To the Point
Orchestra 2001
Innova 745
1. To the Point, Jennifer Higdon
2. Canto di Ritorno
(Concerto for Violin and Small Orchestra), Andrew Rudin
Diane Monroe, violin
3. Concerto da Camera, Gunther Schuller (conducted by the
composer)
4. Blades of Grass, Romeo Cascarino
Dorothy Freeman, English horn
The River Within (Concerto for Violin
and Orchestra), Jay Reise
Maria Bachmann, violin
5. I Agitato
6. II Adagietto
inquieto
7. III Vivace
Orchestra 2001
James Freeman, conductor
Orchestra 2001
Orchestra 2001 of Philadelphia is
dedicated to performing and promoting the music of the 20th and 21st centuries,
premiering new works, providing a major focus for the best new music of our
time, introducing rarely performed older works, and reaching out to regional
and international audiences through recordings and tours.
Since its
founding in 1988 by artistic director and conductor James Freeman, the
orchestra has grown into one of America's most important champions of new music
and one of Philadelphia's most esteemed cultural institutions. Each
program is presented at a center-city Philadelphia venue and at Swarthmore
College where the orchestra is ensemble in residence. Through its
recordings (for CRI, Albany, Bridge, and Innova Records) and its tours abroad
(Russia, England, Denmark, Slovenia, and most recently the Salzburg Festival),
Orchestra 2001 has brought new American music to countless new audiences.
James Freeman
James Freeman, founder and Artistic
Director of Orchestra 2001, is the Daniel Underhill Professor Emeritus of Music
at Swarthmore College. He was trained at Harvard University (BA, MA, Ph.D), Tanglewood, and Vienna's Akademie fŸr Musik
and counts among his principal teachers pianists Arthur Balsam and Paul Badura-Skoda, and his father, double bassist Henry Freeman.
As conductor, pianist and bass player, Mr. Freeman's performances throughout
Europe, Japan, the United States and, most recently, Taiwan, Slovenia, Russia,
England, Austria, and Denmark have won critical acclaim. He has recorded
for CRI, Columbia, Nonesuch, Bridge, Albany, Innova, MMC and AR Records.
Jennifer Higdon: To the Point
(2004)
To the Point is a movement from my string quartet, "Impressions." I
thought the sound of this particular movement might be interesting as a string
orchestra piece, so when the American Composers Forum had a call for scores to
be read by Orchestra 2001, I created a version for string orchestra. To the
Point is from a quartet that was commissioned by the Cypress String Quartet
as part of their Call & Response Series, where a living composer responds
to two works in the standard literature. I was responding to the Debussy and Ravel
Quartets. Both of those works have pizzicato movements that are reportedly
heavily influenced by the Gamelan ensemble of the Paris World's Fair, so this
movement is a response to those particular movements. It also responds to the Impressionist
movement in art, which was part of our program to the San Francisco school
children in relation to these three pieces. to the point refers
to the tip of a paint brush and the thousands of small dots that make up an
impressionist painting.
Jennifer Higdon
Grammy winner Jennifer Higdon (b.
Brooklyn, NY, 1962) is one of the most performed living American composers
working today. She is the recipient of many awards, including a Pew Fellowship,
a Guggenheim Fellowship and two awards from the American Academy of Arts &
Letters. Her list of commissioners range from the Philadelphia Orchestra to the
St. Paul Chamber Orchestra; from eighth blackbird to the Tokyo String Quartet;
and from The President's Own Marine Band to such artists as Hilary Hahn. Higdon
received a 2010 GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for
her Percussion Concerto. She holds the Rock Chair in Composition at The
Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.
Andrew Rudin: Canto di Ritorno
(Concerto for Violin and Small Orchestra - 2004)
Canto di Ritorno
(Concerto for Violin and Small Orchestra) began its life as
a Sonata in one movement for Violin and Piano. After the first performance, as
I listened to it repeatedly, I realized I kept imagining orchestral colors in
many sections. After violinist Diane Munroe performed the Sonata, I revised the
piece, extending some passages, adding an interlude providing the soloist a
chance to rest, adjusted and 'relaxed' some transition passages, and added
orchestral counterpoint in various places, sometimes in canon with the soloist.
