DA CAPO'S "WATER MUSIC"

TORU TAKEMITSU (1930-1996) was born in Tokyo, Japan. Although he studied composition privately with Yasuji Kiyose, Toru Takemitsu is largely self-taught. He turned his lack of formal training into a unique development of style and technique, blending various Western influences (including but certainly not limited to, French Impressionism, Webern, and Stravinsky) with the musical traditions of Japan and other Asian countries.

Recognition came in the late 1950s, first with Stravinsky's praise for Takemitsu's Requiem for Strings, and then with prizes for three other works. By the 1960s he had renewed his interest in tradfitional Japanese instruments, the results of which appear in such works as the score for the film Seppuku (1962). Toru Takemitsu was aware of his position along the East/West musical continuum. He had stated that he did not want to adopt one musical art into the other, nor to blend the two. He preferred, instead, "to concentrate upon creating an individualistic art capable of illuminating the human condition." Mr. Takemitsu served as artistic director of the Festival d"Automnee (Paris, 1978); composer-in-residence for the Colorado Music Festival (1983), Aldeburgh Festival (Suffolk, 1984), and others; guest lecturer at Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts and Boston Universities; and more.

Festivals held in his honor include the "Takemitsu Festival" on Tokyo, 1974, and "The Music of Toru Takemitsu" in Buffalo, 1977. He was made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1984, a membre de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France) in 1985, and honored by several other prestigious organizations. His music has been extensively recorded and has secured numerous prizes including the Prix Italia, the Incentive Prize (Japan), the 1990 Prix International Maurice Ravel Award (Paris), the 1994 Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition (US), and others worldwide. Also know for his film scores as for his concert hall music, he was an influential participant in Japan's New Wave Cinema of the 1960s and 1970s and wrote music for nearly one hundred films including Woman in the Dunes, Ran, and Black Rain.

GEORGE CRUMB was born in Charleston, West Virginia in 1929 and received his first musical instruction from his father, a clarinetist and conductor. In 1950 he concluded his studies at the Mason College in Charleston with a Bachelor of Music. He earned his Master's Degree at the University of Michigan. Later, he studied at Tanglewood with Boris Blacher whom he followed to the Academy of Music in Berlin in 1958. From 1959 until 1964 he taught at the University of Colorado at Boulder. At present, he is professor of composition at the University of Pennsylvania.

George Crumb has been the recipient of numerous awardst including grants from the Fulbright Commission, the Rockefeller, Koussevitzky, Guggenheim, and Coolidge Foundations and the National Institute of Arts and Letters. His Echoes of Time and the River: Four Processionals for Orchestra, premiered by the Chicago Symphony, was awarded the 1968 Pulitzer Prize in Music. His Ancient Voices of Children for mezzo-soprano, boy soprano and instrumental ensemble received both the International Rostrum of Composers (UNESCO) Award and the Koussevitzky International Recording Award in 1971.

The composer contributes the following notes on Vox Balaenae:

Voice of the Whale (Vox Balaenae), composed in 1971 for the New York Camerata, is scored for flute, cello, and piano (all amplified in concert performance). The work was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale, a tape recording of which I had heard two or three years previously. Each of the three performers is required to wear a black half-mask (or visor-mask).

The masks, by effacing the sense of human projection, are intended to represent, symbolically, the powerful, impersonal forces of nature (i.e. nature dehumanized). I have also suggested that the work be performed under a deep-blue stage lighting.

The form of Voice of the Whale is a simple three-part design, consisting of a prologue, a set of variations named after the geological eras, and an epilogue.

The opening Vocalise (marked in the score: "wildly fantastic, grotesque") is a kind of cadenza for the flutist, who simultaneously plays his instrument and sings into it. This combination of instrumental and vocal sound produces an eerie, surreal timbre, not unlike the sounds of the humpback whale. The conclusion of the cadenza is announced by a parody of the opening measures of Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra.

The Sea-Theme ("solemn, with calm majesty") is presented by the cello (in harmonics), accompanied by dark fateful chords of strummed piano strings.

