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Although
the five compositions on this recording cover the fifteen-year period
between 1980 and 1994, they are linked by a consistent compositional approach
and a common set of core musical values. Although he composes in a modernist,
free atonal idiom, Edward Smaldone is a classicist. Every work
here is deeply and rigorously motivic. Within each piece, the composer
develops music of very different sensibilities–it is by turns energetic,
doleful, lyrical, exuberant, playful–from common motivic threads,
imaginatively reconceived. There are no textures for their own sakes,
that is, no sections that sacrifice thematic content to mere color or
gesture, no passages of simple repetition, no minimalist "sameness"
of idea. Rather, the Germanic values inherent in the challenge of "continuing
variation"–challenging because of its demands on the imagination
and connection-making processes of both composer and listener–is
a guiding force in this music. Smaldone is also a classicist in the sense
that his large-scale musical forms take their inspiration from eighteenth-century
models. Exposition, development, and recapitulation–the components
of the sonata form, that preeminent structure of all classical music–figure
prominently in his work, as does the flavor of such prior musical forms
as the scherzo. Even contrapuntal techniques associated with Baroque music
surface from time to time, when they may convincingly further Smaldone’s
musical intentions. Steeped as he is in the learned traditions of the
past, the composer is equally concerned with transmitting the energies
of the present. "My first experiences were with rock and popular
music, and my aim as a composer has been to create the immediacy and excitement
of those kinds of music while eluding the pitfalls of either simple-minded
populism or a too precious academicism."
The decade-and-a-half development in the
composer’s life documented in this recording reveals expanded musical
means rather than a sea change in stylistic direction or any radical shift
of approach. The earliest works recorded here, the Solo Sonata for Violin
(1980) and Trio: Dance and Nocturne (1984), embrace, albeit in different
ways, a Schoenbergian aesthetic, the first piece serious, rigorous, and
demanding, the second more playful and gemütlich. The three later
pieces–Two Sides of the Same Coin (1990), Rhapsody for Piano and
Orchestra (1993), and Three Scenes from "The Heartland" (1994)–admit
other musical influences and embrace a wider range of musical means, especially
the syncopated rhythms, harmonies, and textures of jazz, and a broader
gestural range that includes the harmonic and melodic sweep and climactic
underpinnings of Romanticism. One hears over the period covered in this
recording a continuing enrichment of musical language within a modus operandi
that remains firmly located in the values of rigorous traditional craftsmanship
and a visceral delight in sound.
Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra
(1993) was commissioned by the Queens Symphony Orchestra in celebration
of its fortieth anniversary, and was premiered in that year with Michael
Boriskin as soloist and Arthur Fagen as conductor; pianist, conductor,
and orchestra are its dedicatees. Though working in a free atonal harmonic
idiom, Smaldone’s affection for jazz-tinged harmonies is apparent
in the Rhapsody, producing a tonal palette that the composer has characterized
as "McCoy Tyner meets Arnold Schoenberg." The opening measures
serve as a telling introduction to the composer’s work. Marked "Inciso
con fuoco" (incisive, with fire), ascending melodic couplets force
their way upward by semi-tone intervals, this motivic ur-material serving
not only as the building block for the opening theme but in the creation
of music of quite different characters, including the playful music interwoven
throughout the work. Even accompanimental filigree, such as the piano’s
arpeggiated music, is developed from the same motivic tissue. The result
is a piece in which diverse themes are informed by the same unifying source
material. As with all of the compositions on this recording, a traditional
approach to extensive thematic development on the local level is mirrored
in the choice of formal structure: the rhapsody corresponds roughly to
the sonata form in a later, freer incarnation. At its entry, the piano
extends the opening theme and develops it in imaginative and unexpected
directions, introducing elements by turns playful and romantic, and later
juxtaposing both.
The developmental tendencies of the exposition
leave the composer free to strike out in adventuresome new directions
in the development proper (at the 5’16" mark). The tempo slows
as the mood turns mysterious and this section is more volatile than the
first, with intense climaxes, sudden changes of thematic direction, a
colorful and ghostly re-presentation of the opening theme against piano
trills, and a solo cadenza that further explores the various character
potentials of the expository material.
