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Song Book for
alto saxophone
Sonata for
alto saxophone
Dane Maxim Richeson, marimba
The Sonata for Alto Saxophone and Piano, composed in 1988, was commissioned by the North American Saxophone Alliance. The Sonata is a large, passionate, and sometimes ferocious piece which mixes old and new elements. The first movement owes a debt to the b-minor piano sonata of Franz Liszt. There is no musical borrowing, but the emotional power that Liszt generated in his sonata was a model for my own writing. I love the “all out” nature of his emotional expression, and that the focus of that expression reaches its full power because of the underlying sonata structure.
My opening movement is also in sonata form. It has three themes — two very similar ones in a-minor, and a closing theme in C-major. The attitude of the movement is reflective with sudden eruptions of boiling energy. These eruptions have been described as “going outside”: a serene and reflective surface is torn apart to reveal a fierce energy underneath.
The middle movement of the Sonata has the feel of an extended song. Two historical reference points underlie the composition: the madrigals of Gesualdo, and the wind sonatas of Poulenc. Gesualdo's pieces are intimate and passionate, and employ unusual chromatic shifts to intensify expression. Poulenc's music is immediately appealing and moves through a wide range of emotion with great economy of means. My second movement is a broad soliloquy with an opening that has the feel of an accompanied recitative. The second section is an evolution of the opening theme from the first movement, and the third section is a shortened restatement of the opening.
The final movement is a huge rondo form which lays itself out as ABACA. The opening section is a crunching, flying c-minor music. The second section is mournful, and the return to A is a playful C-major variation of the opening. The C section is a dense, turbulent aria. The recapitulation is literal until it releases rather suddenly into an ethereal coda. This music has an antecedent in the music of Allan Pettersson (d. 1970), who wrote huge, dark symphonies — 16 in all — that feel like emotional sledgehammers. The music is unrelenting, particularly in its insistence on long stretches of unmoving fundamental pitch.
Song Book was commissioned by Steven Jordheim and Dane Richeson of the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, and was composed in the summer of 1998.
In the time since the Sonata, the Bach four-part chorales have become a central part of my music study. Playing and singing through a few of them each day has become my way of making the transition into composing time. I sing the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass successively while playing all the parts at the keyboard. At this writing I am on my ninth pass through the collection. With each pass I am drawn deeper into the relationship of line to line — how one borrowed melody (the chorale tune) generates three other beautiful melodies in the same space, and how all together generate a pattern of harmonic movement. I am fascinated by the process of these pieces and they have become a strong influence on my composing.
Three chorale melodies appear in Song Book. I have taken them quite out of their liturgical context. Their titles inspire an emotional response in me, and out of this comes a music that expands on the original tune. My feeling for quotation is twofold. First, when a pre-existing melody comes to mind or to hand while I am writing a new piece, it is a suggestion that the tune has more to say, and that it will unfold differently in the new context. Secondly, it allows for the process of “going underneath” the old tune to find something quite different and new. I let this happen because it seems that deeper connections are trying to work themselves out over many years and across many pieces. Folk and jazz artists do this as standard procedure.
The movements of Song Book are relatively brief. They have a particular thing to say, a particular mood and attitude to express, and then they are done. I think of the pieces as emotional scenes. Whereas the Sonata tends to be overwhelming in its technical and textural demands, the lines and textures of Song Book are for the most part much simpler and quieter.
1. Song for Davy is a reworking of the chorale melody “Das alte Jahr vergangen ist” (“The Old Year is Past”). This is a song for my young self, written at a time of personal transition. The music touches a very old memory chord and has a wistful and haunting character.
2. Lost is based on the chorale “Herr, Ich habe misgehandelt” which translates roughly as “Lord, I have done the wrong thing.” Out of this sensibility comes the feeling of being lost and needing help.
3. Hymn Tune with Four Variations is the only movement that uses a chorale melody verbatim. The melody is “Werde Munte, mein Gemute” (“Be strong, my heart”). Each variation is a successive speeding up of the chorale statement, with the last being a chaotic scramble.
