Piano Rhapsodies Of Love - George Greeley

 

Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini

Piano Rhapsodies Of Love

George Greeley - His Piano and Orchestra

R-6092

From the back cover: Although the word "rhapsody" can be traced to Homer, it has been a popular label only since the nineteenth century, only indeed since Liszt. It was he, with his Hungarian Rhapsodies, who turned the term for a mere fragment into the definition of a richly set medley. And a piano rhapsody, in particular, has since his time always evoked the image of a master at the keyboard: a man of classi- cal training and virtuosity, a man with personal style. Such is certainly the description of George Greeley. Educated at Columbia University, the University of Southern California, and the Juilliard School of Music, Greeley also took private instruction under Ernst Toch in California. It is to Toch especially he feels most indebted for his knowledge of form and his attitude toward composition. When it comes to playing the music of other composers, Greeley says, "I try never to violate the composer's intention." With regard to Ravel's Pavane pour une infante defunte, for example, which has been popularized as "The Lamp Is Low," Greeley returned to Ravel's original piano score, published in 1899. Ravel himself had orchestrated the piece nine years later, and Greeley was also influenced by that treatment in the coloration of his own. "The tune always dictates the style of the arrangement. In Rachmaninoff's 18th Variation on a Theme of Paganini and in Debussy's Clair de lune I merely orchestrated the piano part. And what I play on the piano is exactly what was published." When a classical theme is widely known as a popular song, however, Greeley feels at liberty to make whatever modifications he wants. And both of the Chopin works here are his own recensions. Sometimes he blends both the old and the new to give an old standard brand-new excitement. The traditional air "Greensleeves" has once again received a traditional orchestral setting, with the suggestion of Elizabethan lutes and hautboys. But the tempo is hardly traditional: strictly measured, slightly up-tempo, it creates an amusing picture of minstrels who march, not wander, through jolly Old England. "Mardi Gras," the concluding section to Ferde Grofé's Mississippi Suite, begins with Greeley retaining Grofé's syncopated rhythms of the Twenties. But then there is a transition to a contemporary tempo and Greeley's distinctive phrasing. Grofé has always called "Mardi Gras" his favorite work, and he should certainly favor this arrangement.

How to handle the melodic line in performance is a matter that perplexes every musician. Gide frequently fretted about it in his journals and finally concluded he wanted it "deeply embedded in the friendly atmosphere created by the other voices, which evoke a constantly shimmering immaterial landscape." George Greeley defines the problem differently. Originally a rhapsody was a song; therefore the problem is to treat the piano as though it too could breathe and sing. When a song has a lyric, Greeley says "I read the lyric and play the tune as though it were singing. I impose the tune loosely on the orchestra." It is this melodic interpretation, this holding-back in the rhythmic phrasing, which keeps the image of the pianist always before one as he listens to a Greeley record. The virtuosity of the man never escapes us.

Nor do his energy and versatility. For the 1963-64 TV season he is writing and conducting the music for a CBS Sunday night series, "My Favorite Martian." It means scoring a new show every six days for a minimum of twenty-six weeks. During the same months he will also give a series of ten concerts on the West Coast. And, hopefully, he will be thinking about another album. He has cut twelve LPs in the past five years. This is his first on Reprise, the first of a new series. And it's a great beginning. –LAWRENCE D. STEWART

Smile (Theme from "Modern Times")

The Lamp Is Low (Pavane)

Blue Star (The Medic Theme)

Clair De Lune

The Dream Of Olwen

Rhapsody On A Theme Of Paganini (18th Variation, Opus 43)

Mardi Gras  (Mississippi Suite)

My Reverie (Debussy's Reverie)

No Other Love (Chopin's Etude In A Major)

Greensleeves

Chopin's Nocturne in E Flat

Whirlwinds - Deodato

 

West 42nd Street

Whirlwinds

Deodato

Produced by Eumir Deodato for Kenya Music, Inc.

Recorded at Record Plant East, New York

Sound Engineer: Carmine Rubino

Assistant Engineers: Richard Apuzzo, Kevin Herron

Cover and Inside Photos: Alen MacWeeney

Liner Photo: Frank Laffitte

Special thank to John Tropea (big help), Carmina (never tiring sound engineer), Oscar (all copies),  Elliot Donald, Barry, Mary Beth, Arlene, Bud, Gary, Cliff, Bert and all the very important people

MCA Records MCA-410

1973 (from disc label) 1974 (from jacket)

Guitar - John Tropea

Bass - John Giulino (all tracks), Tony Levin (center section and solo on "Moonlight Serendade")

Congas & Bongos - Rubens Bassini

Percussion - Gilmore Digap, Rubens Bassini, Eumir Deodato

Trumpets - Mary Stamm, Alan Rubin, John Faddis, Victor Paz, John Eckert, Larry Spencer

French Horns - Jimmy Buffington, Brooks Tillotson

Trombones - Urbie Green, Sam Burtis (solo on "Havana Strut")

Tuba - Tony Price

Flutes & Saxophones - Romeo Penque, George Marge, Phil Bodner, Artie Kaplan, Joe Temperley

Violins - Emanuel Green, Irving Spice, Michael Spivakowshy, Harold Kahn, Harry Glickman, Paul Winter, Marvin Morgenstern, Max Ellen, Carmel Malin, Norman Carri

Violas - Al Brown, Selwart Clark

Cellos - Alan Shulman, Charles McCracken

Gloria Lanzarone

Arco Basses - Russel Savages, Alvin Brehm

Moonlight Serenade

Ave Maria

Do It Again

West 42nd Street

Havana Soul

Whirlwinds

The Ramsey Lewis Trio In Chicago

 

What's New

The Ramsey Lewis Trio In Chicago

Supervision: Jack Tracy

Engineer: Ron Malo

Cover Phot: Bill Claxton

Recorded April 30, 1960, during performance at the Blue Note, Chicago

Argo LP 671

Ramsey Lews - Piano

Eldee Young - Bass

Red Holt - Drums

From the back cover: MENTION the Blue Note to any jazz fan, especially one who lives around Chicago, and you're likely to be answered by, "Wasn't that a shame!"

