|
Charles Jones: An Appreciation
He was always Mister Jones: I never
thought he'd actually have minded it if we called him
“Charles”—particularly once we had grown
out of our apprenticeship and into what passed for full
maturity. But something about his presence, gracious and
supportive as he inevitably was, prompted an observation
of old-world manners. Mr. Jones he was—and, so far
as I'm concerned, Mr. Jones he will remain. Those of us
to have called him our teacher would make our way to 311
East 58th Street down Second Avenue or, perhaps, wander
over from the subway stop beneath Bloomingdale's.
Suddenly confronted with what still seems a fairy-tale
house, we would unlatch the picket fence (in midtown
Manhattan!), ring a loud, old- fashioned doorbell, and
suddenly Mr. Jones would appear, ushering us into his
living room, greeting us, artist to artist, with a warm
“Ah, yes! Come in, come in...”
How many others among his students
date their artistic coming of age to those late winter
afternoons seated at Mr. Jone's Steinway? Our meetings
would combine aesthetic advice, score reading, historical
analysis, delicious anecdotes and a nurturing,
near-parental warmth, for he was always aware of just how
lonely New York City could be for a newcomer. I would
arrive drunk on Steve Reich one week, on Olivier Messiaen
the next, and on the late works of Richard Strauss the
week following. He would listen to what I had written
(pretty eclectic stuff in those days!), size up whatever
strengths and weaknesses it might have had, and make
suggestions that were inevitably both compassionate and
of enormous practical help. Even when he actively
disliked the works of a given composer—Shostakovitch
and Sibelius were two bete noirs— he was always
keenly interested in the reasons his students had somehow
taken to this music.
In short, he was a thoughtful,
creative, and extraordinarily stimulating guide for young
people. Moreover, he was amazingly generous with his time
and friendship. He seemed to know everybody—at one
East 58th Street party, I recall scanning the room and
spotting Roger Sessions, Elliott Carter, Vittorio Rieti,
Virgil Thomson and Ned Rorem—and he always made sure
his pupils were introduced all around. Then there were
the concerts arranged by his students. Listening to these
events, I was always fascinated by a central parado. On
the most basic level, we were all writing in on our own
individual manners and seemed to have little in common
with one another. Later on, I realized that this was what
made Mr. Jones a great teacher—this very refusal to
drill any single musical language into our systems
against our will. Rather, he believed in building our
knowledge, sharpening our ears, and allowing us to
emancipate the composer within.
His own music is stirring,
concentrated, sometimes tempestuous and deeply
expressive. The Sonata da Camera (1966)
was a piece of which Mr. Jones was particularly proud.
With its arching melodies of violin, the complex but
curiously transparent writing for piano, and the sheer
muscular energy of the whole endeavor, the Sonata attains
a rare synthesis of neo-classicism and expressionism, two
elements that tugged throughout Mr. Jones output.
I was studying with Mr. Jones when
he wrote the Psalm (1976) for solo piano
and vividly remember hearing it for the first time.
(Whenever he finished a work, he would play a tape for
his students and we would follow along with the score,
breathlessly interested.) The Psalm struck me
then—and continues to strike me today—as a
remarkably forceful, challenging but never forbidding
piece, one that makes the listener work for just a little
but provides ample reward for the study.
The Cantata The Seasons
(1959), to texts by five English poets of the 16th to
18th centuries, is, by comparison to the rest of the
program, a relatively early piece. Yet it is still highly
characteristic: Mr. Jones always went out of his way to
find texts of genuine literary merit, and he had a gift
for matching music and imagery. Unlike many composers of
his era, he also respected the capacity of the human
voice and never tried to turn it into a surrogate
instrument. (All those song cycles by other composers
from the 60s and 70s that nobody could ever really sing!)
Here, too, we find that mixture of the modern and the
timeless that looks forward to his later settings of
William Langland and Henry James.
The String Quartet No. 6
(1970), was among his best-known pieces, due in part to
the recording on the CRI label. Mr. Jones always referred
to his quartets as musical “journals”—he
felt they contained his most intimate music—and this
tautly compressed one-movement work is indeed highly
personal and persuasive.
