Joseph Stevenson at the All Music Guide writes about Nino Rota's Trombone Concerto (1966), "With his lyrical gift, dramatic flair, and grasp of the tragic and comic (often at the same time), Nino Rota in an earlier age could have become a leading opera composer. He did write some excellent operas, but gained his greatest fame and his finest opportunities for theatrical expression as the favored composer of film director Federico Fellini. His 1966 Trombone Concerto exhibits one of the most amazing characteristics of Rota's music: it is such attractive and easy-to-listen-to music that the listener is apt to mistake it for a conventional work of no great depth. But a little more attention reveals a subtle depth, with hidden feelings and a little irony, particularly in the way some seemingly banal moments add a sense of the pressures of modern life." Watch a performance of the first movement of Rota's Trombone Concerto by trombonist Domingo Pagliuca and Orquesta Sinfonica de Venezuelar . . . it's one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Bonjour Tristesse (Hello Sadness) is a 1958 film directed by Otto Preminger and based on a novel by Françoise Sagan. It stars David Niven and Jean Seberg as a playboy father and his somewhat meddlesome teenage daughter. Problems arise when Niven meets and falls for Deborah Kerr and Seberg attempts to break up the relationship. Almost sounds like it could be a Haley Mills Disney film, but when the novel was written in 1954 it was quite scandalous. The music for the film was composed by French composer Georges Auric. The Title Sequence for the film was designed by noted graphic designer Saul Bass. For those of you who have never heard of Saul Bass, this week we bring you his opening of Bonjour Tristesse . . . though you've probably seen his work in such classic films as The Man with the Golden Arm (1955), Vertigo (1958), Anatomy of a Murder (1958), North by Northwest (1959), Psycho (1960), West Side Story (1961), Cape Fear (1991) and Catch Me If You Can Opening (2002), among many others . . . this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

Stephen Cohn is internationally recognized for his music for the concert stage, as well as his scores for feature films and television. His concert works have been performed and recorded by the world's finest chamber music ensembles in the United States and Europe, such as the Kansas City Symphony, Arditti Quartet, the City of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chroma String Quartet. He has been Composer-in-Residence at The International Encounters of Catalonia in the south of France, and his commissions have been performed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Brussels, France, and Prague. He has received an Emmy Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Music", and his scores have been part of many award winning productions featuring such stars as Lily Tomlin, Joanne Woodward, Kathleen Quinlan, Colleen Dewhurst, William Shatner and Wallace Shawn. Listen to a performance of Stephen Cohn's Essay for Guitar written in 2008 . . . one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS this week.

Arvo Pärt began a "prismatic approach to musical construction" in his Für Elina (1976), a piece for solo piano which announced - quietly, thoughtfully, beautifully - the arrival of his "tintinnabuli style". Written originally as a gift for a young Estonian girl on her own in London, the work's modest means give little hint of the soul-searching that preceded its composition. About Für Elina, Pärt has said, "This was the first piece that was on a new plateau. It was here that I discovered the triad series, which I made my simple little guiding rule." Composition, for Pärt, had become a process of self-discovery, and his first requirement was clarity. (from Musicolog.com) - Watch, and bask in, a performance of Pärt's Für Elina . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

After pushing one end of the envelope with three slow movements in his Symphony No. 3 (1976), Henryk Górecki swung back the other way in 1980 with his delightful Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra (1981). This sparkling piece lasts about nine minutes and consists of two fast movements, both centering around D. The harpsichord is accompanied by a small string orchestra; if the solo part is played on piano, the strings are expanded to compensate. This concerto is strongly related to Górecki's Three Pieces in Olden Style (1963), which was shocking at the time for its unabashed simple, diatonic style. (thanks to Rod Corkin/Classical Muic Mayhem for these insights). Watch a performance of Górecki's Concerto for Harpsichord and String Orchestra with Elżbieta Chojnacka, harpsichord, and the Narodowa Orkiestra Symfoniczna Polskiego Radia, Antoni Wit conducting . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Robert Moon (at Audiophile Audition) writes about CPO Records first volume of the Symphonic Works of Andrzej Panufnik: "Andrzej Panufnik is the least known of the three great Polish composers of the twentieth century – the others being Witold Lutoslawski and Krzysztof Penderecki. His music combines the architectural quality of consecutive soundblocks – extended music with distinctive tone and texture – with the emotional feel of the spiritual and visionary. By manipulating three note cells in a mathematical manner, Panufnik's music has a forceful, sometimes overwhelmingly powerful presence which is often contrasted by a more meditative, atmospheric section. The music on this disc can be best understood by tracing their personal, political and sociological times in which they were created. The Tragic Overture (1941) recreates the cataclysmic terrors of World War II. The composer uses a four note motto theme throughout this short work that plays beneath a cantabile violin melody. The Heroic Overture, ostensibly written for the pre-Olympic competition in Warsaw in 1952, was really a testament to the valiant resistance of Poland to the Nazi invasion of 1939. Here the conflict is punctuated by a valorous march and a triumphant ending. In Nocturne (1948) "I completely detached myself from the tragic memories of the past years," Panufnik writes, "I was escaping reality, weaving for myself a kind of night vision, as in a dream." This 17 minute work starts quietly, moves towards a devastating climax, and then recedes into the mist. Its structure reminds me of Barber’s Adagio for Strings, but there is a portent of fear and danger under the patina of calmness. There also is a warmth, especially in the string writing, that perhaps reflects the composer’s love for humanity. Nocturne may have been cathartic for Panufnik, but, as moving emotionally as it is, there still remains the imprint of the horror the composer experienced in World War II. It is the major discovery of this disc. Katyn Epitaph is a searing remembrance of the Katyn Forest Massacre of thousands of Polish patriots by Russian soldiers in World War II. The quiet and lovely A Procession for Peace is a symphonic prelude dedicated "to peace loving people of every race and religion, of every political and philosophical creed," Panufnik wrote. Harmony – a Poem for Chamber Orchestra - was composed in 1989 and dedicated to the composer’s wife of 25 years. Its spiritual and graceful tone is an excellent example of the meditative and visionary Panufnik. This impressive disc is a sampling of the diversity of symphonic music which this under-appreciated composer has given to the world. Performances and sound are excellent, as are the extensive program notes. This is an important beginning to recordings of Panufnik's orchestral works (this is Volume 1), and I look forward to future issues, especially recordings of his ten symphonies." Check this and other contemporary music recordings out out at the Pytheas Recordings Archive . . . it's this week's FEATURED RECORDING.