Because just a few weeks after this album was recorded there, the club that for more than a decade had hosted every top name in jazz had to shut down. The entertainment center of Chicago moved from The Loop across the river to the Near North side, and the Blue Note was left isolated, head still high but without a nickel in its jeans.

A lot of us who had been regulars at Frank Holzfeind's establishment ever since he first opened remembered the big years and were unhappy. Years when it was just about the only game in town, and you could walk in an hear Basie or Kenton or Woody or Brown or James or even Elliot Lawrence Or Charlie Parker with strings or Lester Young carefully picking his way through the audience after a set to head back to the dressing room where the gin was poured in larger than one-ounce quantities.

Or the one bill some years ago that featured Maxine Sullivan, Doc Evans' band, Slim Gaillard's trio, and a young, good-looking pop singer named Harry Belafonte. Or Charlie Ventura in the halcyon days with Jackie and Roy singing those wild lines and drawing crowds of the size that Miles and Jamal do now. Or Lee Wiley and Bobby Hackett, or Red Norvo, or Lennie Tristano, or Duke Ellington playing the annual Christmas parties at which kids who could barely walk heard their first big band and were big-eyed. Or Sarah Vaughan coming in time after time, year after year.

It was one helluva club, believe me, and if you never made it there you missed something..

Ramsey Lewis got there just under the wire and it was almost like old times the Saturday night we recorded him. Al greeted you at the door and Frank was already in his office (first table to the right as you walked in), martini at hand.

The audience was of healthy size, and it included a couple of disc jockeys who dropped in to see what was happening and a night life columnist who used to fall by almost every night for a quick blast before being subjected to such. indignities as having to review Liberace.

The trio was comfortably set up on the big bandstand that was really designed for Kenton and Basie and those-type housewreckers.

Not much happened the first set. Ramsey and Eldee and Red were con- scious of the recording mikes and were playing safe. They skated easily through Bags Groove and Greensleeves and two or three more, sounded good, got a nice hand, and that was about it.

The next two sets were something else. The trio forgot about the mikes and began playing to the audience. They had no difficulty establishing the warm rapport they almost always get with people, and thus nourished by sincere applause and attention, they opened up.

This 38 minutes of music is the cream of those two sets. By the fourth set the crowd had thinned considerably, the piano was drifting noticeably out of tune (Ramsey and Oscar Peterson not only play pianos, they almost destroy them at a single sitting), and the party was just about over.

You judge for yourself how good the music is. I am of the opinion it's the best the group has ever sounded on records. Happy, dynamic, swinging, colorful, it is the sort of trio you are not likely to forget once you hear it.

At the end of the evening, Frank, fresh martini held in steady grip, men- tioned idly, "You know, in all the years we've been going, no one has ever cut an album at the Blue Note before. Ramsey's will be the first.".

It will also be the last. But it's a good one, and that's the way it should be. – Jack Tracy

Old Devil Moon

What's New

Carmen

Bei Mir Bist Du Schon

I'll Remember April

Delilah

Folk Ballad

But Not For Me

C. C. Rider

The Piano Musi Of Henry Cornell - Doris Hays

 

The Piano Music Of Henry Cowell

The Piano Music Of Henry Cowell

Doris Hays

Produced by Ilhan Mimaroglu

Cover Photography: Dave Whitten

Liner Photo of Doris Hays: David Gahr

Liner Photo of Henry Cowell: Courtesy of BMI Archives

Art Direction and Cover Design: Lynn Breslin

Recording Engineer: George Piros - Atlantic Recording Studios, New York, N.Y.

Finnadar Records SP 9016

Distributed  buy Atlantic Recording Corporation

A Warner Comminications Company

1977

From the back cover: The vitality of a musical culture is apparent from the way its traditions are investigated, tested, tinkered with and generally overhauled. Henry Cowell was one investigator who influenced countless composers and listeners through his compositions, his teaching and numerous concert tours around the world performing his piano music.

Henry Cowell was born in Menlo Park, California, in 1897. He began his experiments in sound production at the keyboard, using fists, forearms and palms to produce masses of adjacent seconds which he called tone clusters. His earliest-known piece using clusters is entitled Adventures in Harmony, completed when he was about fifteen. From that time into the thirties, Cowell wrote dozens of pieces using tone clusters in a surprising variety of ways. Sometimes the cluster is pictorially program- matic, as the ostinato bass clusters imaging the pulse of waves in The Tides of Manaunaun; or is used as accenting tone mass, in Advertisement; or, for special colorative effects, as in The Voice of Lir.

Cowell also explored possibilities provided by the strings of the grand piano: damping strings at various nodes for timbre and Bitch change (Sinister Resonance); scraping and rubbing the windings of bass strings (The Banshee); and strumming and plucking strings (Aeolian Harp).

Henry Cowell began concertizing outside of the U.S. in the twenties; he gave his first concert in Europe in 1923. It was after a successful visit to Russia in 1928 that the Russian government published Tiger and The Lilt of the Reel, a first in publishing for an American in Soviet Russia. In mid-1950s Cowell and his wife toured the Middle and Far East under State Department and The Rockefeller Foundation auspices. He composed symphonic works which carry the spirit of his impressions of oriental scales and rhythmic modes gathered during these trips and from childhood influences of Chinese and other cultures in California-Ongaku, the Madras Symphony, Persian Set, Concerto for Koto.

