Chamber Symphony #2 for 16 Instruments
Chamber Symphony #2 for 16 Instruments
The Garden of Memory for Harpsichord
Line Drawings, Flute and Percussion
Cummingsong for Tenor and 5 Instruments
Six Pieces for Violin with Piano Obbligato
Leo Kraft (b.1922) is active as composer, educator, and author. After receiving degrees from Queens College and Princeton University, he joined the faculty of Queens College in 1947, and retired in 1989. While the bulk of his work consists of chamber music, he has written orchestral, piano, and vocal music as well. His compositions have been performed and recorded in the USA and abroad.
Six Pieces for Violin and Piano Obbligato
As the title implies, these pieces feature the violin, while the role of the piano is more than an accompaniment, but less than an equal partner, hence the term obbligato. Imagining the violin as a great actor capable of portraying many roles, I found a different kind of expressiveness in each piece. In the opening Cantilena the violin sings out, the piano providing a flowing background. In the more dramatic Capriccio the violin plays alone in a dramatic utterance. The spooky Ombre is played by violin pizzicato combined with the staccato notes of the damped piano strings. The keyboard instrument asserts itself somewhat in the Dialogo, sharing the melody with the violin. The reprise of the Capriccio takes on a different character with the support and comments of the piano. The lively fiddling is helped along by chords in the piano, which cannot resist joining in the fast-moving melody as the music races to its conclusion. The Six Pieces were written for Renee Jolles.
Line Drawings was written for Paul Dunkel, who gave the first performance with Richard Fitz in 1972. The linear nature of the music suggested the title. The percussion part plays more than occasional comments; my aim was to make that part as melodic as possible, creating a partnership of the two instruments. Line Drawings consists of five short pieces of which the first, third, and fifth are played by the flute, while the alto flute sings in the second, and the piccolo pipes merrily in the canonic fourth.
Paul Maynard was an outstanding performer and scholar in Renaissance and Baroque music. He was a major presence on the faculty of the Aaron Copland School of Music, and it is to his memory that this work for harpsichord (on which he performed so marvelously) is dedicated. The garden is the one that lies behind the Maynard's home, lovingly cultivated by his wife Drora Pershing, and in which he said that he had spent some of his happiest hours. The harpsichord piece evokes some of Mr. Maynard's musical interests, as imagined in the composers' mind and ear.
The poetry of e e cummings has delighted me since my student days, but only recently did I feel that I had the means to do justice to some of my favorite poems. I heard a tenor voice and a small group of instruments, which proved to be flute, oboe, violin, viola, and cello. My aim was to get beneath the surface of the elegant lines to the deeper meaning below.
Chamber Symphony #2, for Sixteen Instruments
The chamber symphony is a twentieth century invention, a work of symphonic dimensions for a relatively small ensemble. Chamber ensembles have attracted my attention throughout my career because they offer a wide range of expressive and coloristic possibilities. My second chamber symphony is indeed a symphony in the classical sense, which is to say that the work is highly developmental, spacious in gesture, and ambitious in scope.
While the general layout of the work is rather traditional, the musical content is of our time and place. The listener will soon recognize that together with sounds familiar from the earlier part of our era, there is an element of American popular music. The inclusion of a saxophone in the ensemble had something to do with that. The Chamber Symphony is scored for oboe, clarinet, saxophone, bassoon, trumpet, percussion, and three violins, three violas, three cellos, and one bass. Chamber Symphony #2 is dedicated to Mr. Raoul Ronson.
the hours rise up putting off stars and it is
into the street of the sky light walks scattering poems
mouth having death in her eyes
goes forth to murder dreams…
i see in the street where strong
and i see the brutal faces of
people contented hideous hopeless cruel happy
Thy fingers make early flowers of
thy hair mostly the hours love:
do not fear, we will go amaying.
thy whitest feet crisply are straying.
thy moist eyes are at kisses playing,
for which girl art thou flowers bringing?
To be thy lips is a sweet thing
Death, Thee i call rich beyond wishing
and life be nothing, it shall not stop kissing).
a wind has blown the rain away and blown
the sky away and all the leaves away,
and the trees stand. I think i too have known
(and what have you to say,
wind wind wind-did you love somebody
and have you the petal of somewhere in your heart
pinched from dumb summer?
of death dance cruelly for us and start
the last leaf whirling in the final brain
of air!)Let us as we have seen see
doom's integration...a wind has blown the rain
away and the leaves and the sky and the
the trees stand. The trees,
suddenly wait against the moon's face.
Spring is like a perhaps hand
a window, into which people look (while
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
fraction of flower here placing
without breaking anything.
Used with the permission of Live Right Publishing Corp. Copyright 1976 by George James Firmage.
Six Pieces for Violin with Piano Obbligato was written for Renee Jolles, who plays with Continuum, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and leads the Roerich String Quartet.
Christopher Oldfather plays with Parnassus, Cabrini Ensemble, and the Andreas Trio.
Paul Dunkel was the co-founder of the American Composers Orchestra, of which he is Resident Conductor. He is also music director of the Westchester Philharmonic Orchestra.
Michael Lipsey is director of the Talujon Percussion Quartet, and also leads the Percussion Ensemble at Queens College CUNY.
Mark Bleeke is an internationally acclaimed tenor soloist, who has performed in the U.S., and Europe, both in opera and concert. He has also recorded a wide repertory.
Paul Hostetter is music director of the Lyric Orchestra of New York and the New Jersey Youth Symphony.
George Rothman is the conductor of the Riverside Symphony Orchestra, and has recorded five CDs.
Recorded in LeFrak Hall, Queens College
Engineer/Producer for Chamber Symphony #2, Line Drawings, and “cummingsong”: Adam Abeshouse
Engineer for The Garden of Memory and Six Pieces: Rick Krahn
Editing for Six Pieces: Dana Perna
Six Pieces for Violin with Piano Obbligato, The Garden of Memory, “cummingsong”, and Chamber Symphony #2 published by Seesaw Music Corp., NY; Line Drawings published by General Music.
All compositions licensed by ASCAP.
Cover Design by Carol Lager.
Six Pieces for Violin and Piano Obbligato
5 Ripresa del Capriccio [2:50]
Christopher Oldfather, piano
8 q = 66 (alto flute) [3:32]
10 q = 132 (piccolo) [:48]
Michael Lipsey, percussion
12 The Garden of Memory [8:06]
Christopher Oldfather, harpsichord
13 the hours rise up [3:28]
14 thy fingers make early flowers [3:15]
15 the wind has blown the rain away [2:44]
16 spring is like a perhaps hand [3:11]
Sue Ann Kahn, flute s Marcia Butler, oboe
Deborah Wong, violin s Lois Martin, viola
Greg Heffelink, cello s Paul Hostetter, conductor
Chamber Symphony #2, for Sixteen Instruments
17 Allegro energico [5:35]
George Rothman, conductor
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