Karen Amrhein is an award-winning member of ASCAP, a recipient of a 2005 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award, and has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her music has been described as "very sensitive to melody, and quite insightful as to the harmonic structure that will best support it. What results is both engaging and intriguing, as well as emotionally satisfying, not infrequently witty, and quite often uplifting - all characteristics and affects that seem regrettably rare in the work of more recent times." Listen to a peformance of the second movement of Amrhein's Sonata for Clarinet and Piano (1996) . . . one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS this week.

In another collaboration between Judith Lang Zaimont and her husband Gary Zaimont (with video production by Mike Bregman), The Joy of Dance, features Zaimont's art song Clair de Lune from the song cycle Chansons Nobles et Sentimentales sung by tenor Charles Bressler . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

David Lang's impetus for Cheating, Lying, Stealing (1993) was to be the opposite of a big-brained, I-am-so-smart composer. Instead, Lang wanted to focus more on the more appalling and snide aspects of life. Lang tries to get every bang for his buck out of the musical material that he has. His composition is like a ten-minute-long machine that follows a set of laws that he invented, at which point the music seems to have simply written itself. He tweaks one aspect of the conventions, and cheats his way into having even more material. The piece, composed for the Bang on a Can All-Stars and scored for bass clarinet, cello, piano, and two percussionists (who play junk metals on opposite ends of the stage), is angular, edgy, and repetitious . . . Watch a performance of Cheating, Lying, Stealing with Sam Chernoff, Paul Kerekes, Hiromi Nishida, Derek Kwan, Austin Shadduck, and Joe Fee, with Matthew Kasper conducting . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

The Pytheas Center's director Vinny Fuerst writes: "The Richard Rodgers/Robert Russell Bennett score of the NBC documentary series Victory at Sea [26 half hour episodes which first aired from October 26, 1952 through May 3, 1953] has always held a special place in my heart. My mother tells the story of how I, age 5, would sit in front of the stereo and listen over and over again to the album of highlights for Victory at Sea. I must have been swept away by the drama, adventure and heroism evoked in that famous score. Just recently, I've found out the fascinating details behind the collaboration between Richard Rodgers (one of the most famous composers in American musical theater) and Robert Russell Bennett (a composer, too, and one of the most famous and sought after arrangers and orchestrators of the 20th century); how Bennett took Rodgers' twelve themes and a total of seventeen pages of music, and arranged (transformed, really) them into over 11 hours of music". Watch part of the first episode of Victory at Sea . . . it's this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

And read more about the Richard Rodgers/Robert Russell Bennett collaboration . . . here at Pytheas.

In his fifty career, Brian Fennelly has contributed more than ninety works to the repertoire of twentieth-century music. He brought the discipline garnered by studies in mechanical engineering at Union College in Schenectady, New York to graduate studies in music at Yale University, from which he received Master of Music and Ph.D. degrees. His most significant teachers were Mel Powell, Donald Martino, Gunther Schuller, George Perle, and Allen Forte. From 1968 to 1997 he was Professor of Music in the Faculty of Arts and Science at New York University, where he is now Professor Emeritus. In addition to a Guggenheim fellowship, his awards include three fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two commissions from the Koussevitsky Foundation as well as commissions from the Fromm Foundation, Meet the Composer/Reader’s Digest, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, and others. In 1997 he received a lifetime achievement award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Fennelly's music has been performed by orchestras including the Rochester Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, and The Louisville Orchestra, as well as by chamber ensembles such as the American and Empire Brass Quintets, and the Concord and Audubon String Quartets. In addition to composing and teaching, he has been active as a pianist, and co-directs the Washington Square Contemporary Music Society, which he founded in 1976. Hear a performance of Brian Fennelly's Sukhi! (1999) for clarinet, violin, cello and piano (1999) . . . one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS this week.

