Avant Garde Piano REPOST

various artists compilation - Avant Garde Piano

released on LP

David Burge - piano

LUCIANO BERIO - Sequenza IV (1966)

Luciano Berio completed Sequenza IV during the spring of 1966, thereby adding another work to his series of solo Sequenze (the first is for flute, the second for harp, the third for voice, the fourth for piano, the fifth for trombone, and the sixth for viola.) In each of these compositions the composer has written a work of substance that is unique to its specific repertory. Having first thoroughly reassessed the potential of the given instrument (or voice, in the case of Sequenza III), he then seizes on those particular capabilities that best suit his extraordinary imagination and proceeds to develop them in an organic manner.

LUIGI DALLAPICCOLA - Quaderno Musicale di Annalibera (1952)

For purity of melodic expression, few recent piano compositions can rival the Quaderno Musicale by Luigi Dallapiccola. Written in the classical twelve-tone technique, it has already become a "classic" work in the repertory. The work was commissioned by the Pittsburgh International Contemporary Music Festival in 1952, and "is dedicated to my dear daughter Annalibera on the day of her eighth birthday."

The title, Musical Notebook for Annalibera, is not without reference to another Musical Notebook - that for Anna Magdalena Bach. In fact, in the first movement one may hear the familiar B-A-C-H figure (always, however, transposed from the usual B-flat starting point - would the fastidious Italian have found such an overly direct homage ostentatious?) Like Bach, Dallapiccola is concerned with counterpoint; three of the succeeding ten movements are strict canons.

KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN - Klavierstuck VIII (1954)

As is the case with all the music on this recording, Karlheinz Stockhausen's Klavierstuck VIII is notated with extreme care with regard to pitches, rhythms, and dynamics. The ninety-six-second span of the work is articulated by assymmetrical phrases of great activity interspersed with moments of repose, the latter invariably consisting of single pitches which, however, are never of the same duration. This balance between activity and repose gives shape to the characteristically abstract, spatial nature of the music.

PIERRE BOULEZ - Premiere Sonate (1947)

The First Sonata by Pierre Boulez is an early work, often overshadowed by the massive Second Sonata and the fantastic maze which constitutes the Third. Astonishing in itself, the First Sonata is even more impressive when one considers the youth of its author and the time of its writing (the first two years after the cultural ravages of World War II). It is often said that this work and the early Flute Sonatine show the strong influence of Webern; this may be so, but it is an assertive, flamboyant type of Webernism unknown in the older composer's works.
...
The piano writing itself is remarkable. Virtually the entire keyboard is utilized at all times, especially in the rapid sections. In other passages a new kind of counterpoint depends for its effect not at all on the progress of individual voices, which are essentially unheard, but on the resultant sound of several equal voices moving at unequal speeds.
While Boulez continues to use bar lines in this and several succeeding works, they are not meant to imply metrical accents but are inserted "as visual aids" to the performer. Several summers ago I had a visit from Ernst Krenek at a time when I was preparing the First Sonata. I recall with amusement an hour or so during which I played passages over and over while that marvelous gentleman, in a flaming orange shirt, brown shorts, and sandals, strode around the room in a most concerned manner as he tried to coax me into completely eliminating any semblance of beat or bar line accent.

ERNST KRENEK - Sechs Vermessene (1958)

Krenek's own Sechs Vermessene also employ bar lines, and the pitches, rhythms, durations, densities, and dynamics are achieved by a process of serialization that is as close to "total" as is humanly possible. Thus, in a certain sense, the music is "composed" before a single note is set down (one may be reminded, obliquely, of the title of Machaut's rondeau: "Ma fin est mon commencement, et mon commencement ma fin"). Due to the complexity of the serialization, and in spite of the clarity of Krenek's notational solutions, some formidable performance problems, especially rhythmic, are presented to the pianist. Therefore it is interesting to note that the effect of much of the Six Measurements is that of random improvisation, a fact that genuinely delights the composer! (David Burge)



Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Luciano Berio - Sequenza IV {9:23}

2. Luigi Dallapiccola - Quaderno Musicale di Annalibera {12:47}

Side 2

1. Karlheinz Stockhausen - Klaveierstuck VIII {1:36}

2. Pierre Boulez - Premiere Sonate {9:06}

3. Ernst Krenek - Sechs Vermessene {10:58}

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David Burge Plays New Piano Music

