The Avant Garde String Quartet in the USA

various artists compilation - The Avant Garde String Quartet in the USA

I'm going to be taking the next few days off for the Memorial Day three-day weekend holiday as I'll be spending some time with relatives. Also, I apologize that there will not be a nature/environmental sounds post this upcoming Sunday.

Meanwhile, here is this 3-LP set of interesting string quartet pieces by notable and interesting composers. This should keep everybody busy for a while as there is over 2 hours of music to digest.

Performed by The Concord String Quartet

Mark Sokol - violin

Andrew Jennings - violin

John Kochanowski - viola

Norman Fischer - violincello

released in 1973

From the liner notes by Lejaren Hiller:

The present album is the third part of a projected three volume survey of the development of the American string quartet from its beginnings in colonial times. The first album, "The Early American String Quartet," already released as Vox Box SVBX-5301, contains performances by the Kohon String Quartet of works ranging historically from a string quartet attributed to Benjamin Franklin to works by early 20th-century composers like George Chadwick and Charles Griffes. A projected second album is planned to fill the gap between that set and the present one, which is a survey of the period since the end of World War II.

There is no doubt that writing string quartets appeals to composers today just as in the past. The number of such compositions written during the past twenty-five years by recognized composers both here and abroad is by no means small despite the fact that the contemporary composer often finds it difficult to persuade established performance groups to extend their repertoires beyond the "classics" - especially if his work is technically or stylistically innovative. The Concord String Quartet, here making its recording debut, is a happy exception among these performance groups because it is currently engaged not only in learning a substantial number of works composed in America since World War II but is commissioning new works as well. The performances of the compositions recorded here, all of which have been worked out with the composers, are a first realization of this commitment.

One of the striking characteristics of the contemporary American string quartet literature is its enormous variety, a feature that will be immediately obvious upon listening to the music in this album. There is not a quartet included here that does not exhibit a strong and independent musical profile. Stylistic heterogeniety and healthy eclecticism have always been characteristic traits of the best American Music and the literature here demonstrates that this continues to be so. The particular quartets recorded here provide a distinguished cross-section of what has been written during the past two decades. It goes without saying that this group of works by no means exhausts the list of first-rate compositions for the medium.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Stefan Wolpe - String Quartet: I. 92 {8:10}

2. Stefan Wolpe - String Quartet: II. 144 {8:54}

3. Earle Brown - String Quartet {11:29}

Side 2

1. John Cage - String Quartet in Four Parts: I. Quietly Flowing Along {4:33}

2. John Cage - String Quartet in Four Parts: II. Slowly Rocking {4:56}

3. John Cage - String Quartet in Four Parts: III. Nearly Stationary {10:17}

4. John Cage - String Quartet in Four Parts: IV. Quodlibet {1:19}

Side 3

1. George Crumb - Black Angels (Images II) for Electric String Quartet {22:10}

Side 4

1. Lejaren Hiller - String Quartet No. 5 (In Quarter Tones): I. Theme I {1:13}

2. Lejaren Hiller - String Quartet No. 5 (In Quarter Tones): II. Variations {5:23}

3. Lejaren Hiller - String Quartet No. 5 (In Quarter Tones): III. Theme II {1:16}

4. Lejaren Hiller - String Quartet No. 5 (In Quarter Tones): IV. Variations {7:49}

5. Lejaren Hiller - String Quartet No. 5 (In Quarter Tones): V. Theme III {1:18}

6. Lejaren Hiller - String Quartet No. 5 (In Quarter Tones): VI. Variations {7:56}

7. Lejaren Hiller - String Quartet No. 5 (In Quarter Tones): VII. Theme IV {1:09}

Side 5

1. Leon Kirchner - Quartet No. 3 for String Quartet and Electronic Tape {17:37}

2. Christian Wolff - Summer {4:30}

Side 6

1. Jacob Druckman - String Quartet No. 2 {18:14}

2. Morton Feldman - Structures for String Quartet {5:52}

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The New Music

various artists compilation - The New Music

All pieces performed by the Rome Symphony Orchestra (Bruno Maderna, conductor).

Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontra-Punkte (for 10 instruments)

Frederick Rzewski - pianist

My 'Kontra-Punkte' sprang from the idea that in a multiple world of sound, with individual sounds and time relations, conflicts must be solved in such a way that a condition is reached in which only something homogeneous and immutable is perceived. The work is in only one movement. Six different 'tone color' groups are used: flute-bassoon, clarinet-bass clarinet, trumpet-trombone, piano, harp, violin-cello (three pairs of wind instruments blown differently and three kinds of stringed instruments struck, plucked and bowed respectively). These different tone colors merge into a single one: the struck strings of the piano. The other instruments drop out one after the other in this order: trumpet, trombone, bassoon, violin, bass clarinet, harp, clarinet, cello and flute. (Karlheinz Stockhausen)

Krzysztof Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima (for 52 strings)

"Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima" constitutes an unprecedented example of the use of string sonorities. The basic sonic material of "Threnody" consists of: 1) the highest possible sounds on the stringed instruments, obtained by placing the finger on the string right next to the bowing point...; 2) "tone clusters" - absolutely solid bands of sound consisting of all the pitches contained within specific vertical sections....

This cataclysm of sound is arranged in a clear formal structure, which places the listener within a compass of recognizable proportions, with events that are worked out in accordance with a well-calculated plan. And above all, there is beneath this musical exhibitionism the fire of a passionate civil sense and of heartfelt compassion for the victims of violence. In the midst of the blasts and the horrors of the atomic bombing, the few notes the strings play in normal position assume the ancient force of primeval song and of noble compassion for all living things.

Earle Brown - Available Forms I (for chamber ensemble)

"Available Forms I," a work for 18 performers, was composed in 1961 on commission from the city of Darmstadt. In this work the aleatory principle - freedom of choice in performance - is carried to the extremes of an "open form," which is composed each time by the performers, who are provided with only a few elements together with a few instructions for their use. The score consists of six loose pages, with four or five "events" on each page. The conductor may begin with any "event" on any page and continue from one page to another, with or without repetitions and omissions of "events" and pages, combining them any way he wants and stopping on any page and any "event" he chooses. In the orchestra, all six pages of parts can be seen at the same time by the performers, and the conductor indicates where they are to play by moving an arrow around on a large board, placed in full view of all performers and bearing the numbers 1 to 6.

The instruments used are: flute, oboe, clarinet, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, harp, piano, first and second violin, viola, cello and double bass plus two groups of percussion, one of which includes chimes, marimba and timpani, the other xylophone, vibraphone and also timpani.

Henri Pousseur - Rimes pour differentes sources sonores

The nature and purpose of "Rimes pour differentes sources sonores" is explained by the title: to combine (rhyme) electronic sounds recorded on magnetic tape with instrumental sounds. The sound sources are set against each other, reminding some of the 16th-century example of broken or answering choirs in St. Mark's.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Karlheinz Stockhausen - Kontra-Punkte {11:28}

2. Krzysztof Penderecki - Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima {9:34}

Side 2

1. Earle Brown - Available Forms I {8:45}

2. Henri Pousseur - Rimes pour differentes sources sonores {13:34}

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Morton Feldman/Earle Brown split release

Morton Feldman/Earle Brown - split release

I had to deal with some issues with my computer, so I had to go the past few days without posting. Now I return to regular posting with an LP of music containing beauty and depth. If you have been a regular visitor of this blog, you're most likely already familiar with Feldman and Brown. Feldman's music is on the first side of the LP and Brown's music is on the other side. This was first released by Time Records in the early 1960s then re-released by Mainstream Records in the later half of the decade. There are explanations of their music from the liner notes given by both Feldman and Brown.