The recapitulation (at 13’57")
intensifies the substance of the exposition, juxtaposing themes more sharply
and reducing the gestures to their essences, a strategy that ratchets
up the intensity and provides a compelling and dramatic gloss on the work’s
expository material.
Trio: Dance and Nocturne, for
violin, clarinet, and cello (1984), was composed almost a decade before
the piano rhapsody. In its motivic rigor, contrapuntal orientation, even
in its pitch usage, the piece’s voice is unmistakably Schoenbergian.
Nevertheless, guided by an unfailingly light touch and sensitive ear,
Smaldone is able to coax from an atonal palette the kind of graceful music
that has eluded many composers working in a similar language. The trio
is compact, excellently crafted, and "breathes" comfortably
and naturally. In A-B-A’ form, the work features breezy dance music
in the A section, with the darker, slower "nocturne" creating
contrast and comprising the B section (at the 1’32" mark). Despite
a sharp change in mood between these sections (attenuated by a skillful
transition and retransition), the motivically consistent source material
serving both A and B creates a unifying link, in the tradition of the
best 19th- and 20th-century German music. The abundance of intervals of
the second and fourth, the typically upward trajectory of the melodies,
especially the upward or downward hop of a perfect fourth proximate to
the top of a line, create strong and consistent thematic profiles common
to both sections. In addition, A and B feature sinewy, contrapuntally
independent lines; similar rhythmic values despite the difference of tempo;
and the kind of attuned responsiveness, each instrument to the other,
that suggests musical "conversation."
The recapitulatory A’ section (commencing
at 4’24") demonstrates a well-schooled familiarity with the
synthesizing tendencies of 19th-century music, as found, for example,
in the short late piano works of Brahms. The A’ section smoothly
combines the music of A and B, subtly reintroducing A with a new version
of the opening (invoking the Classical "false recapitulation")
and altering and developing the music from the B section (at 4’45")
as well. The return of a more recognizable version of the work’s
opening music (at 5’29") creates a liberating momentum that
is sustained through the trio’s blithe conclusion.
Three Scenes from "The Heartland,"
for solo piano, was commissioned by and is dedicated to pianist Donald
Pirone. Composed in 1994, almost a decade removed from the composer’s
student days, the work leaves behind more homogeneous and exclusively
"high art" models to embrace a wider world of beloved styles.
It is a mature and confident voice that permits the composer to range
over disparate musical terrains, and Smaldone invokes the landscapes of
jazz piano, quasi-fugue, and Chopinesque Romanticism, within an essentially
free atonal language, with equal sureness. Nevertheless, the piece is
a convincing amalgam of these stylistic elements, well blended and richly
flavored, rather than a piercing disjunction of untenable musical bedfellows.
The musical styles redolent of America–explicitly,
the rhythms, harmonies, and textures of jazz, and implicitly, the spaciousness
of the American frontier–dovetail smartly with the work’s nominal
program, Amy Clampitt’s poem "The Heartland." Smaldone
writes, "The land that the poet evokes, the wonder and space as well
as the violence and volatility of the place we occupy, found their way
into the sound poems that comprise the work."
The first movement, "Introduction,"
derives its inspiration from the poetry that evokes the majesty and wildness
of the uncharted prairie, where there are "no roads/no landmarks
to tell where you are,/…or whether you will ever find a place/to
feel at home…only waves of chlorophyll in motion." Marked "maestoso,
con rubato," the work opens with a two-chord statement, Wagnerian
in its use as a building block and point of departure for subsequent accreting
statements, and a strong identifying motto that resurfaces throughout
the movement. The block chords eventually throw off melodic tendrils that
gain independence and boldness, until the truncated recapitulation restores
the wall of chordal sound and, with it, an aura of spaciousness.
The Introduction’s commingling of
Romantic phrase building with jazz piano harmonies and "improvisatory"
melodic figures gives way to the good-natured "Scherzo," marked
"rambunctious." Through this movement, the composer hoped to
convey, in his words, "the freewheeling and confident nature of the
American spirit, so blindly ambitious, confident, and optimistic"
in its willingness to tackle what Clampitt describes as "the involuted
tantrums of Spring and Summer[’s] sacksful of ire," "wind
and rain…swigging up whole farmsteads," where "luck and
cellar hole were all/a prairie dweller had to count on." The movement
emphasizes the brash confidence of these pioneers in the propulsive motion
of the music through jagged, syncopating changes of meter. Smaldone hears
jazz as a metaphor for the buoyancy of the American spirit in the face
of such overwhelming odds. Embedded imitation is made explicit in a clever
episodic two-part invention on the main subject–Ellington meets Bach–at
the thirty-six second mark.
