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IRWin Bazelon
Cross-Currents
Brass Quintet, Solo Percussion
Jonathan Haas
percussion
Fairy Tale
Chamber Ensemble, Solo Viola
Lois Martin
Viola
Fusions
Chamber Ensemble
Harold Farberman
conductor
Re-Percussions
Two Pianos
Richard Rodney Bennett
Scott Dunn
Vignette
Solo Harpsichord
John Van Buskirk
Irwin Bazelon
Irwin Bazelon died on August 2, 1995 at the age of 73. He composed nine symphonies and over 60 orchestral, chamber and instrumental pieces. Born in Evanston, Illinois on June 4, 1922, he graduated from DePaul University with a bachelor's and master's degree in music. After studying composition with Paul Hindemith at Yale briefly, he went to Mills College in Oakland, California to work with Darius Milhaud. From 1948 until his untimely death he lived in New York City and Sagaponack. His Long Island retreat was the perfect counterpoint for the tensions and hustle-bustle of urban life with which his rhythmically complex and often jazz-tinged music bristles.
In his early years in New York, Bazelon supported himself by scoring documentaries, art films and theatrical productions. During the 1950's and 1960's he composed more than 50 scores of this kind, which proved to be an invaluable preparation for his orchestral music. In a valedictory of sorts he wrote Knowing the Score: Notes on Film Music. Published in 1975, this book is widely used as a college text. As guest composer Bazelon frequently lectured at leading universities and music schools throughout the United States and England. Young people were especially drawn to his feisty spirit and no-nonsense approach to earning a living by applying compositional talents to the commercial world without sacrificing integrity.
Bazelon's works for orchestra, chamber ensemble, solo instruments and voice have been performed throughout the United States and Europe. He conducted his music with such orchestras as the National Symphony, the Detroit Symphony, the Kansas City Philharmonic and the Orchestre Nationale de Lille. He received grants and commissions from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Koussevitsky Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Kansas City Philharmonic, the New Orleans Philharmonic, the American Brass Quintet, the Boehm Quintette and the Royal Northern College of Music.
A long-time horse racing enthusiast, one of his best known works, Churchill Downs (Chamber Concerto No. 2) is named for the home of the Kentucky Derby, and his ninth symphony (subtitled Sunday Silence for the winner of the 1989 Derby) is dedicated to the horse. In some small way the racetrack helped launch Bazelon's symphonic career. With money from a big win at Aqueduct, he recorded a concert ballet with 16 members of the New York Philharmonic, the tape of which led directly to his conducting his Short Symphony (Testament to a Big City) with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C. in 1962. This was his major orchestral debut.
In a tribute to Bazelon, David Harold Cox, Chair of Music at University College, Cork, Ireland, who is writing a biography of the composer, said, "The quality I shall always remember about Bud was his integrity, the integrity between his individuality as a person and his unique musical personality. There seemed to be a perfect unity between the man and his music. It was a unity based on a breadth of vision; both his personality
and his musical language were strong, wide-ranging and powerful, pulsating with energy and life. These qualities will ensure that the music will survive."
With this compact disc, Albany Records continues its commitment to presenting the work of a composer whose music is remarkable for its originality, range and variety of expressive language.
Cross-Currents
Bazelon's preference for incisive rhythmic attack has led him to write a number of works that explore the sounds of brass and percussion. Cross-Currents (1978) combines two of the genres Bazelon most favored: the brass quintet, which he described as the string quartet of the twentieth century, and solo percussion, which appears in many of his chamber works. it was commissioned by the Empire Brass Quintet who gave the first performance with Frank Epstein on percussion at Harvard University in January 1981. The Cross-Currents of the title describes the interplay of sonorities of brass and percussion; the way in which energetic rhythms, off-beat accents and unexpected syncopations are juxtaposed with long-breathed phrases that soar into life, either solo or above a subtly-placed accompaniment.