Though presented as one continuous
movement, the work in fact reflects many characteristics of a more traditional
"sonata" construction: the presentation at the outset of contrasting
thematic sections ("amabile", then abruptly
"deciso/scherzando"); an extensive developmental section in the form of a
chaconne. There is recapitulation of many materials heard earlier, though
usually altered in such a way that themes previously presented recur, turned
"inside-out" emotionally, by a change of tempo, dynamic, background
accompaniment, or context, but very much the same, in terms of pitch and
rhythmic profile.
Prior to beginning this new version
of the composition, I was startled to realize that what I had initially
composed on a rather abstract basis seemed to me now to vividly and
autobiographically reflect recent events in my own life, in which the person
dearest to me underwent a serious medical crisis and subsequently recovered.
Though I never intentionally constructed the piece to reflect these events, it
seemed to me, that as Gustav Mahler remarked, "all music has an interior
program."
During this period of crisis, we were
involved in a study-course reading Dante. This led to the sub-title of the
piece: "Canto" because of the frequently singing nature of the
violin line, and because of the work's being organized into sections, like the
many "cantos" of Dante's poem. And "Ritorno",
because the piece at its conclusion returns, somewhat unexpectedly to its
beginning; and because like Dante and Virgil in "The Inferno",
we return to the world once more.
Andrew Rudin
Andrew Rudin
(b. 1939) is a Texas-born composer of Swedish ancestry whose many contributions
to the literature of electronic music brought him early recognition. His "Il Giuoco"
was the first large-scale work for Moog Synthesizer, a U.S. representative in
the 5th Paris Biennale. His synthesized music is heard in the sound-track of
the film "Fellini: Satyricon" and his
"Tragoedia" was the second of Nonesuch
Records' electronic music commissions, described by critic Alfred Frankenstein
as "The best large-scale electronic work I have ever heard...the
electronic idiom finally comes of age." His interest in theatrical music
has resulted in ballets for the Pennsylvania Ballet, Murray Louis, Dance
Theatre Workshop, Louis Falco, Jeff Duncan, London Contemporary Dance Theatre,
and four collaborations with Alwin Nikolais, as well as incidental music for Tennessee
Williams' "Outcry". In 1972, his opera
"The Innocent" was produced in Philadelphia by Tito Capobianco. He studied with George Rochberg, Karlheinz Stockhausen,
Ralph Shapey, Kent Kennan, and Paul Pisk. He has taught on the faculties of the Juilliard
School and The Philadelphia College of the Performing Arts, where he was
founding director of the Electronic Music Center. Canto is published by Skane Hill Music. www.composerudin.com.
Diane Monroe
Philadelphia-born violinist Diane
Monroe, bridges the traditions of classical composition and jazz improvisation.
Her recital venues include The Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and New York
City's Merkin Hall. She has performed in duo recital
with Arnold Steinhardt, was a Fiddlefest soloist in
Carnegie Hall, has participated in the Marlboro and Sitka Festivals, and has premiered
many new solo works. She is a
composer and former member of the Max Roach Double Quartet, Uptown String
Quartet, String Trio of New York, Amabile Piano
Quartet, and the Kasimir and Beaumont String
Quartets. Monroe studied violin performance at Oberlin Conservatory,
Philadelphia Musical Academy, Michigan State University, and the Curtis
Institute of Music. Her teachers were Ivan Galamian,
Charles Castleman, David Cerone,
Joyce Robbins, and Walter Verdehr. Monroe's guest
solo recordings include David Baker's Sonata for Jazz Violin and String Quartet
on Koch Records with the Oregon String Quartet, and Paul Salerni's
Dances with Fables, with the Monacacy Chamber
Orchestra.