The following sequence of variations begins with the haunting seagull cries of the Archeozoic ("timeless, inchoate") and, gradually increasing in intensity, reaches a strident climax in the Cenozoic ("dramatic, with a feeling of destiny"). The emergence of man in the Cenozoic era is symbolized by a restatement of the Zarathustra reference.

The concluding Sea-Nocturne ("serene, pure, transfigured") is an elaboration of the Sea-Theme. The piece is couched in the "luminous" tonality of B major and there are shimmering sounds of antique cymbals (played alternately by the cellist and flutist). In composing the Sea-Nocturne I wanted to suggest "a larger rhythm of nature" and a sense of suspension in time.

HANNS EISLER (1898-1962) was a German composer and pupil of Schoenberg and Webern from 1919-1923. His Piano Sonata, Op. 1, premiered by Edward Steuermann, received the Vienna Arts Prize in 1924. He had strong Marxist convictions and in 1926 joined the German Communist Party. He was one of Schoenberg's assistants, and Schoenberg considered him to be one of his most talented students but quarreled with him in 1926 over his political views and alleged attacks on modern music. In 1930 Eisler began a friendship and collaboration with Berthold Brecht. His music was banned in 1933, and he began years of exile in several European countries and the United States. For a while he taught at the New School for Social Research in New York. Then, after three years in Mexico, he moved to Hollywood, where he taught at the University of Southern California and wrote over forty film scores before moving eventually to East Germany.

From 1940-42, Hanns Eisler worked on commission for the New School for Social Research on a Film Music Project, researching new possibilities for music in connection with the new cinema technology. Fourteen Ways To Describe the Rain, modeled on the film Rain by Joris Ivens, was developed in the course of this work, and was completed in November 1941. It is dedicated to Eisler's teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. In the introductory Anagramm, the beginning letters of Schoenberg's name are: A-S-C-H (the "H" corresponding to "B" in German musical notation.) The composition consists of 14 variations on this Anagramm, 14 short character sketches.

PETER SCULTHORPE was born in Tasmania in 1929. He is Australia's best known composer, having written prolifically for orchestras and chamber groups throughout his extensive career. He was educated at the University of Melbourne and at Oxford University, England, and was a Harkness Fellow at Yale University in 1965. Sculthorpe's interest in Australian aborigines began in the early 1950's. His Irkana and Sun Music cycles reflect his development of a unique Australian sound, combining aboriginal melodies with strong Bartokian rhythms and Pendereckian textures. Sculthorpe often looked to the nearby indigenous cultures of Asian islands and countries as a source for his compositions. In this regard he had a very strong influence on the "younger" Australian composers who had been trained (as he had) to look only at Western music traditions.

Songs of Sea and Sky was commissioned by the Yale School of Music, and written for Keith Wilson in 1987.

Songs of Sea and Sky was inspired by a traditional dance song from Saibai, an insland just sounth of Papua New Guinea, in Torres Strait. The song was collected on Saibai by Jeremy Beckett in May 1961.

Much of the surviving music of the Torres Strait is concerned with sea voyages, flights of birds and changes in sea and sky. Some of the music has been influenced by hymns instroduced by missionaries in the nineteenth century.

This work, then, is in one continuous movement consisting of six parts: a somewhat dramatic clarinet solo; Saibai, an instroductory reworking of the traditional dance song; a second clarinet solo, suggested by a flute melody from eastern Torres Strait; Mission Hymn, a variation of Saibai: a dance-like section shared by clarinet and piano; and Wei, a variation of the dance song, an affirmation of one-ness of sea and sky.

JOAN TOWER is one of this generation's most dynamic and colorful composers.

Born on September 6, 1938, in New Rochelle, New York, she grew up in South America, where her father was a mining engineer; there she discovered a love for performing, playing percussion and piano in family musicales. Upon her return to the United States, she attended Bennington College and Columbia University, where she received a doctorate in composition. In 1969, with violinist Joel Lester and flutist Patricia Spencer, Tower founded the Da Capo Chamber Players, the distinguished ensemble which won the Naumburg Award for chamber music in 1973, and with whom she served as pianist for fourteen years. In September 1985, Tower was appointed by conductor Leonard Slatkin to a three-year term as Composer-in-Residence with the St. Louis Symphony. After completing her residency, in September 1988, Tower assumed the Asher Edelman chair at Bard College, where she had previously taught as an assistant professor of music.