Finally, we have Emblemata
(1994), a late composition and a splendid and idiomatic
contribution to the modern organ repertory. Although Mr.
Jones was never a fierce colorist—one sometimes had
the sense that his music, like Bach's, could be played on
many different instruments and still make its
effect—he worked hard to exploit fully the resources
of his chosen vessel. For those of you who have never
heard Mr. Jones' music before, this program will provide
an excellent introduction. For those of us who knew and
loved the man, it will remind us that Mr. Jones'
distinctive, heartfelt and affecting music is still very
much in our midst.
—Tim Page (Adapted form a
program essay for the Charles Jones Memorial concert.)
From 1972 (CRI SD 283):
“The six string quartets which
I have written night be considered as a musical diary
which I have kept through the years. The first one dates
from student days, the second (1944) is already concerned
with the special sonorities possible in this medium, the
third (1951) is more complex in texture and probably the
most dissonant, the fourth (1954) is more simple and
lyrical, and the fifth (1961) again is much taken up with
special sonorities.
“I feel that in a large and
general way, two diverse elements are juxtaposed in the
Sixth Quartet (1970). One is the element of fanfare (or
other somewhat stirring sounds) and the second is a kind
of lyricism normally associated with the voice. As both
of these elements are, in a sense, foreign to the nature
of the strings, it was necessary to translate them into
the medium of the quartet. The fanfare-lyric
juxtaposition is evident in the first movement. In this
section, use is made of left hand pizzicato (plucking of
the string), returning on the part of the second violin;
and the movement ends with only the sound of the first
violinist's fingers dropping on the strings.
“There is a unifying or
punctuating element marking off the various sections,
which are played without pause. This is made up of
eight-part chords, related to a canonic passage which
recurs throughout the quartet, and which is used as a
formal beacon or guideline in tying the various parts
together. The second section (calm, 3/4 time) is in a
three part form, having a quicker-moving Trio section
before a short return of its first part.
“There is clearly recognizable
slow movement in 12/8 time which is connected to the
finale by the chords already mentioned, differently laid
out and played pizzicato. In the last movement, use is
made of the canonic figure, and the texture is mostly
that of a reference (only as regards texture) to the
first part with left hand pizzicato, harmonics and
collegno (striking the strings with the wood of the bow)
passages.
“The Sonatina for Violin and
Piano was written in California in 1942 and had its first
performance at the International Society for Contemporary
Music in Berkeley, California that summer. The performers
then were Sascha Jacobsen, violin and Maxim Shapiro,
piano.”
—Charles Jones
CHARLES JONES
(1910–1997) born in Tamworth, Canada.on June 21,
1910. At the age of ten he moved to Toronto where he
studied the
violin and theory. In 1928 he went
to New York and studied at the Institute of Musical Art
with Sascha Jacobson. He graduated in 1932 in the violin.
In 1935 Jones entered the Juilliard
School on a fellowship. He studied with Bernard Wagenaar
and graduated in composition in 1939. He was then sent by
the Juilliard to teach at Mills College, California.
There he met a
fellow teacher, the French composer
Darius Milhaud. This began a thirty year collaboration
between them, first at Mills College, then at the Music
Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, and finally at the
Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. Milhaud retired from
teaching in America in 1969 and Jones continued at the
Aspen Festival as composer-in-residence until 1989.
In 1946 he and his wife moved from
California to New York. He began teaching at the
Juilliard School in 1954 and later at the Mannes College
of Music. Two short periods were spent teaching at the
Salzburg Seminar in Austria and at the Bryanston School
in England. Jones died on June 6, 1997.
In spite of teaching, Jones
considered himself first and foremost a composer. He
wrote some ninety works including four symphonies, nine
string quartets, vocal scores and many other
combinations. He has had music played by the New York
Philharmonic; the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; the
BBC; the National Symphony Orchestra; and the San
Francisco, St. Louis, and Dallas Symphonies among many
others.
|
