-00248. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.164002480). UPC:
680160038237. This
work is my second for a
solo woodwind and a solo
percussionist, following
Firewing: The Flame and
the Moth for oboe and
percussion by nine years.
The earlier piece
followed a specific story
line, and pitted the oboe
against the percussionist
as both adversary and
lover. In Spirit Realms,
my aim was not only to
juxtapose the very
different sounds of flute
(plus alto flute and
piccolo) against a large
array of percussion, but
also to attempt three
different meditative
spaces, each named for a
different type of
spiritual practice. The
musical means of
expression is very
different for each of the
three movements (as is
the instrumentation),
although they share a
common scale-source: the
looped pentatonic scale I
have been developing over
the last several years.
The first movement
is called Prayer Tunnel,
and is named for the
Eskimo practice of solo
meditation within a
tunnel of ice blocks.
This is said to be a
means of overcoming
demons within, and in my
musical rendering it
takes the form of an
unaccompanied alto flute
solo. The flute begins
rather angrily, full of
tension, but in the
course of the solo
passage manages to slowly
unwind. The percussionist
then plays the exact same
music the alto flute had
played....on seven tuned
cymbals. Toward the end,
the alto flute re-enters,
its original meditation
having fused with its
mirror. Kiva
represents the circular,
subterranean pit in which
the Anasazi practiced
their religion, a form of
which still can be found
in the Hopi tribes of the
American southwest. These
are not spaces for solo
meditation, but rather a
group meeting place in
which only the sanctified
are permitted. After an
introductory invocation
(dove call), the music
begins. At first, it is
flowing, in a repetitive
double-five meter. It
then traces several
sections, with metric
shifts forcing the pulse
to race faster and
faster, until it halves
itself in the coda and
returns to the exact
pulse of the beginning.
The flutist here uses the
C flute, and the
percussionist plays on
both pitched (marimba)
and unpitched instruments
(various drums and struck
sources). Zendo is
the meditation room used
by Zen Buddhists. My
music begins with another
invocation (wind chimes,
temple cup gongs, and
temple blocks), then
moves on to a slow
subject stated by the
flute. The subject is
taken up by the
vibraphone, and after
several modulations and
tempo changes, the
flutist takes up the
piccolo. The music
continues higher and
higher, and faster and
faster (Zen meditation is
NOT all about becoming
lost!) until it breaks
free at the very end. The
percussionist is put
through his paces in this
movement, having to reach
a staggering number of
instruments in a short
time. Spirit
Realms was commissioned
by, and is dedicated to,
the Armstrong Duo. -- Dan
Welcher. $75.00 - Voir plus => AcheterDélais: 2 to 3 weeks | | |
| Spirit Realms Theodore Presser Co.
Flute, Percussion SKU: PR.16400248S Composed by Dan Welcher. With Standar...(+)
Flute, Percussion SKU:
PR.16400248S Composed
by Dan Welcher. With
Standard notation.
Duration 14 minutes.
Theodore Presser Company
#164-00248S. Published by
Theodore Presser Company
(PR.16400248S). UPC:
680160038244. This
work is my second for a
solo woodwind and a solo
percussionist, following
Firewing: The Flame and
the Moth for oboe and
percussion by nine years.
The earlier piece
followed a specific story
line, and pitted the oboe
against the percussionist
as both adversary and
lover. In Spirit Realms,
my aim was not only to
juxtapose the very
different sounds of flute
(plus alto flute and
piccolo) against a large
array of percussion, but
also to attempt three
different meditative
spaces, each named for a
different type of
spiritual practice. The
musical means of
expression is very
different for each of the
three movements (as is
the instrumentation),
although they share a
common scale-source: the
looped pentatonic scale I
have been developing over
the last several years.
The first movement
is called Prayer Tunnel,
and is named for the
Eskimo practice of solo
meditation within a
tunnel of ice blocks.
This is said to be a
means of overcoming
demons within, and in my
musical rendering it
takes the form of an
unaccompanied alto flute
solo. The flute begins
rather angrily, full of
tension, but in the
course of the solo
passage manages to slowly
unwind. The percussionist
then plays the exact same
music the alto flute had
played....on seven tuned
cymbals. Toward the end,
the alto flute re-enters,
its original meditation
having fused with its
mirror. Kiva
represents the circular,
subterranean pit in which
the Anasazi practiced
their religion, a form of
which still can be found
in the Hopi tribes of the
American southwest. These
are not spaces for solo
meditation, but rather a
group meeting place in
which only the sanctified
are permitted. After an
introductory invocation
(dove call), the music
begins. At first, it is
flowing, in a repetitive
double-five meter. It
then traces several
sections, with metric
shifts forcing the pulse
to race faster and
faster, until it halves
itself in the coda and
returns to the exact
pulse of the beginning.
The flutist here uses the
C flute, and the
percussionist plays on
both pitched (marimba)
and unpitched instruments
(various drums and struck
sources). Zendo is
the meditation room used
by Zen Buddhists. My
music begins with another
invocation (wind chimes,
temple cup gongs, and
temple blocks), then
moves on to a slow
subject stated by the
flute. The subject is
taken up by the
vibraphone, and after
several modulations and
tempo changes, the
flutist takes up the
piccolo. The music
continues higher and
higher, and faster and
faster (Zen meditation is
NOT all about becoming
lost!) until it breaks
free at the very end. The
percussionist is put
through his paces in this
movement, having to reach
a staggering number of
instruments in a short
time. Spirit
Realms was commissioned
by, and is dedicated to,
the Armstrong Duo. -- Dan
Welcher. $41.99 - Voir plus => AcheterDélais: 2 to 3 weeks | | |
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