The Contemporary Piano Project - Vol. III
Francis Throne: Sonata
Loren Rush: Hexahedron
Arthur Custer: Found Objects No. 7
The Pianist: Dwight Peltzer
Album Produced by Mullen Boyd
The PIANO SONATA was commissioned by compo- ser-pianist Robert Helps in 1972, but due to a hand injury sustained by Mr. Helps the premiere was performed, instead, by John De Main in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1975. It received its New York premiere in 1976 by Dwight Peltzer, who has also played it extensively on tour in the United States and Europe. It is cast in four move- ments, each of a special character; a brief description of the move- ments follows:
1. A study in contrasts, shifting tempos, dynamics and col- ors, and becoming quiet and more lyric in character toward the end.
2. A fast, brilliant study featuring an eighth note quasi-ostinato in the right hand in the middle range of the piano, while the left hand skips back and forth making a striking visual display.
3. A very slow, free movement in rhapsodic style, marked Adagio Cantabile, building to a large climax in the middle and becoming very slow and dreamlike at the end..
4. A fast toccata movement with a subtle rhythmic underpinning that is reminiscent of bossa nova. The movement grows re-. lentlessly in power and weight as it builds to loud, fast octave pas- sages. The Sonata calls for a performer of extreme virtuosity.
FRANCIS THORNE was born in Bay Shore, N. Y. in 1922, of a musical family. His maternal grandfather, Gustave Kobbe, was the au- thor of an important reference book on opera, his stockbroker fa- ther was an accomplished ragtime planist, so that he was exposed to a wide range of musical influences in his youth.
He was graduated from Yale University where he studied composition under Paul Hindemith for two years; but this experience was so unfortunate that he did not attempt to write music for fifteen years thereafter. Meanwhile he was a naval officer for four years, a credit analyst for the Bankers Trust Company and a stockbroker. After nine years in business he resigned to study piano and composition; and shortly thereafter he began a long engagement at the famous Hickory House in Manhattan. During this period he made a number of television appearances with a small jazz group and was the producer of the Great South Bay Jazz Festival.
Francis Thorne's music has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Denver Symphony and numerous other orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the western hemisphere. His catalogue includes three symphonies, two piano concertos, three string quartets, an opera, three sets of orchestral variations, many works for solo voice and solo instruments with and without accompaniment. The St. Paul Chamber orchestra has introduced his 2nd Piano Concerto and his Violin Concerto recently under Dennis Russell Davies, Thorne has received many awards and commissions including those of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the New York State Council on the Arts, etc. Besides his compositorial activities he has always been a friend of the composer and in this guise has been instrumental in securing awards and commissions for composers other than himself. In 1975 he was chosen to be president of the American Composers Alliance, an association of composers of contemporary music, banded together in common interest. His music reveals his familiarity not only with the usual Francis Thorne continued:
traditional sources but his intimacy with the popular music of his era, the people's music that has been both root and fountainhead of all art music since its very beginning.
LOREN RUSH; HEXAHEDRON
Enter a garden by one of several entrances. Definite boundaries exist. One path may lead by a brook, another by a tree, another by a glade so the choice of the path is significant. A view of the total garden will depend on the paths taken; the view thus varies, although the garden structure is constant. "Hexahedron," written in 1963-64 for Dwight Peltzer, is similar, One concern was to develop a musical structure which remains constant, although our perception of it might vary considerably from performance to performance depending on the paths chosen by the performer.
For the first several performances the music was printed on a large cube, a "hexahedron," which, with its six related surfaces, provided more paths than would have been practical by more ordinary formats. The problems of portability and reproduction, how- ever, were resolved only with the belated discovery of index tabs- the present format.
There are six contrasting "events, " each defined and characterized by specific compositional details and divided into four sections. To begin, the performer plays any one of the twenty-four event- sections. He then proceeds to another event-section with index tabs according to choices printed at the end of the event-section just played. The choice will be: (-) continue with the next section of the same event; (t) turn to a contrasting event-section which has already influenced the event-section just played; or (+) turn to a contrasting event-section which will show the influence of the event section just played. This procedure of choice between continuity and two types of contrast continues until the performer has played any event-section a second time, which concludes the performance.
