Dahl-Lesemann-Kraft

Dahl-Lesemann-Kraft - Dahl-Lesemann-Kraft

LP released in 1973

Performers:

Karen Ervin - percussion

Louise DiTullio - flute

Mitchell Lurie - clarinet

Thomas Ervin - trombone

Tape collage by William Malloch on "Encounters IV."

Excerpts from the liner notes by Frederick Lesemann:

Music is a most profoundly social art. True, decades of solitary practice must preced even mere competence by professional standards. But the end, the purpose, is that day of participation in what one knows is a great performance while it is happening. The exhilaration of hearing one's colleagues performing superbly, and having the skill to rise to the occasion, to match them, is overwhelming. It is an ideal to which lies are dedicated.

Small wonder, then, that musicians congregate. And in their association another social dimension of their craft evolves: they learn from each other and the art of music grows. It is normally a slow process. Musicians are a conservative lot. But sometimes it is very rapid - explosive, even. And nowhere has this been more true in recent decades than among percussionists.

...

For Ingolf Dahl the challenge presented by the new means in percussion technique was to find the equivalents, in subtle changes of color, for the details of pitch relationships. When listening to his "Duettino" it is not enough to realize that a drum is being played. One must realize that it is being struck in different places on the instrument. The minute color changes are the percussionist's contribution to a dialogue between the flute and percussion that is the substance of the piece. This is particularly clear in the Fugheta (third movement). The chromatic steps in the fugue subject are reflected in color changes in the drums by striking each instrument in different places on the drum head. Such attention to detail requires particular acuteness both of the performers and of listeners. We hope that the listener will agree that this recording realizes these subtleties with clarity and exactness.

"Encounters IV," by William Kraft, is one of a series of works inspired by the concert series, Encounters, at the Pasadena (California) Museum of Art. It explores the dynamic possibilities of a conflict between the performers. The first movement, 'Strategy,' consists of 12 "attacks" by the trombone (including the message "make war to make peace" in Morse code) and 12 "counterattacks" by the percussion, representing peace. The second movement, titled 'Truce of God' in reference to the Medieval custom of a sabbath respite, employs a variation on "Beata Viscera," from the conductus by the thirteenth century composer Perotin, in the trombone, antiphonal "bell" sounds on gongs, vibraphone and steel mixing bowls, and a tape collage, created by William Malloch, of World War I speeches, songs and other, later materials. It is intended as a representation of the "folly of war, of man's self-deception". The third movement, 'Tactics', is characterized by the composer as "all out war" - the combatants locked in virtuosic battle.

William Malloch offers the following notes to his tape collage for William Kraft's "Encounters": This second movement makes me think of a kind of boneyard wherein War lies, having been put to death, of course, for the last time. The musical ghosts which flit through it are part of the cultural dumping ground. They derive largely from root material I used in the disc "Stars and Stripes and You." Most of it (like "Let's Bury the Hatchet in the Kaiser's Head") comes from World War I, but at the finish we hear equally incredible stuff from more recent times.

What is there in us that makes us get taken in at the time by pompous guff put forward by Harding (WWI), Roosevelt (WWII), and MacArthur (Korea). Just before the final montage an "anthem" made up from old scraps of the Russian Czarist hymn, "God Save the King", the "Hallelujah Chorus", and the "Volga Boatman's Song" tries to emerge from the grave. The scraps hapen almost to spell out a new "anthem" much sung by today's fashionable "underground". But it's made up of old stuff. We should let it fade away.

Tracklisting:

Side A

1. Frederick Lesemann - Sonata for Clarinet and Percussion {12:29}

2. Ingolf Dahl - Suettino Concertante for Flute and Percussion {10:41}

Side B

1. William Kraft - Encounters IV, A Duel for Trombone and Percussion: I. Strategy {3:51}

2. William Kraft - Encounters IV, A Duel for Trombone and Percussion: II. Truce of God {4:54}

3. William Kraft - Encounters IV, A Duel for Trombone and Percussion: III. Tactics {5:10}

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