Performers:

Durations (1960-61)

Don Hammond - alto flute
Don Butterfield - tuba
David Tudor - piano
Philip Kraus - vibraphone
Matthew Raimondi - violin
David Soyer - cello

In Durations I arrive at a more complex style where each instrument is living out its own individual life in its own individual sound world.
In each piece the instruments begin simultaneously, and are then free to choose their own durations within a given general tempo. The sounds themselves are designated.
The pieces, while looking identical on paper, were actually conceived quite differently. In Durations I the quality of the particular instruments together suggested a closely written kaleidescope of sound. To achieve this I wrote each voice individually, choosing intervals that seemed to erase or cancel out each sound as soon as we hear the next.
In the Durations with the tuba, the weight of the three instruments used made me treat them as one. I wrote all sounds simultaneously, knowing that no instrument would ever be too far behind or too far ahead of the other. Through thinning and thickening my sounds I kept the image intact. In Durations IV there was a combination of both. Here I was a little more precise in that I gave metronome indications. I also allowed the instruments to have their own individual color more pronouncedly than in the others. (Morton Feldman)


Performers:

Music for Violin, Cello and Piano (1952)

Matthew Raimondi - violin
David Soyer - cello
David Tudor - piano

Music for Cello and Piano (1955)

David Soyer - cello
David Tudor - piano

Hodograph I (1959)

Don Hammond - flute
Philip Kraus - orchestra bells, vibraphone, marimba
David Tudor - piano, celeste

In [Alexander] Calder, the construction of units and their placement in a flexible situation which subjects the original relationships to constant and virtually unpredictable but inherent change (the movement of the units as well as the movement of the viewer), led me to construct units of rhythmic groups, (with assigned intensities but "open" timbre possibilities subject to an independent timbral-density plan) modify them according to previously mentioned "generative" techniques, and assemble them rather arbitrarily ... accepting the fact that all possible assemblages were inherently possible and valid. This is, in general, the technique used in three "twelve-tone" works, using rows but no other rules of twelve-tone writing, between 1950 and 1952. Music for Violin, Cello and Piano is the second work in this group, the last being "Perspectives" (1952) the title of which refers to the "mobile" concept.
In works from 1952 and 1953, assembled under the title "Folio," the concept of mobility, which previously resulted in one static version of compositionally mobile elements, was extended to include the physical mobility of the score itself and attempts to encourage conceptual "mobility" in the performers approach to the score ... the scores being in different invented notations of a highly ambiguous graphic nature, subject to numerous different but inherently valid realizations. The notation used in Music for Cello and Piano is developed from graphic experiments of "Folio." It is what I have called a "time notation" because of its lack of dependence on any rational metric system and its reliance upon the performers' actions relative to their "time sense" of the graphic spatial relationships. The notation intentionally encourages varying realizations of the given material; between the instruments in any one performance, and from performance while at the same time presenting the performers with an unequivocal basic graphic situation.
There are two very different notations used in Hodograph I. The first is the "time notation" of "Folio" and Music for Cello and Piano, called in the preface to the work, "explicit"; explicit in that frequency, intensity, timbre, modes of attack, and relative duration are given. The second notation is called "implicit," in that it implies the amount and character of activity (all of the above characteristics of sound) by means of line drawings. There are three, fifteen second, "implicit" areas in the score, interrupting the "explicit" areas sporadically.... The juxtaposition of the two notations produces a result which is a spontaneous correlation between the performers individual responses, and the varying degrees of ambiguity and explicitness in the notations. (Earle Brown)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Morton Feldman - Durations I: Violin-Cello-Alto-Flute-Piano {8:01}

2. Morton Feldman - Durations II: Cello-Piano {6:34}

3. Morton Feldman - Durations III: Violin-Tuba-Piano {8:52}

4. Morton Feldman - Durations IV: Violin-Cello-Vibraphone {4:15}

Side 2

1. Earle Brown - Music for Violin, Cello and Piano {2:57}

2. Earle Brown - Music for Cello and Piano {9:04}

3. Earle Brown - Hodograph I {3:30}

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Earle Brown: Synergy (hatART)

Another one of those out-of-print hatART discs from the 90s. This one offers three compositions by Earle Brown, with the oldest one, "Event: Synergy II" from 1967/68, in two different versions.

from the liner notes by Art Lange:

The score of "Event: Synergy II" offers five possible instrumentations; an ensemble of nineteen (eleven winds and two string quartets), only the winds or strings, or combinations of six or five winds with one string quartet. It is suggested that two conductors divide the material between them, in order to create additional complexities of density, interplay, and unrelated activity. (These two versions use only the designated "B" material, with the composer conducting the five winds and Steffen Schleiermacher conducting the string quartet.)The notation consists of four "events" or types of activity:
- a sequence of five numbered sections which specify pitches and dynamics with only relatively proportional durations,
- graphic and less rigid pitch indications on staves without specifying instrument,
- five chords to be used as fermatas, and
- a page of notes on staves without clef, barlines, tempo, dynamic, or durational indications.