The relationship of dissonance to consonance and the functions of overtones in harmonic theory which Cowell had explored instinctively. in his early tone cluster pieces, he then organized into carefully formulated ideas, published in the twenties as New Musical Resources, which was reissued in 1969 by Something Else Press, In 1927 he began the New Music Edition, a quarterly that published compositions of many composers who are now considered among the finest of this century including Berg, Chavez, Copland, Vivian Fine Ives, Dane Rudhyar, Ruggles and Ruth Crawford Seeger. He taught at the New School for Social Research in New York City. His wide acquaintance among living composers made of him a continuing contact center and information exchange on several continents.

Henry Cowell died December 10, 1965, at his home in Shady, New York."

The Voice of Lir (ca. 1918): "Lir of the half tongue was the father of the gods, and of the universe. When he gave the orders for creation, the gods who executed his commands understood but half of what he said, owing to his having only half a tongue; with the result that for everything that has been created there is an unexpressed and concealed counterpart, which is the other half of Lir's plan of creation." John Varian*

One of the wittier pieces, Advertisement (1914, revised in 1959) is Cowell's representation of Times Square, its lights, car horns, crowds and general bustle. In the middle of the piece, two passages of fist clusters are repeated ad lib, as one might see the signs flashing above the busy streets.

Anger Dance (ca. 1917) contains several passages to be repeated a number of times as a rather repressed fury builds.

Amiable Conversation (ca. 1914)-an (un) amiable such in a Chinese laundry, with the three-level pitch intonation of the Cantonese speech common in San Francisco when Cowell was a child. Tone cluster repartee moves back and forth between right and left arm.

The Tides of Manaunaun (1912): "Manaunaun was the god of motion, and long before the creation, he sent forth tremendous tides, which swept to and fro through the universe, and rhythmically moved the particles and materials of which the gods were later to make the suns and worlds."-Varian.

"In Aeolian Harp (ca. 1923) chords are silently depressed by the left hand, the right hand fingers strum across that string area inside the piano and the chord tones sound without a percussive hammer stroke. Strings are also plucked, and by placing or strumming the strings both behind the dampers and in front of them nearer the string pins, different timbres are obtained. It's a fairly strong wind that blows over this lyre.

This is the first disc interpretation of The Hero Sun. It was published in 1922 as part of Three Irish Legends, along with The Tides of Manaunaun and The Voice of Lir. "The gods created all the suns and sent them out into space. But these suns instead of lighting the universe, congregated closely together, enjoying each others' society, and the universe was in darkness. Then one of the gods told the suns of a place where the people were living in misery on account of the lack of light, and a strong young sun rose and hurled himself out into the darkness, until he came to this place, which was our earth; and the Hero Sun who sacrificed the companionship of the other suns to light the earth is our Sun." – Varian.

In Tiger (ca. 1928) chords built on major sevenths and massive tone clusters are the basic sound elements. Many of the techniques of cluster sound are used: both forearms fully extended with the hand to play all keys within a four-octave span in passages marked ff-ffff; flat of hand, fists, silently depressed chords of sympathetic vibration following ferociously loud clusters.

The Six Ings (Copyright date, 1922) are among the most delicate pieces Cowell wrote, if Seething and Frisking and Scooting can be called delicate because of their framework which, like an eloquently simple setting of a polished stone, however unimportant the stone, allows it a certain preciousness.

Dynamic Motion (1914) is one of the more abstract sound structures Cowell built. Opening measures make use of sympathetic vibration with silent depression of a chord, then sharply detached and accented subsequent chords related to overtones of the first chord. The sound result is light pings of overtones released indirectly, as pungent odors momentarily wafted. At one extremely loud point where a cluster is repeated by the left hand palm sixteen times, the composer calls for the right fist to press down the left hand for each repetition, which lends a certain intensity to the sound.

The Harp of Life (ca. 1925): "In Irish mythology the God of Life, who was called the Dagna, possessed the Harp of Life, whose sound-post extended above the ridge of heaven, while the pedal-stool was beneath hell; and the strings were stretched across time and space, and into eternity; and with each tone the Dagna played upon this mighty instrument, something came to life in the universe."-Varian.

What's This? (ca. 1915), published as First Encore to Dynamic Motion, is almost as short as the question,

Sinister Resonance (ca. 1930) opens with the lowest strings of the piano finger-damped at various points to produce different pitches. By damping strings in various ranges of the piano at different points along their lengths, varying overtones are augmented or suppressed and the timbral character is changed.

Fabric (ca. 1917): Within each measure in 2/4 time, three contrapuntal lines weave a texture of contrasting rhythms, dividing the whole two beats into 6 parts along with 3 parts and 8 parts in the other voices; or other combinations such as 7 to 5 to 8 parts, or 6 to 4 to 9 parts. Cowell used his own notation (various note heads) which indicated these divisions by the part of a whole note they represent, not by the usual subdivisions by halves (i.e. whole, half, quarter, eighth) which becomes confusing when odd numbers such as half-note triplets are to be represented. Cowell proposed 2/3 notes, 4/5 notes, etc.

An antinomy is a contradiction between principles each taken to be true, says Webster's. In Antinomy (ca. 1914) it occurs between clashing forearm clusters in chromatic and tonal scale passages, polyharmonic passages between hands and among curiously contrasting passages in this cemented structure.

The Trumpet of Angus Og (ca. 1922) contains hand platches on the white keys, clusters outlining the interval of a fifth, much as a child first handles the keyboard. Cowell subtitled the piece The Spirit of Youth.

