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My first serious contact with Ed's music came when
Michelle Disco and I performed his "Two Women",
a pair of songs for soprano and piano. I'd known his work
as theorist (my copies of The Composer's Voice and
Musical Performance had become very well thumbed), but I
knew only a little about Ed as a composer. "Two
Women" was a beautifully made piece. There had to be
more where it came from. I discovered that Ed has written
some eighty pieces of music over the last sixty years,
and that none of this music was publicly available in any
recorded form, and that performances, while they did
happen, were too few. No matter how resigned a composer
might be about having an audience for his work, no matter
how tempted he might be by the thought of writing only
for the desk drawer, no composer really wants their music
to go unheard. No music as well made, as vivid, dramatic,
and as beautiful as Ed's deserves to be unheard. Music
unrecorded is uncomfortably close to music unheard. I
approached Paul Lansky about making a recording and doing
a concert of Ed's music. He agreed that the project
should proceed and offered the backing of the Princeton
Music Department. Superficially and personally, this
project has been about creating the compact disc of Ed's
music that I couldn’t buy. Seriously, personally,
and institutionally, this project is about acknowledging
and honoring Ed and his contributions to music, to
musicians, to musical scholarship, and to Princeton
University. His music is the part of his work that is, I
suspect, most personal. I can think of no better way to
honor Ed than performing and recording it. -Jeffrey
Farrington
Writing music gives me special satisfaction when I have
been asked to produce a composition for a performer or
group. (I don't say commissioned, because that implies a
fee-which, I fear, is very rarely involved.) Most of the
works on this disc owe their inceptions to such requests.
Unfortunately, the expected performance doesn't always
take place. The Duo for Violin and ‘Cello is a case
in point. The idea was suggested to me by Felix Greissle
back in 1963, when he was directing a radio program
devoted to new music. Speaking frankly, he told me that
he would like to do a chamber work of mine, but that for
financial reasons I should keep the instrumentation to a
minimum. So I produced the Duo,-and his program promptly
disappeared from the air. (That was not, I trust, an
example of post hoc, propter hoc.) Consequently the Duo
was not played until 1966, at the American Academy in
Rome.
It is in one roughly quadripartite movement, a free
rhapsody based melodically and harmonically on a
collection of related three-note cells. Each of these
consists of two intervals differing by a half-tone, a
perfect fourth plus a tritone, or a minor plus a major
second. Both of those cells, in fact, can be heard in the
opening octave statement, which acts as a kind of
recurring motto. In the opening section, contrapuntal
treatments of the motto sandwich a central passage
featuring a quasi-improvisatory melody for each
instrument in turn, punctuated by its partner's pizzicato
interjections. After a brief pause the second section
attempts to be Tranquillo but is persistently interrupted
by a Doppio movimento. That tempo takes over to produce
an energetic duet in which a martellato theme (based on
the "Fifth Symphony" rhythm) assumes control,
leading to a big climax. The movement gradually subsides,
and a transition leads to the third main section, a
ruminative Adagio. It is followed by what might be termed
a double interlude: first a dreamy Moderato that attempts
twice to come to rest, once on a D-major and once on a
C-major triad; then a tentative return to the motto,
which gradually becomes more agitated until it opens into
the finale, Allegro molto. When its dancing is ultimately
broken by march-like presentation of the motto, the end
is near. One last lyrical reminiscence is answered by a
brief return to the Allegro to effect a decisive
conclusion. (Incidentally, but probably not
coincidentally, the final E flat completes a three-note
cell initiated by the two previous cadences on D and C.)
Related to the pleasure of composing for specific
performers is the joy I experience when making musical
settings of poetry by my friends. I am fortunate to have
known many first-rate poets, and they have been most
gracious about letting me use their verse in this way.