In the original program notes the composer wrote, "I have lived all my life in the big city. The rebellious mutterings, cross-rhythms, nervous tensions and energy of the city are in my music."
David Harold Cox
Fusions
Fusions (1978) is a 15-minute work for chamber ensemble without any programmatic connotations. As with all my music, prominence of musical line depends on dynamics, impact-accents, phrasing, rhythmic propulsion, color, contrast and the general character of the music. There are twelve-tone and jazz elements present, neither strict or formal. The performers are at different times protagonists and antagonists, and occasionally I let them "fight it out for themselves." For me, music is an emotional-rhythmic experience revolving around the organization of musical ideas (thematic or athematic) and musical associations expressing intervallic relationships of tone, pitch, space and time.
Irwin Bazelon
Fairy Tale
Completed in May, 1989, this work for a Chamber Ensemble of nine players and Solo Viola is fully mature Bazelon. The two cadenzas for the soloist are a microcosm of the work itself: lyrical, rhythmically inventive, melodically rich, and always pulsating toward what seems like the next inevitable, yet unexpected, musical event. The effect on the listener is the same as it is for the player of Bazelon's major works: it will keep you at the edge of your seat, wanting more.
Harold Farberman
Re-Percussions
This work was commissioned by Richard Rodney Bennett and John Philips, who first performed it at the University of Akron, Ohio in February, 1983. It is a brilliant and lively work, much concerned, as the title suggests, with percussive attacks and with various types of piano resonance. Unusually for this composer in his later years, there are some clear and undisguised passages of major tonality.
Richard Rodney Bennett
Vignette
This work was published posthumously having been discovered amongst the composer's papers after his death. It was composed in 1975. Bazelon explores the full range of the harpsichord in this short piece. There are many long linear passages of two part counterpoint that reflect, in a twentieth-century manner, the composer's love for the two- and three-part inventions of Bach. The first of these, heard after the opening dramatic chords, returns in the final section, inverted and at a faster tempo, to drive the work on to its conclusion.
David Harold Cox
Harold Farberman
On more than one occasion when they were together, Irwin Bazelon called Harold Farberman "my conductor." It is a compliment Maestro Farberman cherishes. The internationally known conductor has led many of the world's major orchestras. Formerly the Music Director and Conductor of the Oakland Symphony Orchestra, Mr. Farberman has been Principal Guest Conductor of the Denver Symphony and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta. He is the founder and artistic director of the Conductors Institute at the Hartt School of Music at the University of Hartford.
Maestro Farberman's many recordings reflect his wide-ranging musical interests: he was an early exponent of the music of Charles Ives and has recorded more of this composer's works than any other conductor. Many of his interpretations have been called "definitive." For his work on behalf of Charles Ives, he has been honored with the Ives Award from the Academy of Arts and Letters. He is currently engaged on a project to record the complete Mahler symphonies with the London Symphony Orchestra, as well as recording the complete symphonies of Michael Haydn with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.
Mr. Farberman's new book and video The Art of Conducting Technique has recently been published by Warner Brothers.
Jonathan Haas
Jonathan Haas, Chicago-born timpanist/percussionist is internationally recognized for his unparalleled versatility as a solo artist and innovative performer. He is considered one of the foremost interpreters of the music of Irwin Bazelon and has commissioned and premiered compositions expressly written for him by the composer. In 1972 Mr. Haas presented the St. Louis premiere of Propulsions with members of the St. Louis Symphony percussion section. In 1979 he commissioned Partnership for Timpani and Marimba for his Carnegie Recital Hall debut with the marimbist William Moersch. In 1983 the composer wrote Quintessentials for the New York Quintet of which Mr. Haas was a founding member and solo percussionist. Fire and Smoke for Solo Timpani and Symphonic Wind Band was commissioned and received its world premiere in 1994 with Mr. Haas as soloist with the Aspen Music Festival Wind Ensemble. Triple Play had its New York premiere in 1995 and was subsequently recorded by trombonists James Pugh and David Taylor and Jonathan Haas as solo percussionist.