Gunther Schuller: Concerto da
Camera (2002)
My Concerto da Camera — it is actually the second work with that title, the other
one composed in 1970 — is the result of a twin-commission by two chamber
orchestras, the ProArte orchestra in Boston (of which
I am Conductor Laureate, having worked with them for over thirty years), and
Orchestra 2001.
The work is in two joined movements
(played without interruption), one slow, the other
quite fast. Instead of the usual chamber orchestra instrumentation of single or
double winds plus strings, I chose a less common ensemble of pairs of flutes,
oboes, trumpets and trombones, with a small complement of strings, harp and
percussion (one player). This eliminated clarinets, bassoons and horns and
their mellower colors from the timbral palette, and emphasizes instead the
higher-register winds (except for the trombones) and a tarter, brighter,
friskier sound. Interestingly, and somewhat to my surprise, these timbral
choices led me to write certain gestures, figures and instrumental combinations
that I had never, to the best of my recollection, used before. Whether this is
immediately audible to a first-time listener is debatable, but for me it was a
fascinating experience - very much like a painter who has always used the full
color spectrum suddenly limiting his palette to, say, only black, gray, and
blue-green.
Gunther Schuller
Gunther Schuller
(b. 1925) is the recipient of countless awards and prizes, including a
MacArthur "Genius" award and a Pulitzer Prize. He is certainly one of
the most versatile composers of our time, having been a virtuoso horn payer in
his early years (principle horn of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra), written
path-breaking books on jazz ("Early jazz" and "The Swing
Era") and a very controversial one on conducting ("The Complete
Conductor"); established his own music publishing company (Margun and Gunmar Music) in order
to bring to light relatively unknown works from classical, popular, and jazz
traditions; been one of America's most influential educators as President of
the New England Conservatory of Music and Head of the Berkshire Music Center;
composed a huge amount of important music; established a summer music festival
at Sand Point, Idaho; and conducted most of the major orchestras of the world.
Orchestra 2001 is extremely proud to be able to present Mr. Schuller
on this disk as one of America's great composers AND one of America's great
conductors.
Romeo Cascarino: Blades of Grass
(1945)
Grass, Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz
and Waterloo,
Shovel them under and let me work - -
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and
Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers
ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
As part of an April, 1994 concert
given by the Concerto Soloists of Philadelphia, Dorothy Freeman was the English
horn soloist in Romeo Cascarino's "Blades of Grass." Cascarino
attended the concert and was impressed with her beautiful playing, afterwards
writing on the cover of her part, "For Dorothy Freeman, who played the
piece better than anyone."
For many years we thought of
recording of "Blades of Grass," but the opportunity to do so seemed
never to present itself. Finally, early in January of 2002, I thought there
might arise such an opportunity in the coming months and realizing I had no
score of the piece, and would soon need parts, called the phone number listed
for Mr. Cascarino. His wife, Dolores, answered, and when I asked if I might
speak with Mr. Cascarino, she said after some hesitation, "Why in heaven's
name are you calling today?" "Just to find out where I could obtain a
score and orchestral parts to 'Blades of Grass.'" To which she replied,
"Don't you know that he died yesterday?! He would
have been absolutely overjoyed to know of your recording plans. If only you had
called just a few days earlier."
We were, of course, tremendously
saddened at this news, but knew the recording of this lovely work must
certainly go forward. When it finally did, we had a moment of silence for the
composer whose presence we missed deeply.