The Banshee (ca. 1923), Irish haunt, wails and moans at the coming of death. These sounds, believe it or not, come from the rubbing of finger tips, scraping of finger nails and strumming of fingers and flat of hand along the windings of the bass strings inside the piano, plus an occasional string pluck in the middle range. The damper pedal is being held throughout-here by Güngör Bozkurt.

Maestoso (1938, published 1940 in New Music Edition, recorded here for the first time) uses secundal harmony as an inner voice, played by the fingers between outer octaves in the treble. The piece is a seldom example of Cowell's use of small clusters with finger technique, and a pointer for the direction his music took in later years away from the mystical muddiness of broad piles of massed seconds.

The Lilt of the Reel (ca. 1928) uses forearm and palm clusters as fattened tonal chords. As in the Irish dance, the music hurries and slows at points, but reverts always to the steady whirling 6/8. – Notes by DORIS HAYS

*In the titling and publication of his compositions Henry Cowell sometimes used John Varian's fanciful images for those listeners who required a programmatic association for his sound structures. John Varian's descriptions are quoted here by the kind permission of Associated Music Publishers Inc.

Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Doris Hays lived in Chattanooga until she was 21. Her earliest serious music study was with Harold Cadek in Chattanooga. Other teachers included Friedrich Wührer, Hedwig Bilgram and Oskar Koebel at the Munich Hochschule für Musik where she studied from 1963 to 1966 on a fellowship from the Bavarian Ministry of Culture. She also studied with Paul Badura-Skoda at the University of Wisconsin as a Zella Armstrong Fellow for Advanced Music Study. She discovered Henry Cowell while looking through the library of Ellsworth Snyder in Madison, Wisconsin, in 1967, and has been playing Cowell's piano music in her concerts ever since.

In 1971 she won First Prize in the Inter- national Competition for Interpreters of, New Music at Rotterdam. She has given many concerts for broadcasting stations and festivals in Holland, Germany, Italy and Yugoslavia, including the Como Festival, the Gaudeamus Composers' Week, and the May Festival with the Residence Orchestra at The Hague. Her performances in the United States include concerts on a number of university campuses, and lecture-recitals about repertoire and playing techniques of contemporary piano music.

She taught at the University of Wisconsin, Cornell .College, and Queens College of CUNY. In the autumn of 1975, she was Artist in Residence with the Georgia Council for the Arts. Doris Hays is also active as a composer and in 1976 organized and co-directed a concert series at the New School for Social Research in New York, called "Meet the Woman Composer." Since 1969 she has made her home in New York City.

Side One

1. THE VOICE OF LIR (4:29) 

2. ADVERTISEMENT (1:35) 

3. ANGER DANCE (1:33)
4. AMIABLE CONVERSATION (0:49) 

5. THE TIDES OF MANAUNAUN (3:00) 

6. AEOLIAN HARP (2:20) 

7. THE HERO SUN (3:40)
8. TIGER (3:14)
9. SIX INGS (8:05) a. Floating
   b. Frisking c. Fleeting d. Scooting
   e. Wafting
   f. Seething

Side Two

1. DYNAMIC MOTION (3:30) 

2. THE HARP OF LIFE (5:20) 

3. WHAT'S THIS? (0:51)
4. SINISTER RESONANCE (2:55) 

5. FABRIC (1:18)
6. ANTINOMY (3:20)
7. THE TRUMPET OF ANGUS OG (3:40)
8. THE BANSHEE (3:20)
9. MAESTOSO (3:32)
10. THE LILT OF THE REEL (1:55)

American Contemporary /Chifara / Cowell - Mirecourt Trio

 

Chihara / Cowell

American Contemporary

Chihara Trio - Elegy

Cowell - Hymn and Fuguring Tune No. 9

Gravely and Vigorously

Mirecourt Trio

Cover by Judith Lerner

Recorded by Alan Leichtling, February and October, 1977 at Herrick Chapell, Grinnell College

CRI 386 STEREO

1977

From the back cover:  PAUL CHIHARA PIANO TRIO ELEGY

Mirecourt Trio (Kenneth Goldsmith, violin; Terry King, cello; John Jensen, piano)

PAUL SEIKO CHIHARA was born in Seattle in 1938. His music education began at the age of eight with piano and violin lessons, and he began composing soon thereafter. He studied with Robert Palmer at Cornell, with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, and Gunther Schuller for three summers at Tanglewood. He has received numerous awards and prizes, including a Fulbright Fellowship (to Berlin), Lili Boulanger Memorial Award, and Guggenheim, National Endowment for the Arts, and Fromm Foundation grants. His music has been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, New Philharmonia Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony, American Symphony, Houston Symphony, Roger Wagner Chorale, and the San Francisco Ballet. In addition, Chihara has com- posed for movies and television, including the feature, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden. He writes:

"This PIANO TRIO was composed in 1974 for the Mirecourt Trio, who first performed it at Carnegie Recital Hall on February 3, 1975. The ELEGY, which is intended as a companion piece to the TRIO, was written in memory of my father, who gave me my first violin lesson, and encouraged me to be a musician."

HENRY COWELL

HYMN AND FUGUING TUNE NO. 9 (1950) FOUR DECLAMATIONS WITH RETURN (1949) Terry King, cello; John Jensen, plano

GRAVELY AND VIGOROUSLY (In Memory JFK) (1963)

Terry King, cello

HENRY COWELL (1897-1965) was a major creative force in music, and his compositions covered the entire gamut of musi- cal experience. Cowell's esthetic was that of a pre-romantic, and he was never dedicated to any single musical style or technique. Said Cowell, "I want to live in the whole world of music! ... I have never deliberately concerned myself with developing a distinctive 'personal' style, but only with the excitement and pleasure of writing music as beautifully, as warmly, and as interestingly as I can... If a man has a distinctive personality of his own, I don't see how he can keep it out of his music. And if he hasn't, how can he put it in?"

