Contemporary Classics July 3, 2018 Celebrating the Bang on a Can Summer Music Festival

Julia Wolfe Vermeer Room            1989

Julia Wolfe wrote  “The Vermeer Room was inspired by Vermeer's painting A girl asleep. It's a very beautiful painting of a young girl seated at a table. Her head rests against her hand and her eyes are closed. To her right is an illuminated doorway. An x-ray of the painting revealed that at one point there was a figure of a man in the doorway. This was very mysterious to me, that Vermeer chose to remove the image, to leave an empty space. I thought of the light in the doorway, about things hidden. I thought of the girl's sleep. While the scene is very quiet sleep is often drenched in sound. “

Julia Wolfe Vermeer Room            11:40            Lorraine Vaillancourt & Le Nouvel Ensemble Moderne            Bang on a Can Live, Vol. 1            Anthology of Recorded Music

David Lang  Spud   1986 for small ensemble of strings and winds

 David Lang writes that “[The potato] begins its life at its most coherent, losing its shape and substance with the growth of its sprouts. The sprouts will, of course, become other potato plants, but, seen from the point of view of the potato, they are agents of death and decay. A piece based on the life of the potato, such as my composition, ''spud,'' might begin with the coherence of all musical voices and move towards their independence, much in the way that a series of variations might bear successively less resemblance to their theme. “

David Lang’s Illumination Rounds  1981  violin and piano

David Lang’s Illumination Rounds is a passionate, energetic piece for violin and piano. Rapid repetition and quick tradeoffs between the two instruments are the main motives of the piece.  A blazing tempo is marked by quick canonic exchanges, doubled unison and very separate passages. Very near the end of the work, there is a violin cadenza.

David Lang writes   “An illumination round is a type of bullet that was used extensively in Vietnam. This bullet, when fired, leaves a phosphorus trail hanging in the air, allowing machine gunners in helicopter gunships to aim more precisely. In my composition, the relationship between "bullet" and "shadow" has defined the roles of the violin and piano: the instruments trade off being either image or echo. In this way, a fierce counterpoint devolves from what are really just unison ideas.”

Illumination Rounds  Nouvel Ensemble Moderne            Are You Experienced            Anthology of Recorded Music

Michael Gordon   Acid Rain 1986

Acid Rain was written for Spectrum, a British ensemble whose American keyboard player, Yvar Mikhashoff, commissioned the piece in 1986.           

Michael Gordon writes “Acid rain is a type of pollution that attacks plants. It might seem strange to write music about acid rain, but the idea disturbed me so much that I couldn't help but imagine what plants must feel like being covered with unpleasant chemicals. The music has several layers of harsh rhythmic chords that attack simultaneously.”

Michael Gordon Low Quartet (1985)

Michael Gordon writes “The Low Quartet is an advocation for the rich, low, reedy register of the bass instruments –– the register that usually carries the flow line that holds up the busier stuff on top. I thought it was time to give them some action –– a clumsy, fast-moving, hard-driving dance, like fat cows grooving.  I wrote The Low Quartet for the low instruments of the world.”
   It is written for bass clarinet, bass saxophone, thrombone, double bass (or any four low instruments)     Version also available for 4 bass clarinets which is heard here

Julia Wolfe On Seven-Star Shoes 1985

Julia Wolfe’s On Seven-Star Shoes is woodwind quintet that was inspired by the poetry of the bohemian German-Jewish writer Else Lasker-Schüler. She was one of the few women associated with the Expressionist movement. Her words have a great sense of mystery and celebration.

Julia Wolfe: Four Marys  1991  

Four Marys was commissioned by the Cassatt Quartet with funds from the Koussevitzky Foundation in 1991.        Julia Wolfe writes “Four Marys was inspired by my love for the mountain dulcimer, a 3-stringed lap instrument from Appalachia. It is the one string instrument I play. The material is derived from gestures that are characteristic of dulcimer playing - the crying quality of the sliding melody string, the mesmerizing strumming of the drone strings.  It is as if I have put a magnifying glass on these sounds to look at them up close and big. The title Four Marys is the name of a Scottish folk tune that I heard Jean Richie sing and play on the mountain dulcimer.”

Julia Wolfe  Arsenal of Democracy 1993  for small ensemble

Julia Wolfe writes “In 1992 I went to live in Amsterdam for a year. It's so beautiful there and it's an amazing place to live as an artist. Art is a crucial part of Dutch society. It was an incredible relief to live in that atmosphere. I went to lots of concerts, joined the composers' ping-pong team, and wrote Arsenal of Democracy. The piece is written for Orkest de Volharding, a political street band started by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen and others. The group is loud and tough and they're organized in a socialistic framework — everyone has equal say, everyone arrives at consensus decisions. The title of my piece is taken from a phrase coined by Franklin Roosevelt referring to the United States' role as an arsenal before fully entering into WWII. In more recent U.S. history this ''arsenal of democracy'' has reached terrifying and absurd proportions. I imagined that Orkest de Volharding would be a far better arsenal, with trumpets and trombones on the front lines.

David Lang  Cheating, Lying, Stealing  1993

David Lang writes “A couple of years ago, I started thinking about how so often when classical composers write a piece of music, they are trying to tell you something that they are proud of and like about themselves. Here's this big gushing melody, see how emotional I am. Or, here's this abstract hard-to-figure-out piece, see how complicated I am, see my really big brain. I am more noble, more sensitive, I am so happy. The composer really believes he or she is exemplary in this or that area. It's interesting, but it's not very humble. So I thought, What would it be like if composers based pieces on what they thought was wrong with them? Like, here's a piece that shows you how miserable I am. Or, here's a piece that shows you what a liar I am, what a cheater I am. I wanted to make a piece that was about something disreputable. It's a hard line to cross. You have to work against all your training. You are not taught to find the dirty seams in music. You are not taught to be low-down, clumsy, sly and underhanded. In ''cheating, lying, stealing,'' although phrased in a comic way, I am trying to look at something dark. There is a swagger, but it is not trustworthy. In fact, the instruction in the score for how to play it says: Ominous funk.

Michael Gordon   Industry (1993) amplified cello + electronics

Michael Gordon writes “When I wrote Industry in 1993, I was thinking about the Industrial Revolution, technology, how instruments are tools and how Industry has crept up on us and is all of a sudden overwhelming. I had this vision of a 100-foot cello made out of steel suspended from the sky, a cello the size of a football field, and, in the piece, the cello becomes a hugely distorted sound.

I wrote this piece for Maya Beiser, and it was an incredible process. I would fax her the music and she'd play it to me over the phone. We did this maybe ten times, trying things out. She was constantly teaching me about the cello, and I was making her play things that were really awkward and dark.