David Burge - David Burge Plays New Piano Music

LP released in 1966

For this recording, Mr. Burge has selected four works by younger American composers and a piece of his own composition. The resulting program is a combination of fearsome technical difficulty and interpretational range, boldly setting forth the gamut of piano writing by some of the country's most significant new composers. We at ADVANCE feel this recording to be, in its combination of important premieres and superb musicianship, a major contribution to recorded piano literature. (from the liner notes)

Eclipse II (1966) composed by David Burge

Eclipse II was written as a recital piece and as a part of my most recent work for musical theatre (unnamed at this writing) in which it serves as an Interval between two of the fourteen scenes while three or four members of the cast and audience take a quick cigarette break around the footlights.
The title may derive from the fact that the work makes a complete cycle, as is true of the celestial phenomenon; the material (the set) heard at the beginning is gradually but regularly shifted until it is completely transformed (obscured?) after which continued shifting leads it back to the original at the close of the composition. (That this analogy did not occur to me until several weeks after the piece was completed does not severely detract from its merits, but may give some indication to the listener as to the advisability of following a precise astronomical program.) (David Burge)

Five Pieces for Piano (1962) composed by George Crumb

The Five Pieces for Piano were composed in 1962 at the request of David Burge. The work requires a considerably enlarged technique of tone production, for in addition to conventional keyboard sounds, the composer has exploited various sounds produced immediately on contact with the string - e.g., pizzicato, martellato, glissando, etc. The integration of all these resources points toward a broader concept of piano idiom. Structurally speaking, the Five Pieces derive from a single 3-note cell, first presented as a chord.
Rhythm, dynamics, and timbre are all freely organized. The work as a whole is in the form of an arch, of which the third piece (Notturno) forms the centerpiece.
I. Quasi improvvisato
II. Ruvido, con molto energia; Prestissimo; Ruvido
III. Nocturno (sempre pizzicato)
IV. Ruvido, con molto energia; Prestissimo; Ruvido
V. Senza misura; Solenne; Tempo del primo pezzo

Cocktail Music (1962) composed by Salvatore Martirano

Notes by Ed London: It would be out of place in so short a space to divulge the recipe of the virtuoistic Cocktail Music for Piano. If perhaps it might whet the imagination to contemplate the intricacy of said concoction, let it here suffice to wit: the imagination of the composer worked overtime to coordinate the multitudinous cerebrative constructs - all the while a baser metabolic process demanded a slaking of its thirst (a thirst moreover that decries symmetry and arid regularity).
What are the "external" influences on the work - Crystal Gazing, Art Tatum, Domenico Scarlatti, The Joy of Cooking? Preposterous??? Read Rose Rombauer's written direction therein:

The cocktail is probably an American invention and most certainly a typically American kind of drink. Whatever mixtures you put together - and part of the fascination of cocktail mixing is the degree of inventiveness it seems to encourage - hold fast to a few general principles.

Piano Variations (1963) composed by Charles Wuorinen

I finished my Piano Variations on 25 November 1963. They were originally part of a larger cycle of pieces - other two surviving instances of which are my Flute Variations and Flute Concerto, both written for Harvey Sollberger - which were to be united by common set material and related procedures. It soon became apparent both that the individual works were totally self-sufficient and that the contemplated project was too large. I therefore abandoned it; the Piano Variations have enjoyed an independent life since then.
Regarding the relevant structural characteristics of the Variations; the work cannot be considered 'twelve-tone' in spite of the fact that the dozen-odd self-contained and fully composed fragments which provide the 'subject' for variation-operations are strictly so (but only in the conventional pitch-sense). Rather, each variation consists of a re-ordering of them as well. Beyond this simple procedure, there are other controlling influences: for example the fact that as the piece progresses, criteria of differentiation among (but not necessarily within) the fragments are gradually minimized, until near the end they form a homogenous larger structure. (Charles Wuorinen)