4. Serious Music — In Memoriam Arthur Cohn is the longest and soberest piece in the set. Arthur Cohn was for many years director of the “Serious Music” Department of Carl Fischer, and over a lifetime, a stalwart champion of living composers and new music. My association with Fischer began through Arthur in 1974, and over the years he became both mentor and friend. His death in 1998, though not untimely, was a great sadness for me. The designation “Serious Music” by the Carl Fischer Company of what would otherwise be called “Concert Music” has always amused me. And so I have written a VERY serious piece for Arthur and hope that he appreciates the little joke.
5. Summer Song is a sweet piece that needs no further explanation.
6. Song for Alison is for my wife, who has been a grounding influence on me for many years. She is not a musician but has, through her kindness, steadiness and love, provided a safe haven for my flights of fancy.
7. Evening Song brings to mind some of my favorite music, the Op.116 intermezzos by Brahms. Evening Song, like other pieces in the set, is an openly romantic music. It is ultimately quiet and resigned, but has, over its course, a passionate and urgent statement to make.
The following are edited excerpts from “An Interview with David Maslanka” by Russell Peterson which appeared in The Saxophone Symposium - Journal of the North American Saxophone Alliance, vol. 24 (1999), copyright 1999 by the North American Saxophone Alliance; and “An Interview with David Maslanka” by Paul Snyder, copyright 1998 by Lawrence University. They are used with permission and are included as thoughts on how performers might approach my music.
from an “Interview with David Maslanka” by Russell Peterson:
Russell Peterson: All of your music requires incredible control, huge dynamic contrasts, and incredible technical facility from the performers. Why do you write such extremes for musicians?
David Maslanka: (There is) this thing in me that wants to be spoken. What I've discovered about myself over the years is that there is a tremendously passionate soul at work. And it was covered over by an exterior for a long time. So my outer demeanor is quiet and quite unassuming. I very easily pass in a crowd...But when that other thing wanted to speak, when I discovered that “soul space,” that it was different than my personality, and that I had contact with it, then this thing that became eruptive in me would burst out. I discovered it as a fairly young composer. I would be trying to write a piece of music and then, all of a sudden without any warning, something large would come out, and rather quickly. And another thing — if I got stuck at a certain point in a piece, the way I worked through it was not by fussing at it, or brushing past it, but by opening the mind to feel the full power of what wanted to happen. Younger composers tend to get to a powerful moment and squeeze it off, because it hurts too much to go through it! And they get afraid of it. Performers are the same way. A performer can get to a certain intensity and that's it! You know there is something more that has to be done. The music must be allowed to move. And when it wants to move, you have to move. Your whole system has to open up and allow the music to move through you with full power. That power pushes me, and when I hear the music and the specific instrument sounds that are coming through, that energy drives me to do whatever has to be done. And that has tended to be in extremes of technical demand and speed...there is no attempt to show off here, and no extremes for their own sake; they happen because the power drives me. On the other hand, what is happening more in a piece like Song Book are extremes of the other end — of sustained notes and simple textures. When you look at the music on the page it often doesn't seem like anything at all! It may be just a string of half and whole notes that extend for some time. What is the player supposed to do with that? The performer has to find out in him or her self the voice that wants to speak through that kind of extreme. The music has gotten simpler-looking over time, but harder to perform, because the performer must be open at every instant to the inner voice that wants to come through.
from “An Interview with David Maslanka” by Paul Snyder:
Paul Snyder: My honest first reaction... (to the score of Song Book ) was one of surprise. The familiar nature of a song book caught me off guard.
David Maslanka: The feel of the movements became in some ways whimsical and the look of the music — some of it looks bizarrely simple. But it's just the issue of simplicity which has started to intrigue me deeply. What is a sustained note? What do you do with it? What does a performer do with it? What I'm asking for with this kind of music more and more is that a performer has to dream as intently as I dream, and has to come up with a parallel sense in himself... and this is what a good performer does in any case... he may not have it in words, he may not even know that he's doing it, but he does it and the music comes out that way. This music now requires that very intently. The performer must enter into the dream fully and become himself with the music.
