GLASS FARM ENSEMBLE

In Four

Innova 700

TAIMUR SULLIVAN
soprano, tenor,
and baritone saxophone

OREN FADER
electric guitar

MATTHEW GOLD
percussion, marimba, drums

YVONNE TROXLER
piano

1. LOUIS ANDRIESSEN: HOUT (1991)
for tenor saxophone, marimba, guitar and piano

2-4. YVONNE TROXLER : KALEIDOSKOP I-III (2005)*

for tenor saxophone, electric guitar, percussion and piano
5. PETER HERBERT: DEAFENING SILENCE (2005)*

for soprano saxophone, electric guitar, piano and percussion

6. ELIZABETH HOFFMAN: HOLONYMS (2005)*
for soprano saxophone, electric guitar, percussion and piano
7. WOLFGANG HEINIGER: IN FOUR (1995)*

for baritone saxophone, electric guitar, piano and drums
* first recording
Mixed and mastered by Jonathan Schultz.

Tracks 1-5 & 7 recorded at Ovation Sound, Winston-Salem, N.C.,
August 25-28, 2007. Recording and editing by Evan Richey.

Track 6 recorded at RightTrack Studio, New York, N.Y., May 28, 2005.
Recording by Silas Brown and Elizabeth Hoffman. Editing and mixing
by Elizabeth Hoffman.

As each of the works on this disc speaks in the unmistakable voice of its composer, we decided to ask each of the composers to speak directly about his or her music for the liner notes. What follows is taken from conversations and email exchanges that took place during the autumn of 2007.

LOUIS ANDRIESSEN: HOUT (1991)

Hout means wood in Dutch, and the title refers first of all to the marimba and the woodblocks. But the word hout also makes us think of trees, which have branches, and in Dutch the word for branch suggests ramifications. The three instruments entering in close canon after the tenor sax are perceived as ramifications of the melody, and this is a little like how a tree grows.

In the late 1960s I decided not to write for standard ensembles anymore, especially symphony orchestras, but rather for my friends. This decision was not only a musical one but also a political argument. I want to avoid creating a situation in which musicians play my music against their will. When I started building my own ensembles in the early 70s, I was following the model of jazz and pop ensembles. They call their friends and say do you want to play with me, which is essentially an anarchist way of organizing your ensembles, one that for me is the ideal situation.

One of the things I didn’t like in complex avant-garde music is that you would see three or four musicians sitting on a stage, and there would be a conductor conducting. I was quite rigid in the idea of de-hierarchization of musical material in the 70s, 80s, and into the early 90s, which essentially meant, not too many subjects in one piece, and all of the information in all the parts. This tutti writing initially had to do with a political idea about knowledge that I took from the old Russian anarchist Bakunin: that you should not know more than your neighbor.

The influence of jazz is in the articulation—not taka-taka but daba-daba. It sounds very simple but for me, especially in the 70s, this type of articulation was the difference between high-class and low-class music. What we learned then from jazz musicians is that they can do what they want and that means that they can articulate much more loosely, and that is exactly the sound I need for my music.

YVONNE TROXLER: KALEIDOSKOP (2005)

composed for Glass Farm Ensemble

When I started out to write a piece for the Glass Farm Ensemble, it was to write for colleagues with whom I had played for many years, and knew their playing extremely well. This made me want to highlight the incredible sound qualities these instruments have by themselves and especially in this combination.

As so often happens with me, my composition began with a visual image. In this case, colored glass windows, like those one sees in churches, and the light that shines through them. From there I remembered the kaleidoscopes we used to have as children, their beautiful changing patterns and images and the big surprise when I explored inside and saw that it was made out of nothing really special, just simple
little pieces of colored glass.

This is what intrigues me about composition in general: how great composers often use so little material but are amazing at discovering all of the possibilities that are inherent in the material. Of course J.S.Bach comes to mind, or a much more contemporary composer, György Ligeti.

So when I began composing Kaleidoskop, I used as my material one very simple melody line. This melody is played in slow motion in the first movement by the crotales and colored and surrounded by the other instruments, sometimes in such close proximity that it creates a very subtle “beating.” And from there I went, freely associating with the initial images of colored glass and a kaleidoscope. If I were to describe the second movement in visual terms, then the kaleidoscope is almost permanently rotated, creating instant harmonic and textural shifts. From that
point on I started to use all of the evolved material, which then comes together
in the last movement.

PETER HERBERT: DEAFENING SILENCE (2005)

composed for Glass Farm Ensemble

Like most of my pieces from the last five or six years, this work’s title, Deafening Silence, is an oxymoron. I have become fascinated by the ease with which such phrases as “military intelligence,” “virtual reality,” “peace force,” “friendly fire,” or “pretty ugly” are used unreflectively in daily conversation, and using them as titles
is a personal way of becoming more conscious of how we use words, and of
their actual meanings.

The unusual instrumentation of the Glass Farm Ensemble calls for an unusual approach to written music. “Deafening” and “silence” are two extremes of musical expression, and therefore my composition deals with extreme dynamics, tempos, and instrumental ranges. It is a tour de force between fff and ppp.

