Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Cage, Mayuzumi: String Quartets

LaSalle Quartet - Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Cage, Mayuzumi: String Quartets

CD released in 1987

LaSalle Quartet:

Walter Levin - 1st violin
Henry Meyer - 2nd violin
Peter Kamnitzer - viola
Jack Kirstein - cello

The string quartet was one of the supreme achievements of an age when music came nearest to the nature of speech, an age when themes could be stated and discussed in a language that was both rich and clear. It was a conversational medium for a conversational art, and so successful as such that it has survived into a time of musical confusion enough to eliminate any possibility of Haydnesque discourse. Hence the problem which these four quartets (not to mention those of T.S. Eliot) all address: how to use a naturally discursive medium when the foundations of the language have fallen. All dating from 1949-64, these are quartets in which the first violin can no longer speak to the cello and expect to be understood.
The most drastic, radically opposed reactions to this linguistic disintegration are those of Cage and Lutoslawski, the one making the quartet into a single instrument to play "a melodic line without accompaniment", the other writing alienation into his music so that "each player performs his part as though he were alone". If harmonious counterpoint is not possible any more, then these are the obvious alternatives, of monody and of a polyphony of independent voices. The other two works here bear witness to the same dissolution - the Penderecki in its abundance of previously marginal effects, the Mayuzumi by having the players sit as far apart as possible on the platform - but both find ways to retain a more progressive continuity, in contrast with Cage's stasis and Lutoslawski's elusive fluidity. (Paul Griffiths)

tracks 1-4 originally released on LP in 1968
tracks 5-8 originally released on LP in 1976

Tracklisting:

1.  String Quartet: Introductory Movement  {8:29}
composed by Witold Lutoslawski, 1964

2.  String Quartet: Main Movement  {15:15}
composed by Witold Lutoslawski, 1964

3.  Quartetto per archi  {7:03}
composed by Krzysztof Penderecki, 1960

4.  Prelude for String Quartet  {11:10}
composed by Toshiro Mayuzumi, 1961

5.  String Quartet in Four Parts: Quietly flowing along  {4:18}
tracks 5-8 composed by John Cage, 1950

6.  String Quartet in Four Parts: Slowly rocking  {4:57}

7.  String Quartet in Four Parts: Nearly stationary  {10:38}

8.  String Quartet in Four Parts: Quodlibet  {1:33}

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Don Cherry/Krzysztof Penderecki- ACTIONS (FOR FREE JAZZ ORCHESTRA) 1971

Don Cherry/Krzysztof Penderecki-ACTIONS (FOR FREE JAZZ ORCHESTRA) 1971

BBC Review (Excerpted):
Liner Notes Enclosed

Actions was recorded live in 1971 at Donaueschingen and features the "New Eternal Rhythm Orchestra" (especially assembled for this project to perform under the direction of Krystzof Penderecki and Don Cherry). The Orchestra were a veritable who's who of the then emerging European Free Jazz scene; Peter Brotzmann, Willem Breuker, Paul Rutherford and Han Bennink, plus Terje Rypdal, Kenny Wheeler and Tomasz Stanko are all in evidence.

Classical composers were finding that their interests and working methods (structured improvisation, graphic scores, conduction and gesture as composition) were overlapping with like-minded musicians from an altogether different area, that of free jazz.

(One can) hear echoes of Turkish folk and classical Indian rhythms on Cherry's pieces ("Sita Rama Encores") interspersed with explosive passages of 'energy' playing.

The Penderecki piece ("Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra") explores the balance between composition and improvisation in a less playful yet no less meaningful way.

Apparently influenced by the Original Globe Unity Orchestra piece of 1967, "Actions" often sounds more overtly 'jazz' than that group (...)

Ian R Watson 2002-11-20


































Side One:

Humus-The Life Exploring Force (Don Cherry) 19:17

Side Two:

Sita Rama Encores (Don Cherry) 6:42
Actions For Free Jazz Orchestra (Krzysztof Penderecki) 16:46

re-up:
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The Louisville Orchestra 110th Release

The Louisville Orchestra - The Louisville Orchestra 110th Release

The Louisville Orchestra released a series of LPs on their own label, First Edition Records, from the 1950s to the 1980s. The label was started in 1950 and the recordings focused on contemporary music (i.e. mid 20th century music). There were 158 LPs along with 10 CDs released according to this website. This orchestra may be the only one in the United States with its own label. It still performs contemporary music occasionally and it has a presence on the web.

