Urania UR 134 [percussion]

various artists compilation - Urania UR 134

*That's not actually the title of this release, I don't think as this LP didn't have a title. It just posted the names of the compositions on the cover. I named the title myself as it is easier for me to manage and organize in my collection.

Ballet Mechanique composed by George Antheil; performed by the Los Angeles Contemporary Music Ensemble

Instruments: Four Pianos, two Xylophones, Glockenspiel, Timpani, Tenor and Bass Drums, Military Drum, Gong, Triangle, Cymbal, Woodblock, Large and Small Airplane Propeller, Large and Small Electric Bell

From the liner notes:

Percussion music - music expressed through rhythm instead of melody and harmony, suggesting endless variations of movement - is one of the manifestations of our restless times. It does not seem surprising, therefore, that an art form exploring the intrinsic melodiousness of drums and cymbals has become an accepted means of our musical expression. But in 1924, when the late George Antheil wrote his Ballet Mechanique, he was considered an iconoclast, an audacious experimenter. As he explained much later, the ballet was not meant to glorify the beauty and precision of machines, as was erroneously charged; it represented his personal effort to escape "the iron grip of the tonal principle" and the straightjacket of the old forms - a goal that Schoenberg and Stravinsky also had pursued each in his own special Way.
When he wrote the ballet, Antheil was developing a new principle of musical construction, based on rhythm alone. He called it "time-space" and compared it with a canvas on which tunes and chords were applied like colors and shapes. He wrote the ballet originally for an abstract motion picture, but then rewrote it for the concert hall, heard it performed in Paris (1926) and New York (1927), and made a final revision in 1954. The version on this record includes a recording of an airplane engine, two doorbells of different sizes, and four pianos (replacing the original pianolas) on which occasional tone clusters are banged with the palm of the hand. The three part piece, played without a pause, has been dubbed a "mechanistic dance of life." According to Antheil, its spiritual outline is an interpretation of the "barbaric and mystic splendor of modern civilization - mathematics of the universe in which the abstraction of 'the human soul' lives."

Sketch for Percussion composed by Ronald LoPresti; performed by the Manhattan Percussion Ensemble

Instruments: Xylophone, Marimba, Celeste, Timpani, Snare Drum, Bass Drum, Gong, Piano, Triangle, Suspended Cymbal

Next comes a work by Ronald LoPresti, of Williamstown, Massachusetts, who was 23 years old and had won considerable recognition with compositions along conventional lines, when his Sketch for Percussion won first prize in the annual contest at the Eastman School of Music, in 1956. Within the single movement of this work, contrasts are achieved by pitting delicate sounds of celeste, marimba, and piano against the clamor of xylophones, drums, gongs, triangles and cymbals.

Toccata for Percussion Instruments composed by Carlos Chavez; performed by the Manhattan Percussion Ensemble

Instruments: Xylophone, Side Drums, Indian Drums, Tenor & Bass Drums, Bells, Suspended Cymbals, Timpani, Large & Small Gongs, Chimes, Claves, Maraca

Side Two opens with a three-part Toccata for Percussion Instruments by Carlos Chavez, Mexico's most eminent musical personality. It has been described as the most academic percussion work written so far; "intellectual rather than primitive" was the concensus of opinion after its premiere in Cincinnati, 1950, despite the lavish use of Indian drums and various kinds of metallic sounds suggesting the Mexicans' predilection for bells. With the perfectionism that distinguishes all his work, the composer leaves nothing to improvisation; even the pause between the last two movements is a measured rest, just long enough to indicate the change of mood.

October Mountain composed by Alan Hovhannes; performed by the Manhattan Percussion Ensemble

Instruments: Marimba, Glockenspiel, Timpani, Tenor & Bass Drums, Gong, Tam-Tam

October Mountain by Alan Hovhannes was written in 1942, while this prolific composer was a student at Tanglewood, after having burned about 1000 earlier compositions. A New Englander of Armenian parentage, a teacher at the Boston Conservatory, he has won a considerable following by the original blending of Oriental, Indian and Armenian features which gives his style an enchanting exotic flavor. The work is in five parts, three of which are dominated by the marimba, which gives a peculiar tinge to the monodic chant that is a characteristic element in Armenian music.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. George Antheil - Ballet Mechanique {17:34}

2. Ronald LoPresti - Sketch for Percussion {3:11}

Side 2

1. Carlos Chavez - Toccata for Percussion Instruments {10:56}

2. Alan Hovhannes - October Mountain {7:11}

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