Ralph Vaughan Williams  Symphony No. 5 (1943) - 2nd mvt

Julia Wolfe - Composer Portrait

Yarmouth Contemporary Music Days 2011 (Yarmouth, ME, USA)

Electronic Music: Where Technology Becomes Art? (Peter Gutmann, Classical Notes)

"Ástor Piazzolla was keenly aware of the changing style of the Argentine national dance over his lifetime. It was entirely natural that he should seek to remind his critics and fans alike of the fact that tango had begun in the process of musical evolution and altered its sound and mood through that same process. Histoire du Tango (1985) is the vehicle by which he did so. It is not written for the standard tango band, but is a kind of abstraction of that sound into a classical suite, originally written for flute and guitar. The music is a little over 20 minutes long and covers the evolution of the dance through the twentieth century. Tango evolved from an earlier popular dance called the milonga, which is itself evolved from the Cuban rhythm known as habañera. Tango was initially regarded as a low dance. Like North American jazz, it originated in bordellos, and so the first movement is entitled Bordel 1900. The second movement is called Café 1930. By now, tango was the favorite dance of all classes in Argentina and was known as a daring dance around the world. Piazzolla is now writing directly from his memories of the type of tango played in cafés in Buenos Aires. This is a respectful depiction of the full-blown traditional tango. The third movement, Nightclub 1960 (1985) evokes the precise time when Piazzolla returned to Buenos Aires after his efforts to create jazz tango in the U.S. It now becomes clear that Piazzolla is dealing in the overall composition with his own place in the history of the music, as more sophisticated jazz elements enliven a music that had become standardized and complacent. This is a picture of the early version of Tango Nuevo. The final movement is called Concert d'aujourd'hui, a title that most literally translates as "Concert of Today" but which might also be called "Contemporary Concert." By the 1980s, Piazzolla was becoming an exciting voice in classical concert music. He shows himself here as having taken tango from its polite café form through its new nightclub dance form and making it into a new form for concert music. The harmonic vocabulary here is advanced and often startling, and it is music for listening more than dancing." (Joseph Stevenson, allmusic.com) . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Orchestra 60X60 is a project containing 60 works each 60 seconds in length presented continuously in an hour performance synchronized with an analog clock. The 60x60 mission is to present an audible slice of what is happening in the contemporary music scene by representing 60 works that are diverse in aesthetic and style. Since 2003, the music of more than 1200 contemporary composers has been featured on the Electroacoustic 60x60 project. Thousands of audience members from Berlin to Chicago to New York City to Los Angeles and points in between have experienced this innovative program which synchronizes a clock with 60 one-minute electroacoustic compositions. The Orchestra 60X60 project brings this innovative listening experience into symphony concert halls. Check Orchestra 60X60 out . . . this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC WEBSITE.

Powell and Pressburger's film "The 49th Parallel" - released in the USA as "The Invaders" - was the first film for which Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote a score. Made in 1941, the film depicts an ill-fated invasion of an isolated spot in Canada by the crew of a German U-boat. Watch an excerpt from The 49th Parallel (1941) . . . the PYTHEAS SIGHTING for the week.

As the critic Antoine Golea so aptly observed, "The Concerto for Flute and Strings (1949) is one of Andre Jolivet's works where violence gives way to tenderness, force and passion yield to charm. Of course the nature of the solo instrument dictated to some extent the intimate, discreet and suave aspects of this work, and Jolivet also had the good sense not to pit the flute against a full orchestra. The strings alone engage in a dialogue with the flute - sometimes lyrical, sometimes piquant and capricious." Watch a performance by flutist Seth Allyn Morris . . . this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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

The Lark Ascending (1920) is perhaps the most perfect work Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote for a solo instrument accompanied by orchestra. Finding inspiration not only in English folk tunes but also in a poem by the English poet George Meredith (1828-1909), Vaughan Williams' orchestral romance offers an impressionistic image of a lark's song and his beloved English countryside. The composer included a portion of Meredith's poem on the flyleaf of the published score:

He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.

For singing till his heaven fills,
‘Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.

Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

Hear and watch a stunning performance of The Lark Ascending by violinist Janine Jansen . . . one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

Jugu Abraham, at Movies That Make You Think writes, "Time and again people have asked me which movie is my all time favorite. I have often said without much hesitation: King Lear (1971), by the Russian film maker Grigory Kozintsev. Even close friends wonder if I have lost my wits because they expect my favorite would be Orson Welles's Citizen Kane or a work of Tarkovsky, Kieslowski, or even Terrence Mallick, my favorite directors. I fell in love with the Ukranian-born director Kozintsev’s King Lear some 30 years ago and I continue to be enraptured by the black-and-white film shot in cinemascope each time I see it. Each time you view the film, one realizes that a creative genius can embellish another masterpiece from another medium by providing food for thought---much beyond what Shakespeare offered his audiences centuries ago". The sparce film score by Dmitri Shostakovich comes from last years of his life. Have a look ... this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

American composer Christopher Rouse started out at as a rock & roll drummer. However, it was not long until his love for classical composing took over and he enrolled in the Oberlin Conservatory. Having received a degree in composition in 1971, he continued with graduate work at Cornell University. He has taught at the Eastman School of Music since 1981, began teaching composition at the Juilliard School in 1997 and became co-composer in residence at the Aspen Music Festival in 1999. In a successful career as a composer he has won many awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for his Trombone Concerto in 1993. Rouse is best known for his large body of concertos and symphonic works. He has been described as "the Stephen King of composition," since many of his works from the late 1980s and early 1990s dealt with issues of death, horror, tragedy, and mythology. Hear Rouse's 2007 talk with Chandler Branch of Soli Deo Gloria before the world premiere performance of his Requiem (2007) ... this week's COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