I am a musician’s composer I think. I never studied composition, have no academic background in it, but I do have a lot of experience in writing music. Being a player myself, I think one has a totally different approach to composition. Sounds I have incorporated into this piece are sounds I have experienced while playing with other musicians. Every performance in front of an audience is a process of
finding new sounds.

Conventional notation is such a restricted way of defining what you want to hear. What I give the musicians who play my music is an approximation of the sound, but then I expect that they will find their own ways of dealing with these approximations. I am not one of those composers who insist that every note be played exactly as notated because notation the way we do it is so limited.

Sometimes I think we have lost the ability to concentrate and listen, and to focus on one thing for longer than a few seconds. If as a composer you can pull somebody out of his brain for the twelve minutes or fourteen minutes your piece lasts, you have accomplished a lot, and you don’t even have to ask for more.

ELIZABETH HOFFMAN: HOLONYMS (2005)

composed for Glass Farm Ensemble

“Holonyms” sounds a bit like a slip of the tongue. It makes no sense. Still, this fabricated word is suggestive of other real words. “Hollow” and “names,” as in “pseudonym,” are immediate evocations. The title conjures up “homonyms,” too, words that share the same sound but have different meanings. There is reference here to an in-between-ness in semantic possibilities-empty signifiers and therefore nothing signified in particular.

The title invites one into the experience of making sense of a word never heard before, whether real or nonsensical, or a distortion of some sort, which is analogous in a way to our experience of constructing meanings from music.

In everyday speech, the sense of words is automatic. In a similar way, I want my music to be heard very immediately. But, I am also committed to writing music that invites vigorous listener interpretation. Much like abstract poetry that can upend conventional linguistic comprehension, my music usually strives to embody ambiguity and fluidity of meaning. I am interested, in other words, in getting away from conventional musical listening, so that sheer sounds can be heard without contextual or singular associations. But my music does not avoid convention completely, and familiar aspects are often pulled in inexplicable directions, resisting resolution or integration into a unified aural image.

In holonyms, I hope to prompt some supporting imagery through the music's distinct timbral combinations, and through its non-idiosyncratic instrumental details. Some of my own retrospective sensory pairings with this piece involve tactility and light intensity. 'Stretched taffy' comes to my mind as a textural characteristic of part one.

Almost always, I have sounds in my head when I compose. These sounds are not abstracted notes, but are present in their instrumental timbres. I have made sounds for musical works with a lot of different objects, including the hairbrush on a colander in holonyms. In this case, I think I moved from the kitchen (colander), to the living room, to the bathroom (toothbrush), to the bedroom (hairbrush). Finding new timbres is an exciting process because it tends to encourage one to discover not only a new ‘sound’ per se, but also a new playing technique.

WOLFGANG HEININGER: IN FOUR (1995)

In Four was commissioned by YvonneTroxler with a grant from the Fondation Nestlé. The instrumentation of the quartet intrigued me, especially, for its colorfulness, as well as for its heterogeneous qualities. I wanted to write something raw, with some reminiscence of my youth when I used to play in a punk band. Even though I’m coming from this background, In Four hasn’t much in common with rock or jazz. I don’t really have any knowledge about these styles, and punk-rock was at that time a protest against the established jazz and rock music. In a sense it was even anti-rock, anti-jazz. It might be surprising to hear that large sections of In Four were created with algorithms and “academic” composition techniques. To a certain degree the composition is also a parody. Some of the material I definitely use
with a smile.

Whenever I write music, I write it for musicians I respect, whose professionalism and highly defined mastering of their instruments I value. When I wrote In Four, in some places I left a lot of space for interpretation because I want the experts, the musicians to make certain choices. With notation, for me, it is like this; when I want a musician to practice a lot, I will notate every last detail, I will be very specific; but if I want to make a musician think, then sometimes it helps not to write every detail, to leave some room for interpretation. I don’t call these open spaces improvisations. I don’t like improvisation. After playing for almost 10 years in improvisation ensembles, I do know what I’m talking about. Improvisations often bore me.

In Four is musicians’ music, written by a composer who is a performer as well. It should be fun. I hope one can hear in my music that I don’t only like music but that I also like to play it.
GLASS FARM ENSEMBLE

When we began playing together in pianist Yvonne Troxler’s loft on the far Westside of Manhattan, the goal was to invite audiences into intimate contact with the cast breadth of music that interested us, and share our passion for this music. The idea of music up-close has animated the group ever since, and this disc is very much a product of that.

Unlike some “new music,” the compositions here are those that challenge us to express a resonant passion, freedom and love for making music. The ensemble’s line-up was initiated by Louis Andriessen’s Hout, a piece we have been performing together for years, and one whose qualities could be said to define our aesthetic: driving, rhythmic, intense, and rigorous. Besides Hout, all of the works on this program were written for the Glass Farm Ensemble, and speak to the range of our interests. The composers are a European-American mix, and their music embraces all manner
of sounds, ideas and styles.

While each of the pieces is distinct, and cannot be said to characterize any
one school or approach to music, the unique instrumentation of the ensemble itself gives them a strong identity.