—James Freeman
Romeo Cascarino
Philadelphian Romeo Cascarino (1922-2002) was essentially self-taught after
high school, endlessly studying scores at the city's Free Library. For years,
he taught composition and theory at the now-defunct Combs College of
Music. He composed a Bassoon Sonata for his
army buddy (and longtime
Philadelphia Orchestra
principal) bassoonist Sol Schoenbach, and four orchestral
works, recently recorded by JoAnn Falletta. From 1960 to 1980 he worked continually on his opera "William
Penn," which was eventually premiered at Philadelphia's Academy of Music
in October 1982. After serving in the Army during World War II, Cascarino was moved by Carl Sandburg's poem
"Grass," an ironic meditation for all those who had succumbed to
futile deaths through centuries of war. To Cascarino
it seemed to cry for a sense of hope and the process of renewal, and the
elegiac "Blades Of Grass" for English horn and strings was the
result. It has been performed frequently since its composition in 1945,
often--at Cascarino's request--preceded
by the reading of the poem. —Tom DiNardo
Dorothy Freeman
Dorothy Freeman was formerly a member
of the Pittsburgh Symphony, solo oboe with the Lima, Peru, and Springfield, MA,
symphony orchestras, and solo English horn with the Puerto Rico Festival
Orchestra. She received B.Mus. and M.Mus. degrees
from Boston University, where she studied with Ralph Gomberg,
later accepting a Fulbright Fellowship to continue her studies in Germany.
She is well known in the Philadelphia area for her performances of
contemporary music with Orchestra 2001 and the Penn Contemporary Players, and
is also a member of the Opera Company of Philadelphia Orchestra. She has
recorded for MMC, CRI, Albany Records, and Command Classics. Composers
Thomas Oboe Lee, Gerald Levinson, Robert Morgan, Arne Running, and Thomas
Whitman have written solo works especially for her.
Jay Reise: The River Within:
(Concerto for Violin and Orchestra - 2008)
The river slithered in cool, silent
meanders . . . and then unraveled as if attempting to extend into a straight
line, and darted away carrying with it a current of sky between its two banks. - J.-K. Huysmans, En Rade (Stranded) (1887)
The River Within was composed in 2008 and premiered by Orchestra 2001 with soloist
Maria Bachmann and James Freeman conducting at the Perelman Theater, Kimmel
Center, Philadelphia.
River is composed for a virtuoso soloist accompanied by a Classical-size
orchestra. But instead of the Classical string orchestra joined by coupled
winds and brass with timpani, the orchestral forces consist of single winds and
brass along with piano (the contemporary continuo) and a small selection of
percussion instruments. Thus in an instance where a Classical composer might
combine two oboes or two horns, I join similar instruments such as horn and
bassoon or clarinet and muted trumpet. The result is an overall varied
instrumental timbre with many tonal colors. The solo winds and brass also
provide considerable contrapuntal commentary with the solo violin.
Rhythmic and linear organization in
The River Within is based on a series of techniques I call "rhythmic
polyphony", an approach I developed inspired by Carnatic music and jazz.
Rhythmic motives are developed within the phrase such that the cadence point is
implied rhythmically as well as through traditional harmonic and linear means.
The 26-minute piece is also Classical
in its design and is cast in the traditional three-movement format: Fast (Agitato) - Slow (Adagietto
inquieto) - Fast (Vivace).
The title The
River Within was inspired by the passage from the novel by J.-K. Huysmans quoted above. Music taps into the river
of life in all of us.
Jay Reise
Jay Reise is
the composer of the opera Rasputin which was
described in The Washington Times as "a spellbinding, challenging
and profoundly beautiful creation." Originally commissioned by the late
Beverly Sills and the New York City Opera, Rasputin was given its highly
successful Russian premiere in Moscow by the Helikon
Opera in September 2008.
Reise's recent works include the Concerto for Horn and 7 Instruments,
commissioned and premiered by Adam Unsworth and the
Network for New Music, and the piano quintet Powers That Be,
commissioned by the Barlow Foundation and premiered by the Cassatt Quartet and
Marc-AndrŽ Hamelin. Reise has also composed an Oscar
Wilde-based ballet fairy-tale The Selfish Giant which was commissioned and
premiered by the Philharmonia Orchestra in London.
Jay Reise's symphonies have been performed by the Philadelphia
Orchestra, Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and Long Island Philharmonic among other orchestras. His music has also been played widely both
in the United States and abroad including an all-Reise
retrospective concert in Moscow in 2000. He has been a recipient of the
US-Japan Creative Arts Fellowship and has served as Director of Contemporary
Music at the Grand Teton Music Festival.