This recording contains Cowell's only available cello works. The HYMN AND FUGUING TUNE is the 9th in his series of neo-baroque compositions conceived as "something slow followed by something fast." The specific musical materials came from the British Isles via rural American hymnody. Cowell combines the modal style of the ballad tunes that were appropriated for hymns with the fuguing idea associated with Billings and other colonial American composers.

The 4 DECLAMATIONS WITH RETURN is a miniature decla- ration of spontaneous pleasure in the beautiful Guarnerius cello acquired by Seymour Barab in 1949. Barab spent an evening demonstrating the instrument's special beauties and difficulties to several friends, most of them composers. Lou Harrison gleefully wrote a piece designed to "sound" only on this particular instrument, a piece that he declared would be unimpressive or even impossible on any other; most of the other composers wrote cello pieces for Barab soon thereafter, too. Henry Cowell wrote this one that same evening, for Barab to play with their friend William Masselos. The composition is one of tremendous chromatic dissonance and explores the lush sonorities of the cello. The first three declamations are quite lyrical, the fourth is a gigue-like section while the Return is an exact intervallic retrograde of the first three declamations, though the rhythm is changed.

GRAVELY AND VIGOROUSLY is for unaccompanied cello. Mrs. Cowell writes:

"Word of President Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963 reached Mr. Cowell late in the day because he never played the radio. It seems to have sent him at once to score paper and pen in the New York City apartment. The streets were empty and the city was literally silent. A sad little sign on the grocery door said: 'Pres. ded. Gone home.'

"Mr. Cowell's interest in politics was slight but he had met President Kennedy several times and he fully appreciated the importance of the Kennedys' interest in the arts, unprecedented in the White House and long overdue in a 20th century government. We had been part of that golden evening when American music was honored by invitations from the President and Mrs. Kennedy to representative American composers, conductors and critics to a formal dinner made uniquely memorable by the generous playing of Pablo Casals that followed.

"To Mr. Cowell the invitation meant that his lifelong struggle for the recognition of contemporary composers was acquiring allies in an unexpectedly powerful quarter. The occasion was festive and brilliant. That the radiant enjoyment of life the Ken- nedys showed that night could be so suddenly extinguished is a painful shock still today.

"During that long November afternoon Mr. Cowell fiddled in- expertly from time to time with our tiny radio in the fruitless hope that the news would be contradicted. He worked on his piece into the small hours of the morning, which is why it bears the date "November 23rd," since he normally dated a piece (when he dated it at all) from the day he finished it.

"His first idea was to give the music a place as No. 17 in his series of hymns with fuguing tunes, since it is written in that two-movement slow-fast form and owes something to the style of early American folk hymnody. But the publishers felt it should not be part of a series and in the end its title was taken from the headings of the movements: GRAVELY for present shock and grief, VIGOROUSLY for the most visible quality of a man the composer liked, admired, and always mourned. The next Hymn and Fuguing Tune (which turned out to be the last of the series) was numbered 18; No. 17 never was written. Mr. Cowell sent the manuscript to Mrs. Kennedy as an expression of sympathy written in the language he knew best. The holograph is among the papers in the Kennedy Library.

"GRAVELY AND VIGOROUSLY was for several years played in unison by the cello section of the BBC Symphony in London, to honor the memory of President Kennedy on the anniversary of his death."

THE MIRECOURT TRIO was formed in 1973. It is in residence at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa.

Kenneth Goldsmith studied violin with Mischa Mischakoff, William Kroll and Nathan Milstein, and graduated from Stanford University. He has been a member of the American Arts Quartet, Group for Contemporary Music, Fromm Quartet, Festival of the Two Worlds (Spoleto), Casals Festival, and, most recently, the world-renowned Mirecourt Trio. TERRY KING, one of the country's finest cellists, was a protégé of Gregor Piatigorsky and served as his assistant in the master class at the University of Southern California. His famed teacher joined him in a duo concert last spring in one of the master's last concerts. The New York Times recently proclaimed that King's playing "could not be faulted... playing with relish and technical aplomb." Many prominent American composers have written works for King as well as entrusted him with their premieres, among them Roy Harris, Virgil Thomson, and Halsey Stevens. King is presently (1977) Artist-in-Residence at Grinnell College with the Mirecourt Trio. John Jensen studied piano with John Crown and Gwendolyn Koldofsky at the University of Southern California. He has toured as accompanist for several artists under the auspices of Com- munity Concerts, and is active as a jazz theorist and pianist. He has three solo albums of traditional and ragtime jazz on Genesis Records, and has appeared on the Andy Williams show and at centers of serious jazz in Southern California.

Music From The University Of Illinois - American Contemporary

 

Music From The University Of Illinois

American Contemporary

Music From The University Of Illinois

The University of Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players

Fredrickson - Triptych

Johnston - Duo for Flute and Bass

London - Psalm of These Days III

Zonn - Gemini – Fantasy

Produced by Carter Harman

Recorded by Jeff Wimsatt and Rex Anderson, at the University of Illinois

Cover by Judith Lerner

CRI 405 STEREO

1979

From the back cover:  

EDWIN LONDON

PSALM OF THESE DAYS III

1. Why do the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing?

2. Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us.

3. Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling.