Mr. Haas is the principal timpanist with both the New York Chamber Symphony and the Aspen Chamber Orchestra and the principal percussionist of the American Symphony Orchestra. He is a member of the American Composers Orchestra and has performed and recorded with the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the New York Pops, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the St. Louis Symphony and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra. He has been heard in recital with the classical guitarist Sharon Isbin, the Canadian Brass and the American Brass Quintets, pianists Emmanuel Ax and Joseph Kalichstein and he has recorded with Michael Bolton, Black Sabbath and the Emerson Lake and Palmer.
He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis and received his maters degree from the Juilliard School. Mr. Haas has been a faculty member of the Peabody Institute since 1984 where he is the departmental coordinator, overseeing all activities of the studio, as well as directing and conducting the Peabody Percussion Ensemble. He is also a faculty artist of the Aspen Music School and conducts the Aspen Percussion Ensemble.
Richard Rodney Bennett
Richard Rodney Bennett is one of the most versatile of British composer/performers, equally at home writing for the concert hall or for film, as well as performing as a jazz pianist. He studied composition in London at the Royal Academy of Music and in Paris, where he became the
first pupil of Pierre Boulez. He received the Arnold Bax Society Prize in 1964 and the Ralph Vaughan Williams Award for Composer of the Year in 1965. He was composer-in-residence at the Peabody Institute, Baltimore during 1970/71. In 1977 he was awarded the CBE.
He has lived in New York City since 1979 and holds the position of International Chair of Composition at the Royal Academy of Music, London. In January, 1998 he was knighted.
Scott Dunn
Pianist Scott Dunn, born in rural Iowa, began his musical studies at age six and was making concerto appearances with midwestern orchestras by the time he was twelve. He pursued undergraduate studies with John Simms at the University of Iowa and with Brooks Smith at USC, but when frustrated in his initial attempts to establish a music career through international competitions, he went to medical school. He completed internship and residency in ophthalmology at the University of Southern California, all the while continuing to practice and compose. He returned to public performance with a concert in Los Angeles designed to raise funds for eye surgery in Guatemala and the concert met with such acclaim in the Los Angeles Times that Dunn began again making regular public appearances as a pianist in the U.S. and Europe. He subsequently won the prestigious U.S. Artistic Ambassador Competition and was awarded a well-received solo tour of Europe and the former Soviet Union.
To devote his full energies to music, Dunn moved to New York, where he completed a Masters Degree at the Manhattan School of Music studying piano with the legendary Byron Janis, composition with Ludmila Ulehla and winning the Cohn Prize for chamber music.
As a pianist and champion of contemporary music, Dunn has won the endorsements of such prominent composers as Elliott Carter, Ned Rorem, Richard Rodney Bennett, Irwin Bazelon, Roger Reynolds and James Sellars. He frequently appears in solo and chamber performances in such venues as Alice Tully, Merkin, and Carnegie Recital Halls in New York, the Bing Theater in Los Angeles, Martinu Hall in Prague, and on radio WQXR in New York and KUSC in Los Angeles. Dunn has appeared with the Virtuosi Pragensis in Prague, the EOS Ensemble in New York, the Manhattan Contemporary Ensemble, the Aspen Festival Orchestra, the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble and the Santa Monica Symphony.
In January, 1999 he will premiere the Piano Concerto in C by Vladamir Dukelsky (better known as Vernon Duke) with the American Composers Orchestra.
His recent recordings include Roger Reynolds' Fantasy for Pianist on Neuma and Irwin Bazelon's Symphony No. 9,(Sunday Silence) for Piano and Orchestra with Harold Farberman and the Bournemouth Symphony on the Albany Records label.
Lois Martin
Lois Martin, a native of York, Pennsylvania, began her viola studies with Arthur Lewis at the Peabody Preparatory School. She completed her undergraduate work at the Eastman School of Music where she was a scholarship student of Francis Tursi. During this time, she was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. She continued her graduate studies at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of Lillian Fuchs.