Toru Takemitsu's Rain Tree Sketch II (1992) was composed in memory of Oliver Messiaen. The name was probably inspired by a quotation from Kenzaburo Oe's story Atama no ii, Ame no Ki (An Ingenious Rain Tree): "It was named the 'rain tree', for its abundant foliage continued to let fall rain drops from the previous night's shower until the following midday. Its hundreds of thousands of tiny, finger-like leaves store up moisture, whereas other trees dry out at once." The work is a dreamy, moody meditation on the flow of life, built on half a dozen well chosen notes. Hear and watch a performance by pianist Vestard Shimkus ... this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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

In the words of Peter Jacobi (Herald-Times, Bloomington, Indiana) "TomFlaherty's Trio for Cello and Digital Processor (1991) has his instrument communicating with itself. The effect actually suggests the presence of three players rather than just the one who appears on stage. An impressive tour de force." Watch a performance of this "Trio" - with the composer/cello soloist, his cello and the cello's transformed self ... one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

For those who know the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, the last thing most of us would associate the composer with is film music - yet he DID compose eleven film scores from 1940 to 1958. For some insight into RVW's film music excursions, take a look at this week's FEATURED ARTICLE Ralph VaughanWilliams and '49th Parallel' by Rolf Jordan.

Director William Wyler returns for a second week here at Pytheas, though in a completely different context then when last we saw him. Our previous PYTHEAS SIGHTING was The Heiress, the 1949 film with music by Aaron Copland, directed by Mr. Wyler and set in late 19th century New York City. Our current PYTHEAS SIGHTING is Ben Hur (1959), with music by Miklos Rozsa, again directed by Mr. Wyler and set in 26 AD Rome. The film and the music (which won an Academy Award) are CLASSIC! ... check it all out at this week's PYTHEAS SIGHTING.

FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES this week brings us a very unique convergence of cultures - John Cage performing one of his pieces on the popular 1960 TV game show I've Got A Secret. From Jens Mügge at NetNewMusic: "At the time, Cage was teaching Experimental Composition at New York City's New School. Eight years beyond his groundbreaking work 4' 33", he was (as our smoking MC informs us) the most controversial figure in the musical world at that time. His first performance on national television, presenting his piece Water Walk,was originally scored to include five radios, but a union dispute on the CBS set prevented any of the radios from being plugged into the wall. Cage gleefully smacks and tosses the radios instead of turning them on and off. While treating Cage as something of a freak, the show also treats him fairly reverentially, canceling the regular game show format to allow Cage the chance to perform his entire piece." Quite a wild ride! Have a look ... this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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

According to Steve Schwartz/ClassicalNet.com, "In the last decade of his life Ralph Vaughan Williams took to experimenting with what could well be considered "unusual" instruments; in the 7th, 8th and 9th Symphonies he included a wind machine, tuned gongs and a flugelhorn respectively. During the same period Vaughan Williams also wrote two works for soloist and orchestra, the Romance for Harmonica (1951) and the Tuba Concerto (1954), and both works emphasize the fact that Vaughan Williams was still full of musical ideas well into his eighties. Vaughan Williams seemed to have quite liked the tuba as an instrument, and often included parts for it in his orchestral works. However, in the Tuba Concerto it gets center stage, is given two cadenzas – in the first and last movements - and proves that it can hold its own as a concerto instrument". See a performance of the first movement of Tuba Concerto by the youthful Leswi Pantoja and the Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra ... one of this week's FEATURED NEW MUSIC VIDEOS.

The conceptual and multifaceted composer Tan Dun has made an indelible mark on the world's music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical, multimedia, Eastern and Western musical systems. Central to his body of work, Tan Dun has composed distinct series of works which reflect his individual compositional concepts and personal ideas - among them a series which brings his childhood memories of shamanistic ritual into symphonic performances; works which incorporate elements from the natural world; and multimedia concerti. Opera has a significant role in his creative output and of his many works for film, the score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, received an Oscar for best original score. Hear Tan Dun talk about his life and music - Pytheas' current COMPOSER PORTRAIT.

William Schuman's Symphony for Strings (his Symphony No. 5) was completed on July 31, 1943, at New Rochelle, New York. The work was a Koussevitzky Foundation memorial for Natalie Koussevitzky and was premiered on November 12, 1943 by the strings of the Boston Symphony Orchestra with the dedicatee's husband, Sergei Koussevitzky conducting. The work, which clearly espresses its angst-ridden World War II era, enjoyed immediate success and has since received many performances, recordings and broadcasts. Have a listen to its first movement ... this week's PYTHEAS EARFUL.

Lousadzak (The Coming of Light) (1944) was composed during the years 1944–54, the period during which Alan Hovhaness created his greatest music. Subtitled Concerto for Piano and Strings, the work is unlike any other piano concerto in the repertoire. There is not a single chord, not a single passage of octaves in this one-movement work. The piano is employed to emulate various Armenian and Middle-Eastern instruments of the dulcimer and zither families, and the music is composed very much along the lines of what those instruments typically play, which includes striking the same key repeatedly to simulate sustained notes, and playing a melody against a drone-note, often in rapid, irregular rhythmic patterns. The strings provide a largely accompanimental backdrop like a small folk orchestra, in simple, almost improvisatory modal polyphony. The effect is truly unforgettable. The result is a highly exotic work suggesting an ancient pagan rite of unearthly, primitivistic fire and passion, as well as, at times, tender tranquility. (Walter Simmons, Fanfare) Hear and see an excerpt of this beautiful work ... this week's FROM THE PYTHEAS ARCHIVES.

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