EDWIN LONDON (b. Philadelphia, 1929) studied at the Ober- lin Conservatory (French horn) and the University of Iowa. His composition teachers were P.G. Clapp, Phillip Bezanson, Luigi Dallapiccola and Darius Milhaud. During his duty as faculty member at Smith College (1960-68) he conducted the Smith- Amherst Orchestra and the Amherst Community Opera. At the University of Illinois from 1968-78 he was chairman of the Composition – Theory Division where he founded and directed Ineluctable Modality and conducted the Contemporary Chamber Players. He was a University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study fellow in 1969, a Guggenheim Fellow in 1970, a four-time fellow of the MacDowell Colony and recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. In 1978 he became chairman of the music department, Cleveland State University. He writes:

"PSALM OF THESE DAYS III is the centerpiece in a cycle of five works which deal in a variety of religious experiences. All are based on biblical Psalm texts. Each of five segments deals with a different instrumental combination and posture, as well as an assortment of vocal approaches and attitudes.

"PSALM OF THESE DAYS I-Psalm 34:1 I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth – set for mezzo, women's chorus, kazoos, flute, and string quartet.

"PSALM OF THESE DAYS II - Uses Psalm 131 in its entirety and concerns itself with the struggle of a computer programmed to speak, in its progress toward religious enlightenment, and is scored for four solo virtuoso singers.

"PSALM OF THESE DAYS IV-Psalm 47:6, Sing praises to God, sing praises unto our king, sing praises. Written for clarinetist, Phil Rehfeldt and reciter-composer Barney Childs with tape.

"PSALM OF THESE DAYS V – in progress.

"PSALM OF THESE DAYS III-lines from Psalm 2 traffics in the desire to make first rate instrumentalists sing as well as play. Commissioned by the University of Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players.

"It has been asserted that the condition most characteristic of the age is paranoia. Without the constraints traditionally imposed by institutional religion and/or the agencies of social organization, the use of guilt mechanisms to guard and guide the psyche's development has been effectively neutralized. As Brecht and Weill suggest in Mahagonny, something is missing in societies where anything goes and everything is allowed. In the absence of this something. 'voices' appear to occupy the vacuum created. These 'voices,' raging and mumbling, are the resultant of our own energies run amok in search of significance."

Performed by: John Fonville, flute; Paul Martin Zonn, clarinet/vocal quartet; Ray Sasaki, trumpet; James Staley, trombone/vocal quartet; Daniel Perantoni, tuba/vocal quartet: Don Baker, percussion; Arthur Maddox, piano; Guillermo Perich, viola; Thomas Fredrickson, doublebass/vocal quartet; Edwin London, conductor/vocal solo.

BEN JOHNSTON

DUO

BEN JOHNSTON (b. Macon, Georgia, 1926) holds degrees from William and Mary College, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and Mills College. He joined the faculty of the University of Illinois in 1951, and currently serves as Professor of Composition and Theory. Among his works which have been widely performed are Knocking Piece for piano interior and two percussionists and String Quartet No. 2 (recorded on Nonesuch by the Composers String Quartet). His widely diversified commissions include Eleazar de Corvalho, former conductor of the St. Louis Symphony, (Quintet for Groups, 1967). The Swingle Singers commissioned (Ci-Git Satie), the ETC Company of La Mama of New York (his opera Carmilla, 1970) and recorded by them on Vanguard, the Smithsonian Institution (two commissions: for a film score and for a sound environment), the Polish Radio (Strata). Among the honors he has received are a Guggenheim Fellowship (1959), a grant from the National Council on the Arts and the Humanities (1966), and Associate Membership in the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study (1966). Sonata for Microtonal Piano is part of New World Records' Anthology of American Music. He writes:

"The DUO for flute and string bass was written for Bertram and Nancy Turetzky in April, 1963. It is in three short movements: Prelude, Interim, and Flight. The pitch organization of all three movements is serial, being based on twelve-tone rows made up of combinatorial hexachords. The two rows used in the outer movements are both shown, during the second movement, to be derived from a simpler row composed of symmetrically arranged segments. A cadenza near the end of the last movement again interconnects the thematic material. Especially in the first two movements, many of the pitches are inflected microtonally. The rhythmic texture of the first movement is polyrhythmic, that of the second based upon proportional durations, and that of the last movement composed of changing metric patterns and proportional tempi."

Performed by: John Fonville, flute; Thomas Fredrickson, doublebass.

PAUL ZONN

GEMINI-FANTASY FOR OBOE AND SIX PLAYERS

PAUL MARTIN ZONN (b. Boston, 1938), composer, conductor, clarinetist, teacher, scholar is an important figure on the new music frontier in the midwest, performing regularly throughout the musical centers. His musical activities have won him awards and honors that include two Ford Foundation Humanities Fel- lowships, a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Center for Creative and Performing Arts at SUNY Buffalo, an award from the National Endowment for the Arts, an appointment to the University of Illinois Center for Advanced Study, an ACA recording award (CRI SD 299), and numerous commissions. He has been on the faculty of Grinnell College, and since 1970 a member of the com- position faculty of the University of Illinois where he served as the theory-composition division chairman between 1972 and 1976 and where he conducts the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble and performs with and conducts the Contemporary Chamber Players. He writes: "GEMINI-FANTASY is one of many compositions written to celebrate the artistry and virtuosity of oboist Wilma Zonn. Simultaneously it espouses personal musical ideas about staticity and collateral sonorities. The music divides into that which is fixed and that which is mobile or modular, although for this recording (and in any performance) the mobile material also becomes fixed. The last section of music is recapitulatory and coda-like. GEMINI-FANTASY is dedicated to Harold Gomberg, who was Wilma's teacher and a great influence on both of us."

