New Music in Quarter-Tones

various artists compilation - New Music in Quarter-Tones

George C. Pappastavrou and Stuart Warren Lanning - pianos

CHARLES IVES - THREE QUARTER-TONE PIECES (for two pianos)

Of the three short pieces that I've composed with the use of quarter-tones, the first and last were originally intended for a quarter-tone piano, two keyboards, and for one player. (Charles Ives)

TEO MACERO - ONE-THREE QUARTERS (for chamber ensemble and two pianos)

Chamber Ensemble from the Syracuse University School of Music: Helen McGill - ondes martenot; Elizabeth Szlek - piccolo and flute; Virginia Moore - violin; Christie Blanche - cello; Ronald Ranallo - trombone; Alfred Balestra - tuba

This was my first attempt at quarter-tone composition, and while it's a serious piece, I tried to get as much fun into it as possible. I think music should always be entertaining, and I think that this piece has a great deal of humor besides being a serious attempt to use quarter-tone pianos with instruments. As far as its form goes, it's like a Schubert song - through-composed. As far as the style goes, it has elements of jazz, reminiscent of early Stravinsky and Milhaud. I tried to make of it a "sound" piece - to take advantage of the hundreds of instrumental sound combinations that would give it as much textural variety as possible. I poked a little fun at myself in it and also, I think, at the century we live in. Some of it is stark, some elements of confusion have been deliberately written in, and I think it does build, as the New York Times wrote, "to lovely pandemonium." (Teo Macero)

CALVIN HAMPTON - TRIPLE PLAY (for ondes martenot and two pianos)

Helen McGill - ondes martenot

The initial procedures in Triple Play are academic: a short melodic motif and its intervallic inversion, variously juxtaposed with a short rhythm pattern and its durational opposite. The controlled durations graduate to a rhythmic quotation from a novelty song entitled "I'm in Love With Tootsie Oodles." Simultaneously, the melodic motif, having undergone intervallic expansion, acquires frivolous adornments during the course of two "variations." All elements are homogenized at the conclusion.

In an effort to draw a blush from composer Lee Erwin, who wrote "Tootsie Oodles" for the Arthur Godfrey show, I performed his song at a party - in strict canon. Lee matched my stunt by playing the canon back to me at a New York film festival, during his accompaniment of a Gloria Swanson silent epic. Rendering it once more in this piece makes a triple play. (Calvin Hampton)

DONALD LYBBERT - LINES FOR THE FALLEN (for soprano and two pianos)

Phyllis Bryn-Julson - soprano

With the micro-tones fixed by the tuning of the two pianos and with a singer able to make quarter-tone differentiations, I felt the medium employed for this piece a valid and exciting one. The pitch organization of the work is serially oriented, although the brief section in the pianos following the second line of the text is partially aleatoric. There are five different approximate durational values employed, but no meters. At only certain points are vertical simultaneities indicated in the score. This provides the performers with a certain temporal freedom, though it requires total-score concentration in performance. Structurally, the music proceeds additively with some cross-references brought about by the text. (Donald Lybbert)

CALVIN HAMPTON - CATCH-UP (for tape recorder and two pianos)

A compositional "quickie" Catch-Up has four simple ideas: A, B, C and D, each five measures long. There are two versions of each idea - a first set to be pre-recorded, and a second set ot be played live against the recording. Adding to the live set a section E, also five measures long but mostly rests, both sets are then organized into repeat groups. Because twenty is the smallest number into which both the repeat groups of fours and fives are divisible, it requires a passage through twenty sections each before the two sets resolve their asymmetry and catch up with each other. (Calvin Hampton)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Charles Ives - Three Quarter-Tone Pieces: Largo {3:44}

2. Charles Ives - Three Quarter-Tone Pieces: Allegro {2:50}

3. Charles Ives - Three Quarter-Tone Pieces: Chorale {3:56}

4. Teo Macero - One-Three Quarters {5:40}

Side 2

1. Calvin Hampton - Triple Play {7:19}

2. Donald Lybbert - Lines for the Fallen {7:48}

3. Calvin Hampton - Catch-Up {3:10}

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