Ms. Martin is a founding member of the Atlantic String Quartet and Fidelio, a unique ensemble consisting of viola, cello, and piano. She is also a member of Chamber Music Plus, the New York Chamber Symphony, Concordia, String Fever, the Salon Chamber Soloists, and the American Chamber Ensemble.
Recent performances include appearances with Poetica Musica, the Greenleaf Chamber Players, Dawn Upshaw's Voices of the Spirit series, and the Smithsonian Chamber Players. She has also just recorded Jacob Druckman's Second and Third String Quartets, Milton Babbit's Play It Again, Sam for Solo Viola, and Laura Kaminsky's And Trouble Came An African AIDS Diary, written for Fidelio and narrator.
Her continuing commitment to contemporary music includes performances with the Group for Contemporary Music, the ISCM Chamber Players, the New York New Music Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, the Composers' Guild, the Da Capo Chamber Players, the Composers Forum, and Steve Reich and Musicians. Ms. Martin is also on the faculty of the Composers Conference at Wellesley College and has taught at Princeton University.
John Van Buskirk
Pianist John Van Buskirk is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music and the Juilliard School; further studies were at the Liszt Academy in Budapest. A versatile musician appearing as soloist, chamber musician and recital partner to prominent instrumentalists and singers, he has toured throughout the United States and Europe. He is a member of the music faculty of Smith College, a noted performer on the fortepiano and has appeared at the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, at Carnegie Hall, and on National Public Radio.
Mr. Van Buskirk has considerable experience performing 20th century music and was an original member of the Music Today Ensemble in New York City. He is currently the keyboard player of the New York Chamber Symphony, Gerard Schwarz, music director, and has appeared at many music festivals including the Mohawk Trial Concerts in Massachusetts and The Lake Winnepesaukee Festival in New Hampshire. Formerly a faculty member and summer administrator with the Waterloo Music Festival in New Jersey, he is currently program director of Art in Avila in Curaçao, Netherland Antilles. He has recorded for Nonesuch, Vanguard, Delos, Dacamera Magna, Pro-Arte, and EMI. His solo compact disc, Piano Music of Robert Schumann, played on fortepiano, was recently released by Newport Classics.
Cross-Currents, Fairy Tale, Fusions, Re-Percussions and Vignette are published by Theodore Presser Company.
Cover Painting: Split Tree - Cecile Gray Bazelon
Producer: Marcia LaReau
Engineer: Michael Mermagen
This compact disc was recorded in Studio C at SUNY-Purchase Performing Arts Center.
Irwin Bazelon
Fairy Tale (15:32)
Paul Lustig Dunkel, flute/piccolo · Mitchell Estrin, clarinet · Dennis Smylie, bass clarinet
Jeffrey Lang, French horn ·Neil Balm, trumpet · Jonathan Haas, percussion
John Van Buskirk, piano · Dorothy Lawson, cello · Jeff Carney, bass
Lois Martin, viola · Harold Farberman, conductor
Re-Percussions (9:02)
Richard Rodney Bennett and Scott Dunn, pianos
Cross-Currents (16:20)
Neil Balm, Raymond Mase, trumpets · Jeffrey Lang, French horn
James Pugh, trombone · Marcus Rojas, tuba
Jonathan Haas, percussion
Vignette (6:23)
John Van Buskirk, harpsichord
Fusions (16:35)
Paul Lustig Dunkel, flute/piccolo · Randall Wolfgang, oboe/English horn · Mitchell Estrin, clarinet Dennis Smylie, bass clarinet · Marc Goldberg, bassoon/contrabassoon · Jeffrey Lang, French horn
Neil Balm, Raymond Mase, trumpets · James Pugh, trombone · Jonathan Haas, percussion
John Van Buskirk, piano · Lois Martin, viola · Jeff Carney, bass
Harold Farberman, conductor
Total Time = 64:37
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