Performed by: Wilma Zonn, oboe; Ray Sasaki, trumpet; Daniel Perantoni, tuba; Don Baker, percussion; Arthur Maddox, piano; Guillermo Perich, viola; Thomas Fredrickson, dou- blebass; Paul Martin Zonn, conductor.

THOMAS FREDRICKSON

TRIPTYCH

THOMAS FREDRICKSON (b. Kane, Pennsylvania, 1928) holds degrees from Ohio Wesleyan University and the University of Illinois and studied composition with Tilden Wells, Hubert Kessler and Burrill Phillips. He served as Director of the School of Music of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign from 1970 to 1974, and since then as professor of composition and theory. He has composed extensively in a variety of styles and media and is active as a double bassist in symphonic, chamber and jazz ensembles. He is one of the founders of the University of Illinois Contemporary Chamber Players. His compositions written for this group are among his most widely-played works. He writes:

"TRIPTYCH (1977), for oboe, viola, trumpet, and bass trom- bone, is in three movements. The musical analog of a triptych, i.e., a painting with a central panel and two flanking panels that fold over it, is achieved only in concert performance, when the second movement is played spatially with a player in each corner of the stage. An inner triptych results as the main section of the middle movement is preceded and succeeded by brief streams of eight-part harmony. The first movement concerns itself with alternating sections of free and strict time and the third with rates of motion."

Performed by: Wilma Zonn, oboe; Ray Sasaki, trumpet, James Staley, trombone; Guillermo Perich, viola.

WILMA ZONN is a well-known performer of the most difficult contemporary music. She has been featured soloist in Festivals of Music in Hawaii, Las Vegas, Chicago, Tanglewood and Urbana, to name a few. Her career has included a stint as solo oboist of the Oregon Symphony as well as teaching duties at the University of lowa, University of Portland and University of IIlinois. She has recorded on CRI 299, Ubres, and Advance.

JOHN FONVILLE has given numerous solo and chamber per- formances, and has performed extensively with the U. of Illinois. Contemporary Chamber Players. He is presently (1979) engaged with the Syracuse Society for New Music, and teaches at the State University of New York at Oswego.

Beauty Shop Beat - The Clark Sisters

 

Fly Kentucky Baby

Beauty Shop Beat

The Clark Sisters

Coral Records CRL 57290

1959

From the back cover: Clark Sisters. Hardly anything more can be said about these fabulous girls that hasn't been said before; – suffice it to say that they reached stardom with the great Tommy Dorsey orchestra as the Sentimentalists, and that their recordings of "CHICAGO" and "SUNNY SIDE OF THE STREET" with Tommy are among the greatest vocal records ever made. Their stint with Tommy was unusually rewarding in that he, as one of the greatest instrumentalists of our time, taught them to control their breathing for tone, to phrase as he phrased, and to let the words tell the story. These added qualities were to become as invaluable to the girls as they have become to other great singers who came from the Dorsey band and went on to scale the heights on their own. Along with coaching from so eminent a teacher, they also had the opportunity to work with Si Oliver whose wonderful arrangements of "Chicago" and "Sunny Side" helped them get to the top.

The Clark Sisters are unique in that they are not only gifted singers, but creative singers as well, and they combine their extraordinary vocal talents with rare musicianship to achieve the style and the blending of voices for which they are so well-known.

Breathes there a man, woman or child who doesn't thrill to the sound of fine singers harmonizing the great nostalgic barber-shop ballads and songs? The Clark Sisters think not, for this latest album is indeed a veritable collector's item of some of the best-known of these perennial evergreens, all gussied up in their modern swing fashion, but retaining at all times the rich harmonies and the dignity of the songs themselves which are indeed a valuable part of our American musical heritage. These girls really come on, and the listener will be quick to note the many things which combine to make them the wonderful performers they are; – the warm blend, the perfect intonation, the incredible ensemble range, and the beat. Incidentally, in one of their numbers, "MOONLIGHT MEDLEY" the girls are joined by Papa Clark who got them all started singing, and, take it from an old kitchen basso who has pumped out many a low C to a "Sweet Adeline" or "Whiffenpoof Song," – 'Old Dad' makes it real good!

Bob Bain (and The Players), keen student of all types of popular songs and equally accomplished on all the guitars, was an invaluable member of the team whose talent, ideas and advice were important factors in making this an outstanding performance. Another valuable team-member was Charles Bud Dant – conductor-arranger and musical director.

And now, find an easy chair, grab yourself a barber-shop chord and have yourself a swinging ball as you hear the Clark Sisters romp away with "Beauty Shop Ballads" – They're all dressed up to go swinging and, Man, they're a gas! – Sonny Burke

Oh By Jingo (Oh By Gee, You're The Only Girl For Me)

Play That Barbershop Chord

Goodbye My Coney Island Baby (Arranged and Adapted by C, Dant)

That Old Gang Of Mine

Down By The Old Mill Stream

My Honey, Honey (Arranged and Adapted by Bob Bain)

You Tell Me Your Dream I'll Tell You Mine (Adapted and Arranged by Gus Call & Ann Clark)

Waiting For The Robert E. Lee

Fly, Kentucky Baby (Adaption by G. Call)

Sweet Adeline

Rockin' In The Cradle Of The Deep

Moon Medley: By The Light Of The Silvery Moon (Adaption by C. Dant), Oh Mr. Moon, In The Evening By The Moonlight (Adaption by C. Dant)

Chop Suey Polak - Johnnie Bomba

 