Following the composer's detailed instructions and using these pages as a map, each conductor must direct his ensemble through the score, choosing who plays what, and when, with or without regard for what the other ensemble is doing. The assures that each performance will be drastically different from any other, as the two performances here reveal.

Page from "Tracking Pierrot"

"Windsor Jambs" (1980) and "Tracking Pierrot" (1992) extend these concepts even further, specifying the instrumentation (the latter using the same as Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" - composed 80 years earlier! - with the substitution of percussion for the voice; it's title is an homage though the music doesn't otherwise refer to the earlier work in substance or atmosphere) but providing a more complicated interweaving of "closed form" and "open form" sections and wider range of possible instrumental combinations to the lone conductor.... The music is no longer intended as a one-dimensional icon, but an unpredictable tracking of the "dynamic process" of form as it is created. It is not a statement of being, but of becoming...

The manner in which Brown has opened up the score to ambiguous aspects of formal organization does not lessen the demands of instrumental accuracy required of the musicians, nor does it dismiss the personal qualities of Brown's compositional efforts. There is an undeniable lyricism, as well as a quickness of line and gesture... His inventive scoring creates sounds and, more importantly, attitudes of performance that are unavailable in conventional notation; moreover, there results from the spontaneous measures a heightened level of creative tension and energy that is unobtainable from normal classical procedures.

1 Event: Synergy II (1967/68) - 1st version
2 Tracking Pierrot (1992)
3 Windsor Jambs (1980)
4 Event: Synergy II (1967/68) - 2nd version

Ensemble Avantgarde Leipzig
conducted by Earle Brown

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Earle Brown: String Quartet

Here's a Deutsche Grammophon LP from the 70s, featuring three great string quartets played by the legendary Lasalle-Quartett:

György Ligeti: II. Streichquartett (1967/68)
1 - I: Allegro nervoso
2 - II: Sostenuto, molto calmo
3 - III: Come une meccanismo di precisione
4 - IV: Presto furioso, brutale, tumultoso
5 - V: Allegro con delicatezza, stets sehr mild

6 Earle Brown: String Quartet (1965)

7 Wolf Rosenberg: III. Streichquartett (1960/61)

The radical and wild, if not "Sturm und Drang", open form quartet by Earle Brown may attract the most attention here. After all, this is its only released recording, and the brilliant musicianship of the Lasalle members makes it an exciting, thrilling listen.

But the other two pieces should not be neglected: I don't know any other works from Wolf Rosenberg, but his 3rd string quartet leaves a strong impression and must be heard several times before it can be fully appreciated.

As for Ligeti's 2nd string quartet, I can sum it up nicely with just a few words: it's a Monster, and it rocks!

Liner notes in English are included as JPG files.

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New Music for Piano(s)

various artists compilation - New Music for Piano(s)

all pieces performed by Yuji Takahashi

* not actually the cover, it's a photo of Takahashi; cover wasn't quite fit enough to be photographed

Excerpts from the liner notes:

Herma

"Bond," "foundation," "embryo." This piece is based on logical operations imposed upon classes of pitches; this is why I call this music "symbolic." Starting from the four classes defined in the score, others can be formed outside of time, as a result of the complementary relationship (negation), e.g., class A; the negation of A is written in the score A; also as a result of the operation of union (disjunction) and of intersection (conjunction). Union is shown symbolically by the sign +, and intersection by the juxtaposition of letters. Union corresponds to or and intersection to and. This A+B signifies that class in which the elements belong either to A or B; AB indicates the class in which the elements belong to classes A and B at the same time. The classes in this piece are defined solely within the realm of pitch. (Iannis Xenakis)