The concluding "Nocturne" invokes
the "pure astonishment" found in Clampitt’s paean to the
American heartland, realizing in musical form the sense of awe and understated
passion suggested by the poetry. Sweeping arpeggios accompany lyrical
lines, and the work’s only flirtation with tonal harmony conveys
hushed majesty. Just prior to the final cadence, the atmosphere is shattered
by a jagged, quicksilver melody stated in octaves, the spirit of jazz
imposing itself with irrepressible energy on the emotional landscape.
A faint echo of the opening motive returns in the highest register and
then sweeps into silence, before octave c’s in the bass bring the
work to a close.
Written in 1980 and dedicated to the
composer’s wife, Karen, the Solo Sonata for Violin is the earliest
composition on this recording, and is an ambitious essay in a challenging
genre. Smaldone’s concentration on musical materials firmly within
an atonal modern aesthetic is especially perceptible when heard in this
context, following the lushness and expanded stylistic palette of Three
Scenes from "The Heartland." Nevertheless, the absence of eclectic
stylistic means should not imply an absence of gestural variety. This
work demands a violinist with the skill to differentiate between sharply
contrasting gestures; negotiate the entire range of the violin; realize
unusual meters and complex rhythmic figures; and play the copious pizzicati,
arco with simultaneous pizzicato, and harmonics, all without sacrificing
the lyrical and expressive flow of the music. The piece is cast in three
movements, the outer two of which mirror each other. Like all the other
pieces on this recording that return to opening material, this "recapitulation"
radically reconceives the music to which it refers. In this case, some
of the many elements common to the first and third movements include their
pace and character (both are marked "dramatic"),
the opening figure of an ascending semitone
(the Piano Rhapsody develops out of the same initial gesture), concluding
poignant stratospheric bowed notes against left hand pizzicati in the
lower register, similar angular melodies using the entire range of the
instrument, and an alternation between what the composer calls "gentle
phrases and chordal outbursts," between "lyrical statements
and aggressive ones." Unlike later pieces by the composer, however,
which distill expository essences in dramatically truncated recapitulations,
this movement three is more a companion piece to the first than an intensification
of it, reconfiguring all the elements of that movement while still retaining
its shape and character.
The inner movement, a "scherzo,"
employs the traditional three-part (A-B-A) form to which it refers, with
playful outer sections framing a lyrical slow section (at the fifty-five
second mark) of contrasting gestural and melodic character. The return
of the scherzo is not a mere repeat of the opening material, but is a
shortened version that still manages to incorporate the essence of the
B section to create a summarizing synthesis of all that has come before.
Two Sides of the Same Coin (1990),
for clarinet and piano, was commissioned by Sounds from the Left Bank,
and was premiered at P.S. 1 (Project Studios 1) in Long Island City, New
York, in May, 1990. Aptly named, the single-movement work develops music
of radically different sensibilities from common motivic and harmonic
material. The A section is energetic, with rarely a silence interfering
with the propulsive character of the music. The piece begins with three
distinct gestures in as many measures–syncopated chords, pointed
staccato arpeggios, and a jazzy figure comprised of an eighth note and
two sixteenths–and the entire A section spins out in an exploration
of these basic ideas. Eventually exhausting itself, A gives way to a contrasting
and dream-like B section that transmogrifies elements from its predecessor.
Now the propulsive rhythms of the A section are translated into a nearly
ubiquitous and steady stream of eighth-note quintuplets in the left-hand
of the piano (against which the clarinet plays long, angular lines "as
though in a haze"), and just as the A section loses steam and collapses,
the B section’s basic eighth note pulse steadily slows to near stillness.
A short coda restores the energy and material of the A section.
Dedicated to his eldest daughter, Laura,
the piece was intended to reflect life at home with an eighteen-month-old
child. "Her boundless energy (when awake)," writes the composer,
"and dreamy tranquility (when asleep) were two sides of what now
seems like a blissfully simple experience of parenting, especially compared
with the current scenario of three children, ages twelve, nine, and six!"