Joan Tower has received numerous honors, including commissions, grants, awards, and fellowships from the Guggenheim, Fromm, Naumburg, Koussevitzky, and Jerome foundations; the New York and Massachusetts state arts councils; the National Endowment for the Arts, American Academy of Arts and Letters, Meet the Composer, Inc., Schubert Club, and Contemporary Music Society; the American Composers Orchestra, Saint Louis Symphony, Florida Orchestra, and performers including clarinetists Richard Stolzman and Laura Flax, guitarist Sharon Isbin, and flutist Carol Wincenc. In 1983 she was profiled in an award-winning PBS television documentary; her orchestral work, Silver Ladders, the work written for her residency with the Saint Louis Symphony, was performed in the 1988-89 season by five orchestras, -- the Saint Louis Symphony (on its California and Russian tours), the Louisville Orchestra with Lawrence Smith conducting, the Berlin Radio Philharmonic (Slatkin), the Indianapolis Symphony (Leppard), and the Curtis Symphony (Fitzpatrick). Silver Ladders received a 1988 Kennedy Center Friedheim Award and was performed at the Kennedy Center. Tower's previous large orchestral work, Sequoia, has been performed by more than 25 orchestra, including the New York Philharmonic (Mehta), the Saint Louis Symphony (Slatkin), the San Francisco Symphony (Davies), the National Symphony (Slatkin), Cincinnati Symphony (Rubinstein), the Tokyo Philharmonic (Slatkin), and others.

Tower's cello concerto, commissioned by the Koussevitzky Foundation, was performed and recorded by Lynn Harrell and the Saint Louis Symphony. This same recording included Silver Ladders, Island Prelude (a new work for oboe and strings), and Island Rhythms (an overture).

Her first fanfare, titled Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman (commissioned by the Houston Symphony) has received numerous performances. Her Second Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman was performed at the celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Aspen Music Festival.

Her composition for solo guitar, Clocks, commissioned by Sharon Isbin, was chosen as the competition piece for the annual competition of the Guitar Foundation of America. Twelve semi-finalists from around the world performed this piece at the guitar festival in October 1988 in Ohio.

Several commissions highlight Joan Tower's more recent works, including an NEA Consortium Commissioning award for wind quintets to be performed by Quintessence, the Dorian Wind Quintet, and the Dakota Quintet. Another consortium grant, a Meet the Composer/Reader's Digest commission, will support an orchestral work to be played by the New York Philharmonic, the Saint Louis Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony. Concerto commissions have included a concerto for flutist Carol Wincenc with the American Composers Orchestra and a violin concerto written for Elmar Oliveira.

Amazon was written for the Da Capo Chamber Players with a commission from the Contemporary Music Society. The great Brazilian river, the Amazon, provides some of the images reflected in this piece. there is a generally consistent background flow that is interrupted only occasionally by "static" events or by silence, and which undergoes change in speed and width through the pacing of notes and the type of texture being articulated. Some different kinds of associations with the river will be evident in the trill passages (ripple of water) and in the fast unison passages (which have the effect of a waterfall and water turbulence). An orchestral version of this piece, Amazon II, was premiered by the Hudson Valley Philharmonic. Amazon III, a chamber orchestra version, was later premiered by the Houston Symphony.

"THEN AND NOW" Program Notes

CARL PHILIPP EMANUEL BACH was the fifth child of Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara Bach, born in 1714. He was trained in law at the Leipzig University and then in Frankfurt, while supporting himself with his musical skills. In 1738 he accepted a position as accompanist with the young Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia, a secret flutist (because of his father the King's disapproval) and student of Joachim Quantz. Frederick -- who later became Frederick the Great -- succeeded to the throne in 1740, and Emanuel Bach remained with him for 28 years. But although Frederick's court presented nightly concerts, the King's taste was too conservative for the daring and imaginative works by his cembalist. CPE Bach found the musical atmosphere stifling, and in 1767, when he was offered a position in Hamburg as music director for the five principal Protestant churches (after the death of Telemann), he was finally able to leave. The Quartet in D Major (Wq 94) is one of three "klavier" quartets (originally for fortepiano, flute, viola, and cello), written in the last year of his life.