Twelve Bagatelles (1952) composed by George Rochberg

The Bagatelles were my first 12-tone music, composed between June and August 1952. The first eight came in one burst - within the space of a week. I broke off work to take a trip to Tanglewood, where I played what I had just written for Luigi Dallapiccola, teaching there that summer. Dallapiccola's enthusiastic response confirmed my own feelings about what I was doing, so much so that when I returned home I was able to complete the remaining four pieces in fairly short order. In January 1953 I gave the Bagatelles their first public performance at the MacMillan Theater, Columbia University.
The pieces seem to have survived both changes in my own way of working over the years as well as changes in the musical atmosphere of the '50s and '60s. This being the case, the fact of their survival could hardly be attributed, it seems to me, to their being 12-tone per se. While it is surely not a composer's business to concern himself with such matters, I can only guess that whatever value the Bagatelles have is a purely musical one, perhaps most of all because the spontaneity of their emergence gave them a sense of entirety - depsite their individual brevity. (George Rochberg)
Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Eclipse II {2:55}

2. Five Pieces for Piano {7:57}

3. Cocktail Music {4:44}

Side 2

1. Piano Variations {7:52}

2. Twelve Bagatelles {12:12}

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New Piano Music

various artists compilation - New Piano Music

Excerpts from the liner notes:

RHAPSODIES by C.Curtis-Smith

RHAPSODIES uses heretofore unknown techniques for producing sounds from the instrument, including bowing of the strings. The quality of sound changes and builds from piece to piece, beginning with predominantly keyboard work in the first to inside-the-piano sounds in the fourth which sound almost electronically produced. The titles of the movements are extracts from the Sirens chapter of Joyce's Ulysses. They are I....a swift pure cry..., II. But Wait! Low in dark middle earth. Embedded ore., III. And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call., IV. Listen! The spiked and winding cold seahorn.

SOURCES IV by David Burge

written by Burge ...SOURCES IV was written originally as a small but organic part of a large work for theater; however, it may be used by itself as a concert piece, its nature being abstract and non-visual. "Each of the four pieces titled Sources derives pitch choices from a source series. SOURCES IV goes further than the others in utilizing these series not only for pitch choice but also to develop tonal emphasis and phrase structure (though just how this is done should be of no interest to the listener).

ETUDES by David Chaitkin

written by Chaitkin: The three ETUDES (1974), though clearly contrasting, are meant to be heard as bound together harmonically, as if by a single, continuous thread. The opening etude is quite compact, combining several varied, short gestures into larger gestures, which themselves evolve, often reflecting one another. After a single melodic line emerges from the sense midpoint, the piece then closes quietly. Here and in the third etude, extremes of the piano's register and dynamics are employed. The second etude has a very slow tempo, with primary interest on lines - essentially two or three voice counterpoint. The last combines the previous slow pace with the abrupt type of gesture found in the first piece. This results in a more relaxed harmonic and more spacious textural situation, in which (at two points) the sense of tempo is suspended entirely, and (also twice) where a particular harmony is reached, retained and made to change slowly by inflections of its parts, until it connects back into the more active flow of the music.

REFLEXIVES by Joe Hudson

written by Hudson: REFLEXIVES for Piano and Tape, was written expressly for David Burge under a project initiated by the Cleveland Composers Guild. With Mr. Burge's virtuosity in mind, the piece quickly took on a rather improvisitory, bravura style. This approach was sustained by a more rigorous formal scheme delineated by the recurrence of various important materials at specific time-intervals. Sometimes these reflections occur as exact reproductions, sometimes as transformations. The tape part was realized at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music center.

ORPHEUM (NIGHT MUSIC I) by Andrew Frank

written by Frank: ORPHEUM (NIGHT MUSIC I) was composed in 1970 and extensively revised during the summer of 1974 ... The work is in one continuous movement, structurally articulated by recurring images that unfold throughout the piece in a kind of cyclic variation. Motivically generated gestures are repeated, extended, and sometimes overlapped. Primarily it is a 'sound piece,' with fast figurations that turn around on themselves. Cadences function as links connecting one idea or group of ideas to another. In fact, conventional means of musical organization are often evident in ORPHEUM...

pieces performed by David and Lois Burge

Tracklisting:

side 1

1. C. Curtis-Smith - Rhapsodies I: ...a swift pure cry {3:12}

2. C. Curtis-Smith - Rhapsodies II: But Wait! Low in dark middle earth. Embedded one. {2:27}

3. C. Curtis-Smith - Rhapsodies III: And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call. {4:10}

4. C. Curtis-Smith - Rhapsodies IV: Listen. The spiked and winding cold seahorn. {4:08}

5. David Burge - Sources IV {5:34}

side 2

1. David Chaitkin - Etudes {8:52}

2. Joe Hudson - Reflexives {4:49}

3. Andrew Frank - Orpheum (Night Music I) {7:40}

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