The most recent example is New Weather, a cycle on four
short lyrics by the eminent young Irish poet Paul
Muldoon. The title is derived from the first song,
"Wind and Trees." After describing trees in a
storm, the poet compares himself to a single tree,
concluding that "by my broken bones/I tell new
weather. "Although recent medical evidence has
tended to question the validity of this kind of prophecy,
I found it musically suggestive.
"Blemish" tells of a (presumably beautiful)
woman with eyes of different colors. That discrepancy is
symbolized by a piano accompaniment that is freely
canonical between the left and the right hands, a minor
ninth apart. The half-step relationship is brought into
the open by the voice when it sings of "one brown,
and one blue eye." In "Bran," the poet,
despite the pleasure of sexual passion, nostalgically
remembers the sheer rapture of his boyhood love for his
dog. That was "an oatmeal Labrador," but when I
wrote the song I was thinking of a red cocker spaniel.
The longest of the songs is "Hedgehog." That
animal has appealed to me ever since I first encountered
one during World War II, at an army camp near Tel Aviv.
This extrodinary little creature rolls itself into a
hard, spiny ball at the first hint of danger but proves
to be gentle and friendly when induced to unwind. The
poem begins with a description of the steady motion of a
snail, which is suggested on the piano by a constantly
modulating twelve-tone ostinato for the two hands four
octaves apart. In contrast, the hedgehog is depicted by a
sudden spasmodic figure that brings the hands close
together on a dissonant chord. This motif and its
derivations punctuate the poet’s address to the
hedgehog—which never unrolls. It is quite right not
to "trust in the world": the Arabs told me that
they drop the animals into water, slit their stomachs
when they try to swim, and eat them.
In a way, animals contributed to the inspiration of
Serenade. It was written at the request of Jayn Rosenfeld
and the Princeton Ensemble, who wanted a quartet (flute
and strings) for a forthcoming concert at the Guggenheim
Museum. During the Winter of 1975-76 I was in the habit
of taking early morning walks on a nearby golf course
with two beloved dogs. On one of those frosty-often
snowy-excursions, I pictured to myself a flute-player
emerging outdoors in just such weather and trying to
persuade her colleagues to join her in some alfresco
music-making. According to this program, her companions,
at first reluctant, gradually respond one at a time. They
are not tuned up, however; in fact, their strings, as
revealed by a succession of pizzicato strummings,
comprise every note of the chromatic scale. That won't do
for the music the flutist has in mind; so they all have
to retune in the conventional manner. Then they are able
to join in a series of connected movements under her
command-for all the musical material of the serenade is
derived from the flute’s opening invocation. The
first movement is episodic-in turns fugal,
recitative-like, conversational, and hesitantly dancing.
It comes to rest in a dreamy Adagio interlude, an
explicitly tonal point of repose. After it dies away, the
flute, with another call to action, urges the strings to
bestir themselves anew. This time they produce a more
consistent dance-a quasi-waltz, as it were. It consists
of two sections, each leading to a climactic flute
passage. A moment of relaxation after the first of these
offers the prospect of a lyrical theme. That proves
abortive, however, for the dance returns. But a second
climax, even stronger, issues in an accompanied cadenza
by which the flute gradually reduces the tension,
inviting her companions to join in a development in the
previously suggested lyrical theme. Apparently they have
been playing on into the night, for this concluding
section is a kind of lullaby in which the flute's
extended melody is accompanied by gently rocking strings.
Occasionally one of the latter takes over the tune, but
the flute always returns and ultimately brings the
serenade to a close. Against the final chord, sustained
by the flute, violin, and viola, the cello's open-string
pizzicatos-still, of course, properly tuned-recall its
original scordatura awakening. It is not quite true to
say that Philomela was requested. Actually only one of
what I subtitle Three Nightingale Songs was written to
order. That is the last of the set as it now stands.