The total duration for all the material printed is about twenty-four minutes. However, not all four twenty-four event-sections can be played before duplication occurs; so any one performance is most likely to last from seven to fourteen minutes.
The first performance was given by Dwight Peltzer at Hertz Hall, University of California, Berkeley, November 15, 1964,
LOREN RUSH was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He began the study of piano at the age of six and gradually extended his instru- mental studies to include bassoon, contrabass, percussion and koto. His principal teacher of composition was Robert Erickson, with whom he spent six years of intensive study. He has also studied composition with Charles Cushing, William Denny, Andrew Imbrie, Wendell Otey, Seymour Shifrin, Leland Smith, Karlheinz Stockhausen; and computer music with John Chowning. His academic studies include San Francisco State University, the University of Califor- nia at Berkeley, and Stanford University where he received a doc- toral degree in 1969.
He has been awarded a number of fellowships and prizes including the University of California's Prix de Paris, the Rome Prize of the Loren Rush - continued:
American Academy in Rome, an Institute of Arts and Letters A- ward, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and grants from the National En- dowment for the Arts. His music has been performed by the Ars-. Nova Ensemble of Paris, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, members of the New York Philharmonic, Die Reihe Ensemble of Vienna, the Rome Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco New Music Ensemble and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Currently, Dr. Rush is co-director of the Center of Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford where, with funding sup- port from the National Science Foundation and the National Endow- ment for the Arts, musicians with a variety of backgrounds, including computer sciences, psychology, electrical engineering and music composition, use the large computer system of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory as both a research tool and a musical instrument.
ARTHUR CUSTER: FOUND OBJECTS NO.7
FOUND OBJECTS NO. 7 is one of a series of pieces for instruments and pre-recorded tape. It was written for Dwight Peltzer, friend, colleague and fellow adventurer in the world of exploration. Dwight's piano sounds are used in the tape component, along with synthesized and "concrete" sounds. The various source materials are selected, manipulated, and organized to form an integrated, complementary partner to the live performance.
The interplay between the live and tape components has been deve- loped on a time line. For performance, a stopwatch is needed for some of the cues. Other cues are derived by the performer from the tape. Indications of elapsed time are given periodically in the score.
FOUND OBJECTS NO.7 is a dramatic piece. It is about conflict and identity. These elements are manifested in the dialogue be- tween piano and tape, which undergoes a number of expressive per- mutations. Dwight Peltzer gave the first performance at Compo- sers Theatre in New York on April 4, 1974. Thus far Serenus has issued, on SRS 12045 The Music of Arthur Custer, Vol. 3, the following "Found Objects":
No. 5 for 5 Instruments and Tape (cl., trpt., trb., vln., cb)
No. 8 for Violin and Tape (Daniel Kobialka, violin)
No. 6 for Flute and Tape (Marjorie Shansky, flute)
No. 3 for Contrabass and Tape (Bert Turetzky, contrabass)
ARTHUR CUSTER was born in Manchester, Connecticut, on April 21, 1923. He is a graduate of the University of Connecticut (B.A.). with graduate studies at the University of Redlands (M, Mus.) and Doctoral Studies at the University of Iowa (Ph.D.). He has stu- died composition privately with Paul Pisk,Philip Bezanson and Nadia Boulanger. As composer he has written works in all genres, large orchestral works and works for solo instruments, works for chorus and for solo voice, works for performance in all areas: not only for the concert and recital hall but for documentary films and tele- vision as well. He has also held a number of most important admiministrative posts and his writings appear often in those publications dedicated to the interests of music both as art and education. Interested parties should refer to his Serenus Recorded Editions The Music of ARTHUR CUSTER - Vols. I, II and III for more extensive notes on his career.