Among his recordings are
the chamber concerto Chesapeake Rhythms and Concerto for Cello and 13
Instruments recorded on CRI by Orchestra 2001. The
Devil in the Flesh and Other Pieces (Albany)
features pianist Marc-AndrŽ Hamelin. Other all-Reise CDs include Rhythmic Garlands (Centaur) and
Jay Reise: Chamber Music (Albany).
Jay Reise
is Professor of Music Composition at the University of Pennsylvania. His music is published by Merion Music/Theodore Presser.
Maria Bachmann
A violinist who combines outstanding
musicianship with dazzling technical command, a tone of exceptional purity, and
a magnetic stage presence, Maria Bachmann has been the subject of critical
accolades from the very beginning of her career. The New York Times has hailed
her as "a violinist of soul and patrician refinement", and The Boston
Globe has praised her as being "astonishing in every musical and technical
regard." Ms. Bachmann's CD, The Red Violin, was chosen by BBC
Music Magazine as "North American CD of the Month" in 2007.
Ms. Bachmann has performed the world
premiere of Philip Glass's Sonata for Violin and Piano (2008) and has recorded
it for her 5th recital CD, released in 2010. Her discography includes concertos
of Beethoven, Mendelssohn and Lou Harrison as well as numerous recordings with
her chamber group, Trio Solisti. Her recordings can
be found on BMG/RCA, Bridge, Koch, Allegro, Marquis, Naxos and Connoisseur
Society record labels.
As a soloist, Ms. Bachmann has
performed with The National Symphony at The Kennedy Center, The St Louis
Symphony, and worked with conductors Leonard Slatkin,
Marin Alsop and Robert Spano. As an eminent proponent of new music,
Ms. Bachmann has premiered many new works including those of George Rochberg, Leon Kirchner, James MacMillan, Sebastian
Currier, Daniel Bernard Roumain and 2004 Pulitzer
Prize-winner Paul Moravec, who has written a total of
fourteen works for Ms. Bachmann ranging from a violin concerto to works for violin
and piano, and other chamber forms. Moravec's 2004
Pulitzer Prize-winning work, Tempest Fantasy, was composed for Trio Solisti.
In 2010, Ms. Bachmann gave world premiere
performances of Philip Glass's Double Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra
with the Orchestra of The Hague, Netherlands, and Paul Moravec's
Violin Concerto at The Kimmel Center in Philadelphia with Orchestra 2001. Maria
Bachmann studied at the Curtis Institute with Ivan Galamian
and Szymon Goldberg, and was awarded Curtis's Fritz
Kreisler Prize for outstanding graduating violinist. She performs on a 1782
violin by Nicolo Gagliano. www.mariabachmann.com
CREDITS
Recorded,
edited, and mastered by George Blood, George Blood Audio.
Orchestra 2001
is very grateful to Swarthmore College
(where it is
the
ensemble in residence) for the use of its spectacular Lang
Concert Hall.
¥ Higdon
produced by James Freeman and George Blood. Recorded in live performance, Nov. 12,
2005, Trinity Center, Philadelphia.
¥ Rudin produced by Andrew Rudin
and George Blood. Recorded in live
performance Jan. 27, 2006, Lang Concert Hall, Swarthmore College.
¥ Schuller produced by Gunther Schuller,
James Freeman, and George Blood.
Recorded in live performance April 21, 2003, Lang Concert Hall,
Swarthmore College
¥ Cascarino produced by James Freeman and George Blood. Recorded Sept. 20, 2004, Lang Concert
Hall, Swarthmore College.
¥ Reise produced by Jay Reise and
George Blood. Recorded in live
performance April 12, Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center, Philadelphia.
Sandburg
permission?
Copland funding credit?
Innova
is supported by an endowment from the McKnight Foundation.
Philip Blackburn; director, design
Chris Campbell; operations manager
www.innova.mu