Bearbeitungen ueber das Glogauer Liederbuch (1962) Charles Wuorinen

CHARLES WUORINEN (born 1938) is one of America's most prolific composers, having completed well over 100 works in all genres. He has received numerous honors, most prominent among them the Pulitzer Prize in Music and a MacArthur Foundation Award.

About the Bearbeitungen, Mr. Wuorinen writes: Around 1475, the canon of the Glogau Cathedral had copied for him a collection of chansons, sacred works, and instrumental pieces from a largely anonymous repertory dating mainly from the 1460s and 1470s. The collection primarily contains vocal works, but some are clearly intended for instrumental use, and it is mainly upon these that I have drawn for the settings in the Bearbeitungen. In 1962, I was greatly taken with many kinds of 15th-century music, and in the pieces I chose to instrumentate -- or "recompose" -- what particularly attracted me was the rapidity with which the intervallic environment changed from moment to moment, almost every new note kaleidoscopically creating a functionally "new" harmony. this characteristic of so much 15th-century counterpoint contrasts sharply with what came later. Here we have not yet arrived at the larger overarching sense that even in music of the Josquin generation already tends to organize, subsume, and span smaller details into larger, broader units of continuity. I was attracted by these very characteristics in these pieces; their angular melodic behavior charmed me and beckoned me toward timbral composing with the notes that the works already provided.

In 1854, at the age of twenty-one, JOHANNES BRAHMS allowed his first chamber work, the Piano Trio, Op. 8, to be published. Although he had already written dozens of chamber music compositions, none had met his very exacting standards, and all had been consigned to the furnace. Over the years, however, Brahms grew dissatisfied with the trio, and thirty-six years after publication, he decided to alter the work. He wrote one friend that the revision "did not provide it with a wig, but just combed and arranged his hair a little." To Clara Schumann he commented, "I have written my B major trio once more....It will not be so muddled up as it was -- but will it be better?"

It is the 1890 version, shorter by one-third than the original, that is widely performed today. The earlier edition, however, is published, and a comparison of the two renderings provides valuable insights into the way a mature composer goes about improving a youthful work.

The main theme of the first movement, which survives intact from the earlier manuscript, is broad and stately. It grows gradually from a quiet statement in the piano, through the addition of the cello, to reach a sonorous, full-voiced peroration by all three instruments. The second subject is likewise introduced by the piano, but soon expands to include the strings and builds to a massive climax. After the development of the thematic material, a concise recapitulation is heard, introduced by the strings playing the first subject in unison.

The light, fleeting Scherzo, virtually unchanged from the 1954 version, scurries along, dramatic outbursts alternating with hushed whisperings, until a waltz-like tune presages the somewhat slower trio. The trio, warm and sentimental at first, becomes increasingly exuberant toward the end. An almost literal repetition of the Scherzo, and a brief coda, conclude the movement.

The Adagio is cast in simple three-part form, but with an intensely rich texture throughout. The opening melody is a dialogue, with piano statements and string responses. After the piano and strings combine forces, an ardent cello melody appears, one that is eventually carried on by the violin. The first section them returns, somewhat elaborated, to bring the movement to a quiet close.

The cello introduces the first theme of the finale, creating an aura of disquiet and agitation. All the restlessness is dispelled, however, by the four-square (though in triple meter) second theme, given out forcefully by the piano, with off-beats in the cello. Both themes are treated quite freely, leading to the coda, in which the opening theme is strongly affirmed.

The original trio received its premiere in New York on November 27, 1855, played by William Mason, piano, Theodore Thomas, violin, and Carl Bergmann, cello. The revised version was given its first performance, with the composer as pianist, at a concert in Vienna offered by Arnold Rose on February 22, 1890.

from Chamber Music by Melvin Berger