Cover Design: Virginia Smith
Serenus Corporation SRS 12071
From the back cover: COMPOSERS' NOTES - FRANCIS THORNE: PIANO SONATA
Serenus Corporation SRS 12071
From the back cover: COMPOSERS' NOTES - FRANCIS THORNE: PIANO SONATA
The PIANO SONATA was commissioned by compo- ser-pianist Robert Helps in 1972, but due to a hand injury sustained by Mr. Helps the premiere was performed, instead, by John De Main in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1975. It received its New York premiere in 1976 by Dwight Peltzer, who has also played it extensively on tour in the United States and Europe. It is cast in four move- ments, each of a special character; a brief description of the move- ments follows:
1. A study in contrasts, shifting tempos, dynamics and col- ors, and becoming quiet and more lyric in character toward the end.
2. A fast, brilliant study featuring an eighth note quasi-ostinato in the right hand in the middle range of the piano, while the left hand skips back and forth making a striking visual display.
3. A very slow, free movement in rhapsodic style, marked Adagio Cantabile, building to a large climax in the middle and becoming very slow and dreamlike at the end..
4. A fast toccata movement with a subtle rhythmic underpinning that is reminiscent of bossa nova. The movement grows re-. lentlessly in power and weight as it builds to loud, fast octave pas- sages. The Sonata calls for a performer of extreme virtuosity.
FRANCIS THORNE was born in Bay Shore, N. Y. in 1922, of a musical family. His maternal grandfather, Gustave Kobbe, was the au- thor of an important reference book on opera, his stockbroker fa- ther was an accomplished ragtime planist, so that he was exposed to a wide range of musical influences in his youth.
He was graduated from Yale University where he studied composition under Paul Hindemith for two years; but this experience was so unfortunate that he did not attempt to write music for fifteen years thereafter. Meanwhile he was a naval officer for four years, a credit analyst for the Bankers Trust Company and a stockbroker. After nine years in business he resigned to study piano and composition; and shortly thereafter he began a long engagement at the famous Hickory House in Manhattan. During this period he made a number of television appearances with a small jazz group and was the producer of the Great South Bay Jazz Festival.
Francis Thorne's music has been performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic, the Denver Symphony and numerous other orchestras and chamber ensembles throughout the western hemisphere. His catalogue includes three symphonies, two piano concertos, three string quartets, an opera, three sets of orchestral variations, many works for solo voice and solo instruments with and without accompaniment. The St. Paul Chamber orchestra has introduced his 2nd Piano Concerto and his Violin Concerto recently under Dennis Russell Davies, Thorne has received many awards and commissions including those of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the New York State Council on the Arts, etc. Besides his compositorial activities he has always been a friend of the composer and in this guise has been instrumental in securing awards and commissions for composers other than himself. In 1975 he was chosen to be president of the American Composers Alliance, an association of composers of contemporary music, banded together in common interest. His music reveals his familiarity not only with the usual Francis Thorne continued:
traditional sources but his intimacy with the popular music of his era, the people's music that has been both root and fountainhead of all art music since its very beginning.
LOREN RUSH; HEXAHEDRON
Enter a garden by one of several entrances. Definite boundaries exist. One path may lead by a brook, another by a tree, another by a glade so the choice of the path is significant. A view of the total garden will depend on the paths taken; the view thus varies, although the garden structure is constant. "Hexahedron," written in 1963-64 for Dwight Peltzer, is similar, One concern was to develop a musical structure which remains constant, although our perception of it might vary considerably from performance to performance depending on the paths chosen by the performer.
For the first several performances the music was printed on a large cube, a "hexahedron," which, with its six related surfaces, provided more paths than would have been practical by more ordinary formats. The problems of portability and reproduction, how- ever, were resolved only with the belated discovery of index tabs- the present format.
There are six contrasting "events, " each defined and characterized by specific compositional details and divided into four sections. To begin, the performer plays any one of the twenty-four event- sections. He then proceeds to another event-section with index tabs according to choices printed at the end of the event-section just played. The choice will be: (-) continue with the next section of the same event; (t) turn to a contrasting event-section which has already influenced the event-section just played; or (+) turn to a contrasting event-section which will show the influence of the event section just played. This procedure of choice between continuity and two types of contrast continues until the performer has played any event-section a second time, which concludes the performance.