Fantasy for Pianist

"Fantasy for Pianist" was written during 1963-64 in Paris. Frankly concerned with sonority and ornament (it was originally based on an analysis of the textural features of four photos - stalks, vines, twigs in the snow) the work maintains a complex and detailed order. Forms of serialization were applied to proportional time structures (at all architectonic levels), pitch, dynamics, and attach characteristics; but all techniques were used primarily as stimulants to invention. The piece, as it evolved, determined its attach characteristics; but all techniques were used primarily as stimulants to invention. The piece, as it evolved, determined its own priorities which took precedence over continued allegiance to any particular technical device. Only the time structure remained firm from conception to completion. (Roger Reynolds)

Metathesis

"Metathesis" - to place differently; transposition; change or reversal of condition; the transposition of letters or sounds in a word; the interchange of atoms or groups of atoms between two molecules, the structure of the molecules being not otherwise altered, double decomposition. The structure is based on the subgroups of a permutation group of degree 6 and order 24, which are applied to the various factors of the tone events for piano, such as the density, the duration, the dynamic form, the tone form (all of them are extratemporal structures). The temporal structures are stochastic. The work was written at Tanglewood in 1968 and is dedicated to Gunther Schuller. (Yuji Takahashi)

Corroboree

"Corroboree" (for 3 pianos) was composed in 1963-64 on commission from Radio Bremen, Germany, and first performed in that city by Aloys, Alfons and Bernhardt Kontarsky in May 1964. The Work is dedicated to them. The title is an Australian native word of which webster says: "a nocturnal festivity with songs and symbolic dances by which the Australian aborigines celebrate events of importance: a noisy festivity: tumult." It will be a little noisy, and although the Kontarsky brothers are not Australian (and actually did not sing or dance) the festivity aspect of any of their activities is legendary and joyous, and thus the title seems quite apt. ...

When Yuji suggested this work for his record I had not considered the possibility of one pianist playing all three of the parts ("through the magic of recording"), but it is of course practical and interesting in this context. The technique was to record the first piano part and then the second while hearing the first and acting and reacting to the structure and the impulsive flexibility potentials within the given form:... then the third part in relation to the first two. The immediacy of "playing together" remains with the added fact of there being a single performance concept, rather than a correlation of three, as it was initally conceived. Although there are three of him here the nature of the piece is less virtuosic than the other works on the record, in which one might think that there were five of him. Yuji to any coefficient, and in all cases, is an astonishing technician and "poet." (Earle Brown)

Tracklisting:

Side A

1. Iannis Xenakis - Herma {6:39}

2. Roger Reynolds - Fantasy for Pianist part 1 {5:18}

3. Roger Reynolds - Fantasy for Pianist part 2 {11:56}

Side B

1. Yuji Takahashi - Metatheses {5:20}

2. Earle Brown - Corroboree {10:43}

NOTE: Fantasy for Pianist was accidentally ripped into two parts; only a few seconds of silence were lost

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Gentle Fire (1974)

Earle Brown: Four Systems (1954)

John Cage: Music for Amplified Toy Pianos (1960)

John Cage: Music for Carillon 1 - 3 (1952/54)

Christian Wolff: Edges (1968)

Gentle Fire: Richard Bernas, Hugh Davies, Graham Hearn, Stuart Jones, Michael Robinson

Engineers: Allan Parsons & Stuart Eltham

A milestone of electro-acoustic music from this legendary British ensemble. The group, and each of its members for himself, were pioneering in the fields of live-electronics, instrument construction and collective composition. Also closely associated with the experimental work of Stockhausen in the early 70s, they were one of the groups playing in "Sternklang").

This record features a selection of graphic scores from three of the four composers of the New York School. It is remarkable how each of the pieces on this album unfolds in its own sound world.

"Edges" by Christian Wolff is just one page of loosely arranged symbols and words, to be (not) played in rather unusual ways. Here's the instructions for the performance:

The score for Cage's "Music for Amplified Toy Pianos" is a collection of transparent sheets with dots, small circles, a line and a grid. Superimposing the sheets, the performers are instructed to read the markings as predefined categories of sound events, in relation to the grid which provides the dimensions of pitch/sound (vertical) and time (horizontal). A single reading of the score material may look like this:

The two long extra tracks by Gentle Fire, "Music Project V-II" (1974) and "Group Composition III" (1971), are unreleased live recordings by the "Hessischer Rundfunk" (HR) in Frankfurt, from the same year as the album release.