According to American composer Gian Carlo Menotti, "One of the essential ingredients for music to sound 'modern'... is the constant and unrelieved use of dissonances. I don't know why dissonance per se should be more exciting or interesting than consonance ... There are people who consider it essential for contemporary music to be nervous and intense. Again, why should tension be more interesting than serenity? Artists struggling to be original seem to be unaware that there is only one way to be honestly and candidly oneself ... I am convinced that composition is more an act of discovery than of creation ... and only when I feel I have reached the inner chambers of my heart, I know that I have become an original composer." The human voice played a significant role in Menotti's work, and the bulk of his output consists of opera, musical theater, and choral music, for most of which he composed both music and text. He created the first opera for radio, The Old Maid and the Thief (1939), and for television, Amahl and the Night Visitors (1951), and wrote a number of ballets and works for children. Menotti received the Pulitzer Prize in music and Drama Critics' Circle Award for both The Consul (1949) and The Saint of Bleecker Street (1954). In 1958 Menotti founded the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds in Italy, devoted to cultural collaboration between Europe and America; in 1977 he founded Spoleto USA in Charleston, South Carolina. Menotti's Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was commissioned in 1952 by Efrem Zimbalist, violinist and then director of the Curtis Institute of Music, of which Menotti was a former student. The work was premiered by Zimbalist and the Philadelphia Orchestra in December of that year. Divided into three movements, the concerto is a conventional showpiece for the virtuoso soloist, with a lyricism and tonality characteristic of much of Menotti's work. The final movement features a section for oboe, tambourine, and Indian drum reminiscent of the Middle Eastern influences found in Menotti's opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. Hear a performance of Menotti's Violin Concerto by violinist Ruggiero Ricci with the Pacific Symphony Orchestra, Keith Clark conducting . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music

Paul Serotsky writes at MusicWeb International: "For Dmitri Shostakovich, 1953 to about 1960 was a period of relative prosperity and security: with Stalin's death a great curtain of fear had been lifted. Shostakovich was gradually restored to favour, allowed to earn a living, and even honoured, though there was a price . . . co-operation (at least ostensibly) with the authorities. The peak of this 'thaw', in 1956 when large numbers of 'rehabilitated' intellectuals were released, coincided with the composition of the effervescent Second Piano Concerto. Shostakovich's son, Maxim, gave the concerto its first performance on 10th May 1957, Maxim's 19th birthday. Shostakovich must have intended all along that this would be a 'birthday present' - for, while the composer remained covertly dissident (the Eleventh Symphony was just around the corner), the piano concerto is utterly devoid of all subterfuge, cryptic codes and hidden messages. Instead, it brims with youthful vigour, vitality, romance - and such sheer mischief that it may even have been a 'character study' of Maxim." Watch a performance of the first movement of Shostakovich’s Piano Conc. No. 2 (1957) with pianist Kirill Gerstein and the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Charles Dutoit, conducting . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Identity has always been at the center of Gabriela Lena Frank's music. Born in Berkeley, California, to a mother of mixed Peruvian/Chinese ancestry and a father of Lithuanian/Jewish descent, Frank explores her multicultural heritage most ardently through her compositions. She has traveled extensively throughout South America and her pieces reflect and refract her studies of Latin-American folklore, incorporating poetry, mythology, and native musical styles into a western classical framework that is uniquely her own. She writes challenging idiomatic parts for solo instrumentalists, vocalists, chamber ensembles, and orchestras. Moreover, Frank writes, "There's usually a story line behind my music; a scenario or character". Watch an interview of Gabriela Lena Frank with Frank J. Oteri (thanks to NewMusicBox) Composite Identity (NewMusicBox) . . . it's our COMPOSER PORTRAIT for the week.

Disillusioned by many aspects of the classical music establishment, Steve Martland has forged his own path, employing what he finds of value in the classical tradition, but also incorporating elements of jazz, folk, and rock into his energetic, dynamic music. He is also an active force in the field of music instruction, and has not been shy about speaking his mind on political issues. He worked with composer Louis Andriessen, whose music, combining minimalism and popular music styles, became something of a model for Martland when he was a young composer. He also studied with Gunther Schuller at the Berkshire Music Center as a composition fellow in 1984. Listen to a performance of Steve Martland’s Beat The Retreat (1995) . . . one of our PYTHEAS EARFULS this week.

The Concerto Macabre (1944/1972) from the film Hangover Square (1944) is Bernard Herrmann's only venture into film piano concertos. The film starred Laird Cregar as a mad composer who went on killing sprees whenever he heard loud noise. Through the concerto Herrmann generates a haunting impression of loneliness and death, and the work is a rare example of a piano concerto ending with just the solo piano. Hear a performance of the Concerto Macabre with pianist David Beuchner and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, with James Sedares conducting . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

Explore, Listen and Enjoy!
Vinny Fuerst
Pytheas Center for Contemporary Music