The total duration for all the material printed is about twenty-four minutes. However, not all four twenty-four event-sections can be played before duplication occurs; so any one performance is most likely to last from seven to fourteen minutes.
The first performance was given by Dwight Peltzer at Hertz Hall, University of California, Berkeley, November 15, 1964,
LOREN RUSH was born in Los Angeles in 1935. He began the study of piano at the age of six and gradually extended his instru- mental studies to include bassoon, contrabass, percussion and koto. His principal teacher of composition was Robert Erickson, with whom he spent six years of intensive study. He has also studied composition with Charles Cushing, William Denny, Andrew Imbrie, Wendell Otey, Seymour Shifrin, Leland Smith, Karlheinz Stockhausen; and computer music with John Chowning. His academic studies include San Francisco State University, the University of Califor- nia at Berkeley, and Stanford University where he received a doc- toral degree in 1969.
He has been awarded a number of fellowships and prizes including the University of California's Prix de Paris, the Rome Prize of the Loren Rush - continued:
American Academy in Rome, an Institute of Arts and Letters A- ward, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and grants from the National En- dowment for the Arts. His music has been performed by the Ars-. Nova Ensemble of Paris, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, members of the New York Philharmonic, Die Reihe Ensemble of Vienna, the Rome Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco New Music Ensemble and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Currently, Dr. Rush is co-director of the Center of Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford where, with funding sup- port from the National Science Foundation and the National Endow- ment for the Arts, musicians with a variety of backgrounds, including computer sciences, psychology, electrical engineering and music composition, use the large computer system of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory as both a research tool and a musical instrument.
ARTHUR CUSTER: FOUND OBJECTS NO.7
FOUND OBJECTS NO. 7 is one of a series of pieces for instruments and pre-recorded tape. It was written for Dwight Peltzer, friend, colleague and fellow adventurer in the world of exploration. Dwight's piano sounds are used in the tape component, along with synthesized and "concrete" sounds. The various source materials are selected, manipulated, and organized to form an integrated, complementary partner to the live performance.
The interplay between the live and tape components has been deve- loped on a time line. For performance, a stopwatch is needed for some of the cues. Other cues are derived by the performer from the tape. Indications of elapsed time are given periodically in the score.
FOUND OBJECTS NO.7 is a dramatic piece. It is about conflict and identity. These elements are manifested in the dialogue be- tween piano and tape, which undergoes a number of expressive per- mutations. Dwight Peltzer gave the first performance at Compo- sers Theatre in New York on April 4, 1974. Thus far Serenus has issued, on SRS 12045 The Music of Arthur Custer, Vol. 3, the following "Found Objects":
No. 5 for 5 Instruments and Tape (cl., trpt., trb., vln., cb)
No. 8 for Violin and Tape (Daniel Kobialka, violin)
No. 6 for Flute and Tape (Marjorie Shansky, flute)
No. 3 for Contrabass and Tape (Bert Turetzky, contrabass)
ARTHUR CUSTER was born in Manchester, Connecticut, on April 21, 1923. He is a graduate of the University of Connecticut (B.A.). with graduate studies at the University of Redlands (M, Mus.) and Doctoral Studies at the University of Iowa (Ph.D.). He has stu- died composition privately with Paul Pisk,Philip Bezanson and Nadia Boulanger. As composer he has written works in all genres, large orchestral works and works for solo instruments, works for chorus and for solo voice, works for performance in all areas: not only for the concert and recital hall but for documentary films and tele- vision as well. He has also held a number of most important admiministrative posts and his writings appear often in those publications dedicated to the interests of music both as art and education. Interested parties should refer to his Serenus Recorded Editions The Music of ARTHUR CUSTER - Vols. I, II and III for more extensive notes on his career.