Jorge Mester - conductor on this LP

DE NATURA SONORIS No. 2 by Krzysztof Penderecki

recorded May 17, 1972

The second De Natura Sonoris begins almost where its predecessor had left the argument, although the choice of initial percussion (including pennywhistle, musical saw, antique cymbals, and wind machine) suggest more exotic things are in store. The strings enter maintaining the lowest dynamic levels as they slide from a single pitch to tightly-packed sound bands and back again. A favorite device of the composer's is a massive crescendo for all players which leaves a novel texture at its sudden termination. Here it is used to introduce an awesome snazzle of four trombones in their lowest register spaced a semitone apart, the prelude to a series of strong contrasts of color ranging from fff to ffff. (Robert McMahan from the program notes)

Note: a performance of this piece conducted by Penderecki himself is also in this previous post

GENGHIS KHAN, OP. 37 by Gene Gutché

recorded March 16, 1972

It is scored for a full complement of winds (in threes), brass, and percussion but dispenses with all the strings except for the basses, thus giving to the orchestra the "hard-edged" texture beloved of Stravinsky and other contemporary colorists. The omission makes a certain sense. One hardly needs the lyric flow of orchestral strings as an accompaniment to the exploits of the Mongol conqueror (ca. 1167-1227) who parlayed daring and savagery into control of a kingdom that stretched half-way across the known world and managed the feat in less than two decades of campaigning. (Robert McMahan from the program notes)

MUSIC FOR PRAGUE 1968 by Karel Husa

recorded May 17, 1972

Three main ideas bind the composition together. The first and most important is an old Hussite war song from the 15th century, "Ye Warriors of God and His Law," a symbol of resistance and hope for hundreds of years, whenever fate lay heavy on the Czech nation. It has been utilized also by many Czech composers, including Smetana in "My Fatherland." The beginning of this religious song is announced very softly in the first movement by the timpani and concludes in a strong unison (Chorale). The song is never used in its entirety.

The second idea is the sound of bells throughout; Prague, named also the City of "Hundreds of Towers," has used its magnificently sounding church bells as calls of distress as well of victory.

The last idea is a motif of three chords first appearing very softly under the piccolo solo at the beginning of the piece, in flutes, clarinets, and horns. Later it reappears at extremely strong dynamic levels, for example in the middle of the Aria.

Different techniques of composing as well as orchestrating have been used in "Music for Prague 1968" and some new sounds explored, such as the percussion section in the Interlude, the ending of the work, etc.

Much symbolism also appears: in addition to the distress calls in the first movement (Fanfares), the unbroken hope of the Hussite song, sound of bells, or the tragedy (Aria), there is also the bird calls at the beginning (piccolo solo), symbol of the Liberty which the City of Prague has seen only for moments during its thousand years of existence. (Karel Husa from the program notes)

Tracklisting:

Side 1

1. De Natura Sonoris No. 2 [composed by Krzysztof Penderecki] {8:55}

2. Genghis Khan, Op. 37 [composed by Gene Gutché] {8:52}

Side 2

1. Music for Prague 1968: Introduction and Fanfare [composed by Karel Husa] {5:48}

2. Music for Prague 1968: Aria [composed by Karel Husa] {6:14}

3. Music for Prague 1968: Interlude - Toccata and Chorale [composed by Karel Husa] {10:47}

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Iannis Xenakis/Krzysztof Penderecki split release LP

Iannis Xenakis/Krzysztof Penderecki - split release LP

performed by Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Lukas Foss - conductor; Paul Zukofsky - violin on "Capriccio for Violin & Orchestra"

Recorded at Kleinhans Music Hall, March 1968, during the 2nd Buffalo Festival of the Arts Today.

"Akrata" was compoed [by Xenakis] in 1964-65 in response to a commission from the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation. It is scored for sixteen wind instruments: piccolo, oboe, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet in B flat, contrabass clarinet in B flat, bassoon, 2 contrabassoons, 2 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 tenor trombones, and tuba. The title is the neuter plural of the Greek word for "pure", and the composer explains that the work is of an extra-temporal architecture based on the theory of groups of transformations. It makes use of the theory of Sieves, which annexes the congruences modulo Z and which is the result of an axiomatic theory of the universal structure of music. It also uses complex (or imaginary) numbers.

"Pithoprakta", dedicated to Hermann Scherchen, was composed in 1955-56 and is scored for an orchestra of 50 instruments - two tenor trombones, xylophone, wood block, twelve first violins, twelve second violins, eight violas, eight cellos, and six basses - each of which has its own individual part. The title means "actions by probabilities", and the musical material is organized by various laws of large numbers (Laplace-Gauss, Maxwell-Boltzmann, Poisson, Pearson, Fisher). Like all Xenakis's music - which embraces a wide variety of forms and media - it was composed on graph paper and then transcribed into conventional notation. Confrontations of continuity and discontinuity are sought: along with sustained sounds and individually calculated glissandi, there is frequent use of pizzicato and col legno tapping of the bow, and in places (especially at the beginning) the string players are directed to strike the bodies of their instruments with the hand.

...

The two works recorded here demonstrate something of Penderecki's broad expressive range and are especially valuable in showing that the stark drama of the "St. Luke Passion" and the "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima" is far from being the only string to his bow. This is, naturally, more strikingly true of the 1967 "Capriccio" for violin and orchestra, which is everything that one would expect a modern synthesis of capriccio and concerto ideas to be - brilliant both in emotional character and in technical demands. The work was first performed at the 1967 Donaueschingen Festival. It is scored for solo violin, 4 flutes (two doubling piccolos), 4 oboes (one doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (doubling soprano and alto saxophones and E-flat clarinet), baritone saxophone, contrabass clarinet, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 4 trombones, tuba, electric bass guitar, harmonium, piano, harp, a large percussion battery, and strings.