Based on a poem by Matthew Arnold, it was written in 1954
for a varied group-soprano, flute, viola, and piano-who
were giving a recital and wanted one piece to include
them all. Later, in 1970, I decided to add two other
movements, to poems by Robert Bridges and Sir Philip
Sidney, to make the present suite. When I wrote the
earliest song I had never heard a nightingale; so there
was no question of trying to imitate it. In the other
two, composed after I had been fortunate enough to become
familiar with the bird's extraordinary performance, there
are some vague attempts to copy its phrasing on the
flute. In the Bridges I refer to its unique motif of a
crescendo on a single reiterated note.
Although the flute in a sense represents the nightingale
throughout, its role varies from movement to movement.
The Bridges poem is a dialogue between the poet and one
of the birds, who thus speaks for herself. As she does
so, the flute, in duet with the viola, presents a purely
musical, more "bird-like" version of her
account: of the birds' desolate home, of their
transformation of their longing into nocturnal music, and
of their departure before the noisy advent of day. (That
last image, though poetically effective, is
ornithologically incorrect: the nightingale sings during
the day as well.) The Sidney poem depicts the nightingale
at home in her natural setting. The flute accordingly
blends for the most part with the other instruments to
produce a colorful foil for the poet's complaints. The
gently ironic attitude and the formality of the verse
(two similar stanzas, with identical refrains) suggested
a stricter construction than was permitted by the loosely
tonal organization of the other two songs. So, although
this one is not based on a twelve-tone series, it does
proceed by a succession of aggregates, of the voice on
the one hand and in its accompaniment on the other. The
Arnold poem is a monologue that presents the reactions of
one actually listening to the bird. The flute accordingly
personifies the nightingale more directly here than in
the other two members of the cycle. For that reason I was
delighted, when at last I heard a real Philomel, to find
that the bravura passages I had written for the flute
could be derived-rather fancifully, I admit-from some of
its characteristic notes. (Really, its song is so
constantly varied that almost any motif can be detected
in it.) I envisage the movement as a kind of scena. An
instrumental introduction that turns into the
accompaniment of a brief recitative presents much of the
material for the movement to come. Especially important
in this respect are the chords in the piano, all built up
by superimposing six or more thirds. The instruments then
relax in a lyrical passage that prepares for the
speaker’s address to the nightingale. This begins
with a cantilena ("O Wanderer") that pictures
the bird in its tranquil nocturnal setting. Interrupted
once by a return of the introductory material ("Say,
will it never heal?"), it leads to a quiet
conclusion. After a brief instrumental interlude, it is
succeeded by a kind of cabaletta, an Allegro that recalls
the painful events of the mythical tale. It is divided
into two sections. The first ("Dost thou tonight
behold") leads to a rhythmic outburst on the piano
that prepares for its complement, an instrumental fugato
(the "flight" of the two sisters) to which the
voice adds a soaring melody ("Dost thou once more
assay"). Its climax again recalls the introduction
as the speaker’s thoughts return to the present
("Listen, Eugenia-"). Here the superimposed
thirds of the opening reemerge to support the bird’s
final message: ("Eternal Passion! Eternal
Pain!").
I should like to take this opportunity of thanking those
who made this recording possible: especially Jeffrey
Farrington ("the onlie begetter") and the other
performers.
- Edward T. Cone
Edward Toner Cone was
born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on May 4, 1917. He
studied composition at Princeton University with Roger
Sessions, obtaining his B.A. in 1939, and M.F.A. in 1942.
He subsequently held a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship at
Princeton, and joined the Princeton faculty in 1946. He
has served as Ernest Bloch Professor at the University of
California at Berkeley and as an Andrew D. White
Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. Among his
awards are a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Old Dominion
Fellowship at Princeton University, and two ASCAP-Deems
Taylor Awards.
In addition to his work as a composer, Mr. Cone is an
influential analyst, critic and editor. He has written
numerous articles in such journals as The Musical
Quarterly, Perspectives of New Music, 19th Century Music
and the Journal of the American Musicological Society, as
well as three books, Musical Form and Musical
Performance, The Composer's Voice, and Music: a View from
Delft.
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