Enjoy electro-sonic beauty: (1)

Earle Brown - Contemporary Music

Earle Brown - Contemporary Music

Excerpts from the liner notes by Earle Brown:

TIMES FIVE (1963)

Govert Jurriaanse, flute; Arthur Moore. trombone; Teresia Tieu, harp; Jaring Walta, violin; Harro Ruijsenaars, cello, and 4 channels of tape sound. Earle Brown, conductor

Not being over-charmed by purely electronic sounds or by the environmental concrete sounds for which the French Radio Studio is best known, I took this commission as an opportunity to multiply and transform more traditional instrumental and vocal sound sources. The title refers to this process of multiplying a given potential through superimposing and accelerating recorded material on tape, as well as to the fact that the work is produced (in concert) from five sound sources in the shape of an "X" at the front of the auditorium - four loudspeakers with a live group at the center point. The taped material is "choreographed" to move between and across this space as a kind of kinetic wall of sound.

OCTET I (1953) for 8 loudspeakers

This work was composed and realized (assembled by splicing and synchronizing exactly to the specifications of the score) within the "Project for Music for Magnetic Tape" in late 1952 and the early part of 1953. The first performance was at the University of Illinois Arts Festival in March 1953. The work is for eight separate channels of sound to be heard through eight independent sound sources spaced equidistantly (360 degrees) around the audience. A stereo disc recording is obviously not the very best way to hear this work (spatially speaking) but here and now seems a not unreasonable context for its 22nd birthday [1975]. I have combined the tracks by twos, and distributed these four sound sources equidistantly from far left to far right in normal stereo reproduction.The compositional technique used in OCTET I is based on statistical procedures applied almost exclusively to horizontal and vertical attack density; a concept very much influenced by my studies (and teaching) of Schillinger techniques. The library of sounds from which the Project drew its sound materials contained very long tapes catagorized as "city sounds," "country sounds," "electronic sounds," "instrumental sounds," etc. in frequently very identifiable form. In prefering to make a work that would be highly abstract and non-referential in character I worked out a "programm" which would allow only very brief fragments of these sources to appear in complex density patterns and sequences that would obscure their natural origins; to have them exist as sheer sound.

DECEMBER 1952

David Tudor, pianos

This work is the center piece of a group of works published as Folio (1952-53). The collection is described as "experiments in notation and performance process." Having enjoyed the esthetic benefits and poetic exhilarations of solo and collective improvisation as a jazz musician for many years, and being very much under the influence of Alexander Calder's mobile (variable-but-always-the-same) works, I had been searching for a way to this world within the environment of the classically trained (Western oriented) musician. From the totally organized and specific Perspectives (1952) for piano, into the progressively more vague and collaborative Folio works, October 1952, November 1952 and December 1952, I was attempting to find a notation and verbal conditioning (processing) that would provoke the performer into a more creative role than is usually the case in serious music; at least more than was characteristic of that kind of music in 1952.

DECEMBER 1952 is the most extreme "provocation" and seems to be the first example of what came to be called "graphic music." It is extreme to the degree that a performance of it can no longer be said to be a composition by the composer.

NOVARA (1952)

Ton Hartsuiker, piano and leader; Govert Jurriaanse, flute; John Floore ,trumpet; Harry Sparnaay, bass clarinet; Jaring Walta and Roelof van Driesten, violins; Gerrit Oldeman, viola; Harro Ruijsenaars, cello; Earle Brown, conductor

NOVARA is an open-form work and uses many of the less characteristic sounds of the instruments that are sometimes referred to as "noises" but are, nevertheless, instrumental sounds which can extend the formal and expressive potential of a work. "Openform" means that all of the sound materials in the work are notated and controlled in the score but that their sequence, juxtaposition, tempi and repetitions are left to the spontaneous decisions of the conductor, during the performance, as the performing process develops and unfolds between himself, the written sound materials and the musicians; an immediate and direct feed-back condition of response and forming. The form of the work is therefore unique in each performance but it is always NOVARA because only those composed sound events may be used.

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. Times Five {14:57}

2. Octet I {3:19}

Side 2

1. December 1952 {6:07}

2. Novara {14:48}

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