As its title suggests, the 1966 "De natura sonoris" (a sort of treatise "On the Nature of Sound") is slightly less exuberant in mood - but only slightly. It too includes an almost skittish section over a jazzy pizzicato bass solo, and it makes frequent use of Penderecki's favorite technique: the free combination of prescribed phrases, repeated by the instrumental groups with cumulative effect and gradually spreading through the orchestra. The scoring is for piccolo, 4 flutes (two doubling piccolos), 3 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 alto saxophones, 3 bassoons, contrabassoon, 6 horns, 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, piano, harmonium, flexatone, percussion, and strings. (Bernard Jacobson from the liner notes)

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Iannis Xenakis - Akrata {10:33}

2. Iannis Xenakis - Pithoprakta {9:06}

Side Two

1. Krzysztof Penderecki - Capriccio for Violin & Orchestra {10:05}

2. Krzysztof Penderecki - De natura sonoris {7:19}

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Penderecki Conducts Penderecki Album 1

Krzysztof Penderecki - Penderecki Conducts Penderecki Album 1

Performed by Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra with Siegfried Palm - cello on "Cello Concerto".

Composers who set out to extend the horizons of music often have to wait a long time before recognition comes to them, but this was not so in the case of Krzysztof Penderecki who was born in Debica near Cracow in 1933.
...
Above all else Penderecki has interested himself in the color and varying intensities of sound. For the most part his music avoids harmony in any but a coloristic sense, while frequently rhythms are not precisely notated. Often the exact pitch is not specified, instruments sometimes being asked to play the highest or lowest possible notes, or to follow the contour of a wavy line. Even when the pitch is indicated, it sometimes has no significance in the normal musical sense. Into this category come the numerous cluster chords whose density is often increased by the addition of quarter tones - twenty-four notes to the octave are met with frequently. In the instrumental field Penderecki's most revolutionary innovations have concerned the strings. He has invented a whole new range of sounds of indeterminate pitch. For instance, instrumentalists are required to play on a given number of strings behind the bridge as well as across the bridge and on the tailpiece. Despite the novelty of his methods, Penderecki is in no sense a difficult composer, as his wide popularity shows. While his music may have little connection with that of even the immediate past, it has an emotional appeal and a formal logic, both of which are immediately apparent.

FONOGRAMMI for flutes and chamber orchestra

This short piece, one of Penderecki's least known compositions, was written in 1961 . . . The scoring is for three flutes, strings (including a harpsichord) and percussion. Despite an unaccompanied section, during which sounds made by the keys alone are heard, the flutes are treated as an integral part of the chamber orchestra rather than as soloists.

CELLO CONCERTO

In 1967 Penderecki wrote a Concerto for violino grande - a rare instrument that on occasion has been confused with the old viola pomposa, which was half way between a viola and a cello. Penderecki's instrument is a cross between a violin and a viola, having the upper range of the first and the downward one of the second. To achieve this it has five, instead of the usual four, strings. In 1972 this very practical composer decided to adapt this inevitably little performed composition for cello, but when he began to do so he found himself re-thinking in the new medium. As a result the composer regards the Cello Concerto as a virtually new work.

DE NATURA SONORIS No. 2

When De natura sonoris No. 1 appeared in 1966 it surprised people with its lightweight nature, touches of humor and jazz influenced passages - aspects of Penderecki's musical character that were unknown to most people at the time, although they have reappeared since on several occasions. By contrast the longer De natura sonoris No. 2 - first performed towards the end of 1971 at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Jorge Mester conducting - is decidedly serious. Both works, as their title implies, explore the nature of sound, but, whereas the earlier one requires a large orchestra, the later piece is written for a fairly modest combination. True, the list of percussion instruments is extensive - it includes a piece of train rail - but the only woodwind instrument, if it can be so-called, is a flauto a culisse or birdwhistle, which can play a glissando over the whole length of its compass. Four horns, four trombones, and a tuba are needed, but there are no trumpets. The rest of the orchestra consists of strings, piano and harmonium - an instrument that appears in most of this composer's scores. The bird whistle is employed in conjunction with a musical saw, and the two appear together, playing unspecified notes but beginning as high as possible, almost at the outset.

KANON for orchestra and tape

Although the Polish Radio has a well equipped electronic studio in Warsaw, Penderecki has shown little interest in electronic music. Even in this Kanon, which created quite a sensation when it appeared in 1962, no manufactured, as opposed to played, sounds are heard. Like the well known Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, the piece is for 52 stringed instruments. It consists of three sections, the first of which recurs twice and the second once, these repeats being heard over loudspeakers while the orchestra continues with new material. (Malcolm Rayment)

Tracklisting:

Side One

1. Fonogrammi {6:27}

2. Cello Concerto {14:24}

Side Two

1. De natura sonoris No. 2 {8:53}

2. Kanon {9:29}

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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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