As the five pieces on this recording
demonstrate, Edward Smaldone has evolved a musical language that is as
visceral as it is intelligent, an accomplishment prompting the American
Academy of Arts and Letters to observe that the composer’s "serious
concern with the foundational aspects of musical coherence never conflicts–indeed,
it becomes a means of achieving–a compositional language that is
vital, expressive, and original."
–Perry Goldstein
(Composer Perry Goldstein is a member of
the faculty of the State University of New York at Stony Brook.)
MICHAEL BORISKIN, piano, has performed
throughout the United States and in over thirty countries. He appeared
as soloist with the San Francisco, Seattle, and Utah Symphonies, Polish
National Radio Orchestra, Bavarian Symphony of Munich, American Composers
Orchestra, New York Chamber Symphony, UNAM Philharmonic of Mexico City,
and many others. Boriskin has performed at venues including Lincoln Center,
the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, BBC, Theatre des Champs-Elysèes
in Paris, Vienna's Arnold Schoenberg Center, and others. His innovative
National Public Radio series, Centuryview, was heard regularly for three
seasons across America. Boriskin's extensive discography ranges widely
from Brahms and Tchaikovsky to the present on a variety of labels. Boriskin
is presently Artistic Director of The Copland Heritage Association.
DONALD PIRONE, piano, enjoys a
distinguished career as soloist, chamber musician, and concerto performer.
Pirone has appeared throughout the country and in several major concert
halls, including Carnegie Recital Hall. Pirone has premiered and commissioned
several new works throughout his career, including Edward Smaldone's Three
Scenes from "The Heartland." Mr. Pirone, who resides in New York, is a
member of the performance faculty at the Aaron Copland School of Music,
at Queens College, and heads the piano and chamber music departments at
The Center for Preparatory Studies in Music at Queens College. He has
recorded for Koch International, Musical Heritage Society, Grenadilla
Records, CRI, and Capstone recording companies.
ARTHUR FAGEN, conductor, has conducted
more than sixty operas in prominent houses throughout the world, including
The Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, New York City Opera, Vienna
State Opera, and the Munich State Opera. Equally active on the concert
podium, Fagen has conducted the Czech Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic,
Jerusalem Symphony, Prague Symphony Orchestra, among others. A native
New Yorker, Fagen studied at Wesleyan University and the Curtis Institute.
He served as first conductor of the Kassel and Brauschweig Operas as well
as Chief Conductor of the Flemish Opera Antwerp and Ghent (1983-86). He
has been the Music Director of the Queens Symphony Orchestra since 1989.
For almost thirty years, SPECULUM MUSICAE
has been internationally recognized for its meticulously prepared and
passionately rendered performances of the music of our time. Allen Blustine
is a longtime champion of new music and has performed dozens of premieres,
including works by Milton Babbitt, Donald Martino, Elliott Carter and
Wayne Peterson. Blustine is Executive Director of Speculum Musicae and
is on the faculty of Columbia University. Curtis Macomber, violin, has
appeared in recital and as soloist at Carnegie Recital Hall, the Kennedy
Center, and many other venues here and abroad. Macomber was a member of
the New World String Quartet for eleven years (1982-1993). He is on the
faculties of the Juilliard School and the Manhattan School of Music. Andrè
Emelianoff, cello, is a member of the Da Capo Chamber Players, principal
cellist for the New York Chamber Symphony and a member of the faculty
of the Juilliard School. He has worked closely with many leading American
composers, including Joan Tower, George Perle, and Elliott Carter.
The MUNICH RADIO ORCHESTRA was
founded in 1952 with the expressed aim of creating an orchestra which
could perform the most challenging "serious music" as well as
jazz and lighter popular fare. To that end the orchestra has an enormously
varied repertoire which includes opera, operetta, musicals, popular compositions,
rarely heard symphonic works, film music and "jazz meets symphony."
Through a busy and varied concert and recording schedule the orchestra
has performed with such noted artists as Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo,
Lalo Shifrin, Grady Tate, Bobby McFerrin and has appeared in both traditional
concert settingssuch as the Salzburg Culture Festival at the Vienna Music
Association and at the Lucienne and Zurich Jazz Festivals.
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