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Sunday,
April 14, 2002 Sponsored
by |
On April 14, 2002, Lambert Orkis will present an exhilarating new program combining the powers of the acoustic piano and the Kurzweil synthesizer that will show the breadth of artistic keyboard expression – past, present, and future.
Composers chosen for this project are Philadelphia based long-time Orkis musical associates, Richard Wernick and James Primosch, who offer generational continuity in musical excitement and integrity.
PROGRAM
Piano Sonata No. 2 (2000) [World Premiere] Richard Wernick
Part I
1. Intrada (in the form of a march)
2. Arioso triste (in the form of a canon)
3. Toccata (in the form of an etude)
(pause)
Part II
Fantasy Variations
(attacca)
Part III
1. Tempo della Toccata
2. Tempo del'Arioso
3. Tempo della Marcia
Intermission
Sonata-Fantasia
(2001) [World Premiere]
James Primosch
for piano and synthesizer, one player
I.
Theme and Variations
Prelude: fantastico, quasi improvisando
Tema: semplice, ma espressivo e con poco rubato
Variation I: sognando, flessibile
Variation II: scampering; leggiero
Variation III: con fuoco
Variation IV: moderato, flowing
Variation V: moderato; like a mechanical toy
Variation VI: sempre delicato e legato
Variation VII: andante; a bit tipsy
Interlude: largo, contemplativo
Variation VIII: allegretto
Variation IX: pompous, a little grotesque
Variation X: molto vivace
Variation XI: grand; in romantic style
Variation XII: senza tempo; quasi cadenza
(like a parody of the preceeding variation)
Variation XIII: cryptic
Variation XIV: presto
Postlude: fantastico, quasi improvisando
II. Meditativo: adagio molto, mesto
III. Daddy-O's New Groove: allegro
PROGRAM NOTES
Richard Wernick: Piano Sonata No. 2
There are many aspects of music that are completely and easily quantifiable. It is possible to discuss all sorts of things such as melodic types, aspects of rhythm and pulse, speed, texture, harmony, etc. But it is almost impossible to talk about "music". At the moment verbalization begins, music disappears, and verbalization, by its very nature, distorts the meaning of the music. Music is, and yet it is infinitely more than it is; the mystery of musical thought and meaning cannot be expressed in words. This is not to say that the quantifiable aspects cannot be discussed to a certain degree. "Road maps" can be drawn to assist the listener; analyses can help elucidate compositional procedures, and students can be taught how to imitate the styles of their illustrious forebears. But compositional procedures are not the same as the creative process, so I shall content myself with relying on the good will and musical concentration of the audience who are listening, for the first time, to a long and complex sonata.
But the listener does after all deserve a little bit more consideration than that. I have, therefore, provided fairly detailed movement indications. Part I is in three sections, played without pause, and sufficiently differentiated, one from the other, to be perfectly clear. Then a long pause during which Mr. Orkis will undoubtedly mop his brow and take a deep breath or two before proceeding to the Fantasy Variations that comprise Part II. With no break in the music this is followed by Part III, which is for all practical purposes, a reprise, in reverse order, of Part I. A brief reminiscence of the Variation theme brings the sonata to a conclusion.
What is most important to me in discussing this piece, is the fact that it would not exist, in its present form, without Lambert Orkis. I don't think enough is understood and appreciated by the listening public about the symbiotic relationship between composer and performer. After so many years of composing I am infinitely more comfortable when composing for an individual or group with whom I have had a long-standing musical relationship, and I suspect that the feeling is shared in great part by performers.
Mr. Orkis and I have been colleagues and friends for many, many years. He understands my music and I understand his playing in ways that can arise only from such long term and intense musical relationships. Mr. Orkis possesses a rather special talent for dealing with long, arching forms, so it is no coincidence that my two longest pieces were commissioned by and written for him. In addition he has a particularly gift for getting "inside" a piece, of extracting from polyphonic inner voices those which are substantive and those which are decorative, and over the course of 30 minutes or more this can be a critical component in keeping a piece "alive" and fulfilling the composer's intentions. His understanding of "drama", the notion, for example, that rests are not moments of silence, but moments of tension, contributed greatly to my employing those very means. Again, it is no coincidence that this sonata is replete with contrapuntal devices and dynamic contrasts.
But what I find most remarkable is that Mr. Orkis tends to learn a piece in much the same way that I compose it. In this particular case the listener will hear Part III as being Part I in reverse order, but the piece was not composed that way. Part III was written first, and then "put backwards" to make up Part I; Part II was composed from the middle variations outward in both directions, much as if the keystone were to be the first part of an arch that is put into place (which I believe is a physical impossibility, but music is different). Then the original Part III was altered somewhat by interweaving brief references to Part II.
When Mr. Orkis and I began to discuss the piece, many weeks after he first received it nearly two years ago, I discovered that he was studying the piece in much the same way that I wrote it: Part III first, with references to Part I, and then adding, incrementally, elements of Part II, connecting measure to measure, phrase to phrase and variation to variation until the musical jig saw puzzle had become complete. One might suppose that this method would lead to a result that is sectionalized and fragmented, but the opposite is true. The long arch of the piece, at least in its performance, is so secure that Mr. Orkis can allow himself a great deal of freedom in regard to the repetition of materials, making each return slightly different from the one before. A composer's dream come true!
So, Lambert, my friend, long life to both of us. We may not reach the exalted output of Beethoven, but we have only 30 more sonatas to go!