David Maslanka was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1943. He attended the Oberlin Conservatory, and studied for a year at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria. He did masters and doctoral work in composition at Michigan State University with H. Owen Reed. David Maslanka's compositions have been performed throughout the United States and around the world. His works for winds and percussion have become especially well known. They include among others A Child's Garden of Dreams, Concerto for Piano, Winds and Percussion, the Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Symphonies, In Memoriam, Tears, Mass, Sea Dreams: Concerto for Two Horns and Wind Orchestra, UFO Dreams: Concerto for Euphonium and Wind Ensemble, and Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Wind Ensemble. Percussion works include Variations on `Lost Love' for solo marimba, Arcadia II: Concerto for Marimba and Percussion Ensemble, Crown of Thorns for keyboard percussion, Montana Music: Three Dances for Percussion, and In Lonely Fields for multiple percussion and orchestra. In addition he has written a wide variety of chamber, orchestral and choral pieces. Maslanka's works are published primarily by Carl Fischer, Inc. of New York City, and have been recorded on CRI, Novisse, Klavier, Cambria, Mark, and Albany labels. Between 1970 and 1990 he served on the faculties of SUNY Geneseo, Sarah Lawrence College, New York University, and CUNY Kingsborough. He is now a free-lance composer and lives in Missoula, Montana. David Maslanka is a member of ASCAP.
Steven Jordheim was a winner of two major international performance competitions: the Concours international d'exécution musicale in Geneva, Switzerland (1983), and the Concert Artists Guild International Competition in New York (1984). In June of 1999, he was artist-teacher of saxophone in residence at the Xi'an Conservatory of Music in Xi'an, China, and was the first saxophonist to perform as soloist with the Lanzhou (China) Orchestra. He performed his New York debut recital at Carnegie Recital Hall in 1985, and has performed as a soloist and in chamber ensembles in Canada, Switzerland, France, China and throughout the United States. Composers who have written works for Steven Jordheim include William Albright, Leslie Bassett, David Maslanka, Rodney Rogers and Kenneth Schaphorst. Steven Jordheim has served as adjudicator for the Concert Artists Guild International Competition and the North American Saxophone Alliance Classical Saxophone Performance Competition. He is professor of saxophone at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music in Appleton, Wisconsin.
Dane Maxim Richeson, professor of percussion at the Lawrence University Conservatory of Music, is recognized as one of the most versatile virtuosi in the percussion world. Throughout the United States, Europe and Japan, he has been featured in such diverse roles as solo marimbist, chamber musician, world percussion artist, and jazz drummer. Performances have been with such renowned artists as Lukas Foss, Bobby Mcferrin, Joe Lovano, Gunther Schuller, Lionel Hampton, Dianne Reeves, Roscoe Mitchell, Claudio Roditi, Stanley Jordan, and Clark Terry, among others. He regularly performs with the chamber ensemble CUBE (Chicago) and The Bach, Dancing and Dynamite Society (Madison,Wisconsin). Mr. Richeson has recorded for Accurate, Mark, Klavier, Buzz, Challenge, Naxos, and CRI records.
Much sought after as a chamber musician, soloist and teacher, Christina Dahl has a special interest in music of the 20th century. She is currently on faculty at SUNY Stony Brook, and has taught at Lawrence University, Ithaca College and the Peabody Conservatory (2000-2001). Ms. Dahl has twice been an artistic ambassador for the United States Information Agency, and has toured Africa, South America and the United States. She is co-founder and co-director of a chamber series in Jacksonville, Florida which actively promotes new music, and frequently performs at festivals and colleges throughout the country. Ms. Dahl is chairman of the piano faculty at the Eastern Music Festival, part of her work with students that forms an essential part of her musical life.
Song Book was recorded in December, 1999 at Lawrence University; Larry Darling, engineer.
Sonata for alto saxophone and piano was recorded at Lawrence University in June, 1993; Larry Darling, engineer.
Cover Photo: John Lewis, Apple Photography Group, Ltd.
Cover Design: Bates Miyamoto Design Service
Steven Jordheim, saxophone
Song Book for alto saxophone and marimba
1 1. Song for Davy (“The Old Year is Past”) [4:39]
3 3. Hymn Tune with Four Variations [2:18]
4 4. Serious Music — In Memoriam Arthur Cohn [5:45]
6 6. Song for Alison [3:29]
Sonata for alto saxophone and piano
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