Chop Suey Polka

Chop Suey Polka

With Johnnie Bomba and His Orchestra

Dana DLP 1200

1957

Hot Foot Polka

Polish Hop Polka

That's My Pop Polka

Snappy Polka

Old Fashioned Polka

Brokenhearted Polka

Evening On The Shore Polka

Chop Suey Polka

Bright Eyes Polka

Lazy Farmer Polka

Universal Polka

Indiana Hop Polka

Musica y Castañuelas de Espana - Emma Maleras

 

Musica y Castañuelas de Espana

Musica y Castañuelas de Espana

Emma Maleras y su Balley Espanol

La Voz De Su Amo LCLP 175

1962

Amanecier Granadino

Sevillanas

Las Carretas Del Rocio

Verdialies De Gibraltar

Rumor De Fuente

Las Espigadoras

Zaragozana

La Boda De Luis Alonso

Malagueña's

Rapsodia Valenciana

Lagarteranas

Manolete

Greatest Hits - Hawaii Calls / Webley Edwards

 

Hiilawe

Webley Edwards Presents

Hawaii Calls

Greatest Hits

Newly Recorded in Honolulu with Al Kealoha Perry

Cover Photo: Bob Greene

Capitol Records ST 1339

1960

FEATURED ARTISTS: Webley Edwards, Al Kealoha Perry, Haunani Kahalewai, Ben Kalama, Jules Keliikuihonua Ah See, Nina Kealiiwahamana, James Kaopuiki, Dan Kaleikini, Donald Paishon, John Kamana, Danny K. Stewart, Lani, Alvin Kalanikau Isaacs, Sam Kapu, Sol Kamahele, Charles Kaipo Miller, Randy Oness, George de la Nux, Norman Kaleimanuia Isaacs, Miriam Punini McWayne, Victoria Ii Rodrigues, Iwalani Kamahele, Iwalani Kahalewai, Kanekolia Rodrigues, Edward Shonk, Tomo Fukui, Leilani Whitmarsh, Puanani Watson.

From the back cover: Fifty thousand people helped select the songs for this album!

And a mighty chorus of Hawaiian voices sings them-the largest group of the best singers ever assembled in the Islands for a recording.

Here are fine old Hawaiian songs, some richly dramatic, some haunting and dreamy – ballads and love songs with all the romance of a moonlit night by a shining ocean, vigorous rhythms of war song and hula, and a touch of the Hawaiians' own quiet comedy.

These are the greatest hits of Hawaiian music, as chosen by an extensive poll of listeners and mainland visitors to Webley Edwards' famous "Hawaii Calls" weekly radio programs from the Beach at Waikiki –– one of the oldest of all nationwide network broadcasts of the United States and Canada, heard on several other continents as well.

The big chorus, instrumentalists, and soloists were all chosen from among the leading entertainment groups along Waikiki Beach. Many of them are recording stars in their own right.

They sang together for many weeks to get a full choral effect in the old authentic Hawaiian style, yet with a new sound. Their delight and enthusiasm during the recording were unusual even in Hawaii, where recording sessions are notable for informality and for the enjoyment that Hawaiians always seem to get from their own singing. Summed up: An unusual Hawaiian chorus, singing unusual new arrangements of authentic Hawaiian song favorites.

SIDE ONE

Blue Hawaii One of the greatest of all Hawaiian ballads, in a fresh new arrangement featuring Haunani Kahalewai (the girl who sings like a baritone) and the steel guitar of Jules Keliikuihonua Ah See.

Hiilawe An authentic Hawaiian rhythm that sounds surprisingly modern, with Hawaiian slack key guitar and the interesting sounds of ipu gourd, split bamboo pu-ili, and pahu drum. James Kaopuiki is the soloist.

Hawaiian Wedding Song (Ke Kali Nei Au -"I Am Waiting for Thee") The number-one all-time favorite Island song, presented in a full-chorus arrangement for the first time. The fresh young voices of Nina Kealiiwa- hamana and Donald Paishon are featured in this great love duet.

Beyond The Reef A modern Hawaiian love song that is so much a part of Hawaiian music it is often mistaken for a folk song. Ben Kalama is the soloist.

The Hukilau Song A favorite of mainland visitors to Hawaii because it is an easy one for "learning to do the hula." The hukilau (literally, "pull the leaves") is a fishing party, often staged by an entire village; leaves are attached to the long net to keep the fish moving shoreward. Dan Kaleikini solos.

Song of The Islands (Na Lei O Hawaii) One of the best-known Hawaiian standards, performed here with the authentic words and music, but in a full choral arrangement that is entirely new.

SIDE TWO

Lovely Hula Hands An unusual blending of love ballad and perfect hula tempo, high on everybody's list of favorite Hawaiian songs. Ben Kalama stars, with assistance from little Nina Kealiiwahamana.

Hawaiian War Chant (Ta-hu-wa-hu-wai) Drums and chanters in solid Hawaiian rhythm, with a surprising variation: the singers at times actually use the off-tempo beat of Polynesian drum style in their sing- ing. Dan Kaleikini and John Kamana have the lead parts.

King's Serenade (Imu Au Ia Oe) The theme motif of the motion picture Bird of Para- dise, this has remained a haunting Hawaiian favorite for many long years. Jules Ah See's steel guitar is featured, against the back- ground sound of the waves of Waikiki.

Mama's Muu-Muu One of the top comedy songs of Hawaii (of which, surprisingly, there are many!). Solo passages are by James Kaopuiki, Ben Kalama, and Jules Ah See.

Sweet Leilani The Island song that never grows old, in an outstanding new arrange- ment for the big Hawaiian chorus, with the solo voice of Nina Kealiiwahamana.

Aloha Oe Hawaii's famous Farewell Song, richly sung by Haunani Kahalewai and a chorus of twenty-four voices.