Richard Wernick
James Primosch: Sonata-Fantasia
In my Sonata-Fantasia, the Kurzweil synthesizer serves to amplify and expand the timbral possibilities of the piano, to provide an augmented range of keyboard colors, and to give voice to the ghosts of the piano's past, such as the harpsichord and fortepiano. I call the piece a Sonata-Fantasia not only because of the fantastical sound world created by the blending of electronic and acoustic sound, but because of the improvisatory feeling of the work throughout. Various musical recurrences across the movements bind the piece together and reinforce the sense that the work is conjured up rather than calculated.
The work opens with a set of 14 variations on an original theme, framed by a prelude and postlude, with an interlude occurring at the midpoint of the set. Wide-ranging in expressive character, these variations sometimes take as models keyboard textures created by past masters, including Bach, Schubert, and Chopin. The slow movement is meditative and grieving, and includes musical material from my choral setting of the Salve Regina, a Marian antiphon that speaks of how we "poor banished children of Eve" cry out from this "vale of tears". This choral setting was the first piece I completed after the death of my father. The finale reaffirms the power of positive swinging, although it is shadowed by darker material from earlier in the piece. The Daddy-O of the title is myself, so named by my twin children, born in 1999. It is a mystery as to why they picked for me a nickname out of popular usage for decades; they must detect in me some secret desire to be a 50's hipster.
I warmly dedicate the piece to Lambert Orkis. Only a musician of his formidable virtuosity, imagination, and wide-ranging experience would seek out an adventure like this project, which combines demanding keyboard writing with the special challenges of manipulating two keyboard instruments simultaneously.
James Primosch
BIOGRAPHIES
Richard Wernick
Richard
Wernick, born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1934, studied
under teachers such as Irving Fine, Harold Shapero, Arthur
Berger, Ernst Toch, Leon Kirchner, Boris Blacher, and
Aaron Copland. He has taught at the State University of
New York at Buffalo, the University of Chicago, and 1996
saw his retirement from the University of Pennsylvania,
where he had been the Magnin Professor of Humanities.
He has won numerous awards for his compositions including the 1977 Pulitzer Prize, is the only two-time first prize Friedheim Award recipient, and has been honored by awards from the Ford Foundation, Guggenheim Foundation, National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Mr. Wernick has composed numerous solo, chamber, and orchestral works, vocal, choral and band compositions, as well as a large body of music for theater, films, ballet and television. He has written pieces on commission for some of the world's leading performers and ensembles, among them are the Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, the Juilliard String Quartet, and the Emerson String Quartet.
For Lambert Orkis, he has previously written two important works: Sonata for Piano (1982) and Concerto for Piano (1989-90), both of which were recorded by Mr. Orkis for Bridge Records.
Other recent works include two short solo guitar pieces for David Starobin, Da'ase and Trochaic Trot, both of which are performed regularly by Mr. Starobin and the former of which he has recorded. In addition, at Mr. Starobin's request, Mr. Wernick composed a guitar concerto which he entitled The Name of the Game. This work was commissioned by Network for New Music and was premiered by them in Philadelphia last October.
Subsequently, Mr. Wernick has completed his Cello Sonata No. 2 for Scott Kluksdahl, and is currently working on a piece for String Quartet and Horn commissioned by the Library of Congress for the 40th anniversary celebration of the Juilliard Quartet's residency there.
In the summer of 2001, Richard Wernick was composer-in-residence with the Marlboro Music Festival. From 1983 to 1989, he served as the Philadelphia Orchestra's Consultant for Contemporary Music, and from 1989 to 1993 served as Special Consultant to the Music Director.
James Primosch
When
honoring him with its Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, the
American Academy of Arts and Letters noted that "A
rare economy of means and a strain of religious mysticism
distinguish the music of James Primosch... Through articulate,
transparent textures, he creates a wide range of musical
emotion." Andrew Porter stated in The New Yorker
that Primosch "scores with a sure, light hand"
and critics for the New York Times, the Chicago
Sun-Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the
Dallas Morning News have characterized his music
as "impressive", "striking", "grandly
romantic", "stunning" and "very approachable".
Born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1956, James Primosch studied at Cleveland State University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia University. He counts Mario Davidovsky, George Crumb and Richard Wernick among his principal teachers.
Primosch's instrumental, vocal, and electronic works have been performed throughout the United States and in Europe by such ensembles as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Collage, the Twentieth Century Consort, and Speculum Musicae. During the 2001-2002 season he is enjoying premieres by the Chicago Symphony, Speculum Musicae, and pianist Lambert Orkis, who also premiered an early work of Dr. Primosch, Apparition (1979). His Icons was played at the ISCM/League of Composers World Music Days in Hong Kong, and Dawn Upshaw included a song by Mr. Primosch in her Carnegie Hall recital debut.
Among the honors he has received are a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship, two prizes from the American Academy-Institute of Arts and Letters, a Regional Artists Fellowship to the American Academy in Rome, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, the Stoeger Prize of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and a fellowship to the Tanglewood Music Center where he studied with John Harbison. Primosch has received commissions from the Koussevitzky and Fromm Foundations, the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, the Folger Consort, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Speculum Musicae, pianist Lambert Orkis, the Barlow Endowment, Town Hall, the New York Youth Symphony, the Network for New Music, and the New York Camerata. In 1994 he served as composer-in-residence at the Marlboro Music Festival. Recordings of his music have appeared on the CRI, Centaur, Bard, Albany, and New World labels.
James Primosch is also active as a pianist, particularly in the realm of contemporary music. He was a prizewinner at the Gaudeamus Interpreters Competition in Rotterdam, and appears on recordings for New World, CRI, the Smithsonian Collection, and Crystal Records. He has worked as a jazz pianist and a liturgical musician.
Since 1988 he has served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he directs the Presser Electronic Music Studio.
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