Lukas Foss-TWO RECORD PREMIERES 1964 (?) Epic Monaural LC 3886

Lukas Foss-TWO RECORD PREMIERES commissioned by the Fromm Music Foundation.

ECHOI (FOR FOUR SOLOISTS)
TIME CYCLE (CHAMBER VERSION)

Today is the third anniversary of the passing away of Lukas Foss at the age of 86.
He was born on August 15th, 1922.

Notes from the cover (enclosed):

The title ECHOI (echo in plural) has several connotations: Echoi were ancient Arabian modes, but it is obvious that the title is also reflected quite literally in the many echo sounds, imitations, instruments shadowing one another canonically, as in ECHOI II, or echoes from the distance as in ECHOI III, where a children's tune (vibraphone) is heard in the background (the past), then distorted, violated in the foreground (the present), faintly emerging again in the distance (triangle beaters inside the piano strings a la mandolin)., only to be annihilated, cancelled out by the menacing activity in the foreground. Finally, echoes result from "hearing double and triple" at the end of ECHOI IV. Here the clarinet and cello imitate their own performance as it emerges from two loudspeakers (two pre-recorded tape tracks). It could be argued here that the echoes do not follow, but precede, anticipate.
Throughout ECHOI the four musicians play from the score. Where bar lines are absent, the rhythmic notation is proportional. They stay together by following the score and by listening to one another. Considering the high speed of ECHOI I and the complex simultaneities of ECHOI III and IV, a special skill is demanded here.
Another difficult performance task occurs in ACHOI IV when the players jump back and forth between different pages in the music (much like a phonograph needle on a defective record). This is done on cue from the percussionist, who strikes an anvil at random moments within a given stretch. This is the signal for the players to skip from the moment of interruption to an earlier place in the music (idee fixe) and back, invalidating the carefully organized macro-structure. From the start of the obsessional piano monologue to the moment (climax) the percussion resorts to what is a literal invasion of the piano strings (the only way to bring the piano to a stop), ECHOI IV is a commentary on total organization with the piano acting as protagonist. Though the aleatoric notion and the "musical happening" are easily detected here, no share of the composition per se is ever relinquished to the performer- or to chance. Even the improvisatory moments toward the end are limited, directed, texturally controlled via footnotes or inserted symbols.

TIME CYCLE is a group of four songs, two English and two German, each referring to time, clocks or bells.The piece was originally composed for piano and orchestra. At the premiere given in 1960 by Adele Addison with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic , as well as in the first recording by the same artists, on Co;lumbia Records, improvised interludes were introduced between the orchestra songs by the Improvisation Chamber Ensemble, a group of four virtuosi (clarinet, cello , piano, percussion) I founded in 1957.In the present chamber version of TIME CYCLE the the orchestration is rewritten for clarinet,cello,piano and percussion. Interludes are not included. The Improvisation Chamber Ensemble accompanies the soprano in the four songs. These are composed; notated in every detail. There is no improvisation.
The orchestra songs and the chamber version are too different in their dynamic range to be compared. The latter has the advantage of greater precision. But it neither supersedes the orchestra version nor is it an arrangement of an original. The occasion, and the size of the hall call for one or the other.Lukas Foss-TWO RECORD PREMIERES

Side One:

ECHOI (FOR FOUR SOLOISTS)

Echoi I (3:52)
Echoi II (4:25)
Echoi III (8:23)
Echoi Iv (11:52)
Group For Contemporary Music At Columbia University:
Charles Wuorinen, Piano
Raymond Desroches. Percussion
Arthur Bloom, Clarinet
Robert Martin, Cello
Side Two:

TIME CYCLE (CHAMBER VERSION)

1- We're Late (Auden) (4:16)
2- When The Bells Jostle (Housman) (4:50)
3- From Franz Kafka's "Diaries" (Sechzehente Jauar) (5:41)
4- "Oh Man, Take Heed! O Mensch, Gib Acht!" (F. Nietzsche) (5:47)Improvisation Chamber Ensemble:
Lukas Foss, Piano, Celeste
Richard Duffalo, Clarinet
Charles De Lancy, Percussion
Howard Coll, Cello
Grace-Lynne Martin, Soprano





















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