Opus One: Number 14

* my apologies for the missing artwork

various artists compilation - Opus One: Number 14

Barbara Kolb - Rebuttal

Performers:

Gary McGee, George Hirner - clarinets

The title for the duet, which Barbara Kolb describes as a dialogue, is the result of a wager made between the composer and a friend. It was her original intent to "disprove" proportional notation through this composition. She lost the bet, gained a respect for the "new" notation, and has been using it ever since.

Leo Kraft - Line Drawings

Performers:

Paul Dunkel - flute
Richard Fitz - percussion

"Line Drawings" was written for Paul Dunkel in January, 1972. The title suggested itself as the piece was being composed. In one sense it refers to the linear nature of the music, in which the melodic line of the flute maintains a sustained dialogue with the percussion instruments. In another sense, the title refers indicates the place of the piece within my oeuvre, which is analogous to the place of a drawing in the output of a painter; on a smaller scale and less formal, but with the essential qualities set forth in a few quick strokes.
Since Paul Dunkel is master of three members of the flute family, I built the overall shape of the music around the contrasts between flute, piccolo, and alto flute. Of the five pieces that comprise line drawings, the first, third, and fifth are written for flute, the second for alto flute, and the fourth for piccolo. The division of labor suggested groupings of tone color within the percussion array. The sounds that keep the alto flute company, for example; are unlike any of the other sounds in the piece, because instead of using drumsticks the percussionist plays with wire brushes. As in many of my recent works, tonal coloring is a point of departure, but only that.
I do enjoy virtuosity in instrumental performance, and, knowing that Paul Dunkel and Richard Fitz would be the performers, I felt quite free to write the most demanding music if that seemed to be where the musical idea wanted to go. I expected that no matter what I wrote, these two colleagues would be able to perform - and project - what I had written. My confidence was amply justified. (Leo Kraft)

Max Schubel - Moonwave

Performer:

Paul Dunkel - flute

In 1969, British flutist Averil Williams asked Max Schubel to compose a short encore piece for solo flute. "Moonwave" was first performed by Ms. Williams in Iceland in the Fall of 1969, and later in London. The composer intended a work that was not difficult, yet virtuosic. Use is made of double stops that can be articulated quietly, usually as consonances. The work is in free meter, leaving many interpretational decisions to the performer.

Ronald Perera - Reflex

Performer:

Ernst Wallfisch - viola; with electronically derived sounds

"Reflex" is a reflection on violist Ernst Wallfisch, who premiered the piece at a Composers' Forum in New York in the Fall of 1973. The title comes from the second section of the piece where the player is asked to play seven fragments of music, responding "as if by reflex" to seven tape cues. Actually the music is full of rather odd-angled reflections on itself, such that little elements of it keep getting re-combined in different ways with previously heard elements. A few details act as reference points: the diminished fifth e up to b flat, the gradually widening vibrato note, the high-pitched tape cluster, the upward four- or five-note pizzicato motif. These are the principal signals for brief forays, digressions and recapitulations which come in interchangeable timbral and gestural guises. The score, which is published by E.C. Schirmer, gives the performer's part in conventional metric notation and the tape part as a series of cues with timings. (Ronald Perera)

David Cope - Cycles

Performers:

James Martin - flute
David Cope - contrabass

"Cycles" (flute and contrabass) was completed in early 1969. The work derives its title from the overlapping 'cyclic' return of materials: motives, timbres, rhythms, dynamics and effects. These sometimes dovetailing and othertimes simultaneously treated materials are in no way 'serialized' but rather are treated intuitively and evolve one from another. This work is in no way graphic or indeterminate in notation but rather is composer-structured throughout.

Tracklisting:

Side A

1. Barbara Kolb - Rebuttal {4:24}

2. Leo Kraft - Line Drawings {12:00}

3. Max Schubel - Moonwave {3:46}

Side B

1. Ronald Perera - Reflex {5:01}

2. David Cope - Cycles {9:59}

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New Music by Allan Blank and David Cope

Allan Blank/David Cope - New Music by Allan Blank and David Cope

Yes, it's another obscure avant-garde LP provided by yours truly for you to enjoy.

About Music for Solo Violin, Mr. Blank writes: "Though my background includes training as a violinist, this is only the second long work I have written for solo violin. The first, with the same title, dates from 1961. In both works my concern has been with a virtuoso and expressive attitude towards the violin. Music for Violin: 1972 is a four-movement work, with dramatic movements on the outside, each consisting of a number of contrasting ideas, and shorter character-like vignettes on the inside.

"Esther's Monologue is a dramatic cantata commissioned and dedicated to Stephen Colburn and Marlee Sabo. It is based on the biblical character Esther. She is viewed, through the eyes of my wife, who wrote the text, as a woman of royal station, who must expose the villain Haman in order to save her people. (The name of Haman does not appear in the text; the only direct biblical reference is to Mordecai.) Esther moves through a series of uncertainties, doubts and hesitations to the final realization of what she must do. I call it a dramatic cantata since the music attempts to reflect these varying emotional states. The vocal part is conceived in nine sections of varying lengths. All but the first section start softly and build up to climaxes of different strengths. The work opens and closes with energetic sections for the instruments alone. The texture of the work, as a whole, is contrapuntal and requires considerable virtuosity on the part of the performers.This recording was made from a tape of the first performance given by the Pro Musica Nova at Vogel Hall, Performing Arts Center, Milwaukee, January 31, 1971."

Margins for trumpet, cello, percussion & 2 pianos

[Margins] explores the marginal aspects of the instruments (trumpet, cello, percussion, and two pianos) in a tight single movement structure. The composer equally explores the contrast and developmental possibilities of dynamics and contrupuntal articulation. The tempo remains very slow throughout and the beat is divided into multifold groupings of often very quick and pointillistic integrations from instrument to instrument. The work is performed here by the Performance Group under the direction of Larry Baker.Arena is for cello and tape and performed here by the composer [David Cope] on cello. The tape was realized in the Electronic Studios of Miami University of Ohio, of which the composer is director. The work was premiered by the composer in New York City at the Composers Theatre on May, 3 1974. Of this performance Tom Johnson wrote in the Village Voice: "For me the high point of the Composers Theatre concert at Washington Square Church Friday night was "Arena," a new work for cello and tape by David Cope. In most pieces for live performers and tape, the electronic sounds pull against the instrumental ones in some sort of dialogue, but here the two elements are carefully blended. Particularly in the lush opening sonorities, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the tape from the cello, and throughout the piece, the two elements remain perfectly attuned to each other, like a fine chamber ensemble."

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Allan Blank - Music for Solo Violin: quarter note = c.88 {5:48}

2. Allan Blank - Music for Solo Violin: Pizzicato Ostinato {1:42}

3. Allan Blank - Music for Solo Violin: quarter note = c.72 {3:18}

4. Allan Blank - Music for Solo Violin: quarter note = c.80 {4:39}

5. Allan Blank - Esther's Monologue {8:30}

Side 2

1. David Cope - Margins {9:47}

2. David Cope - Arena {8:50}

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