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Harold Farberman, Composer
Harold Farberman's career as a conductor has overshadowed his achievements as a composer. In fact, while a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Farberman turned first to composition as a further creative outlet, which in turn led to his more visible conducting career. From the mid-fifties onward, when he composed his first work, Evolution, for soprano, french horn and seven percussionists, Farberman has never stopped creating music.
Harold Farberman was born on November 2, 1929 on New York City's Lower East Side. Coming from a family of musicians (his father was the drummer in a famous 1920s klezmer band led by Schleomke Beckerman; his eldest brother was also a drummer) it seemed inevitable that he pursue music as a career. After graduating from The Juilliard School of Music on a percussion scholarship in 1951, he immediately joined the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) percussion section and became the youngest member of the orchestra at that time. Incidentally, Farberman has the distinction of being the only Juilliard instrumental graduate who has been invited back as a conductor of its various orchestras and as a composer—he was commissioned to write an opera for the opening of The Juilliard Opera Theater (The Losers).
With a performer's knowledge of percussion instruments and a dissatisfaction with their conventional treatment, Farberman became an early advocate for the use of percussion sonorities as a major voice in compositional structures. His very first work, Evolution, written in 1954before he began formal studies in composition, is scored for over one hundred percussion instruments and has been recorded four times, once by Leopold Stokowski.
After hearing Evolution, Aaron Copland invited Farberman to study with him at Tanglewood in 1955. That short involvement with Copland strengthened Farberman's resolve to acquire more compositional skills, and during his 12 year tenure with the BSO he earned a Masters Degree in Composition from The New England Conservatory.
Very quickly Farberman's music caught the attention of the general public. In 1956the Quartet for Flute, Oboe, Viola and Cello received first prize in the New England Composer's Competition. Walter Piston headed the jury. In 1957, Greek Scene, a trio for soprano, piano and percussion was chosen to represent the United States in an International Composer's Symposium held in Paris. Commissions from ensembles and orchestras, grants and awards from the NEA and State Arts Councils, and publications with various firms soon followed. Much of Harold Farberman's music has now been placed with the Cortelu Publishing Company. He is a member of BMI.
Farberman has written music for various chamber-size ensembles, large orchestras, concertos, operas, ballets and films. He has been fortunate. Every piece he has written has been performed, and much of his music has been recorded.
Albany Records has collected many of the earliest recordings and will create an archive of Harold Farberman's music. This is Volume One.
The Music
The music contained on this CD can be distinguished by one characteristic-virtuosity. All the participants are excellent musicians with outstanding technical skills; the exact combination needed to bring this collection of chamber music to life.
Each of the early compositions, written mostly in the early 1960s while Farberman was a member of the BSO, is freely structured but rhythmically incisive, generally atonal, and relies heavily on instrumental colors/registers for shape and movement within its rhythmic context.
While Harold Farberman's compositions over a four decade period can be catalogued in several distinct styles-atonal, jazz-derived, tonal-his music does not sound like any other composer's nor does he subscribe to any school of composition. That is because his music, on this CD especially, is generated mostly through a percussion sound-source scrim. And since he did not study with any major composer; the fingerprints on his music are uniquely his own.
TRIO for Violin. Piano and Percussion
1962
1. Allegro, violin cadenza 2. Moderato, Slowly
3. Piano cadenza 4. Freely 5. March
Gerald Tarack, violin; Robert Miller, piano; Harold Farberman, percussion
The Trio was commissioned for a debut recital by Dorothy Bales, a Boston violinist. It was originally entitled 5 Miniatures plus Cadenzas, but the composer changed the title after the first performance on March 5, 1963 in Boston's Jordan Hall.
The first two movements are played without interruption.
Movement One is both fierce and lyrical, the piano treated very much as a pure percussion instrument, the violin emerging as the single lyrical element with a short cadenza preceding a sharp pizzicato ending Movement One.
Movement Two begins with the first xylophone sound and is cannonic in nature; short, dry, simple in comparison with Movement One.
Movement Three features a series of textures created inside the piano (rubbing of strings, plucking strings) and corresponding percussion sounds (rubbing drum heads with palms and fingers, scrapes on metal instruments) in support of a singing violin line which switches to fierce hammered strokes and finally subsides as the movement concludes with a long piano glissando to a tam-tam stroke.
A short piano cadenza leads directly to Movement Four. Instructions to the players read: "All play pianissimo, notes that are not trills should dominate the texture." This movement is without identifiable pulse.
Movement Five is a very short march featuring the percussionist and a false ending.
QUINTESSENCE for Woodwind Quintet
1962
Written for the Dorian Quintet
John Perras, flute; Charles Kuskin, oboe;
William Lewis, clarinet; John Pierce, horn;
Jane Taylor, bassoon
In one movement
The composer met the Dorian Quintet the very first time the five musicians played together at Tanglewood in the summer of 1961. He was so impressed he wrote Quintessence in 1962 and dedicated it to the Dorian Quintet. They premiered and recorded it that same year.
While wind instruments can sing long lines beautifully, it is the facile, skittish, nervous and unexpected differences in sonorities that define Quintessence. The one movement work can be divided into three seamless sections with a recurring short motive. The work opens with the short motive and moves immediately into the first section of the work; quasi cadenzas for the bassoon, oboe, horn, clarinet, flute. Finally, all share a short, free cadenza. The opening motive reappears with additional pitches and leads directly to the second section—strongly rhythmic, contrasting staccato articulations against long sustained pitches. A transformed opening motive once again moves immediately into the third section. Quick moving short notes lead to a full statement of the initial motive. After a short bassoon line, a very short coda closes the work in the spirit of the opening.
GREEK SCENE for Soprano. Piano. Percussion
1957
1. Prologue 2. Clytemnestra 3. Electra
4. Clytemnestra 5. Epilogue
Text adapted by Harold Farberman from translations by Gilbert Murray of Agamemnon by Aeschylus; Electra by Euripedes and Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Corinne Curry, soprano; Robert Miller, piano; Harold Farberman, percussion
Greek Scene was written for and dedicated to Corinne Curry for her February 1958 Artist's Diploma Recital in Jordan Hall, Boston. An orchestral version of Greek Scene was later premiered in Boston and New York in December of 1958.
This is one of Farberman's earliest works, and the only one on this CD written in the 1950s. It is boldly drawn with sharp instrumental-vocal colors, the opening timpani-piano theme is a perfect setting for this tragic "blood for blood" tale. Each character/movement is given a clear profile.
1. Prologue: "Lo, he is fallen! And around great storms, and the outreaching sea! He is fallen." (Agamemnon, husband of Clytemnestra, offers his daughter Iphigenia as a sacrifice to the Gods to restore favorable winds for his journey.)
2. Clytemnestra: "Done! 'tis done. To me this hour was dreamed of long ago. A thing of ancient hate." (Clytemnestra, with the help of her lover Aegisthus, kills Agamemnon when he returns.)
3. Electra: "Justice. My life falls from me in despair." (Electra, daughter of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon, loves her father and despises her mother. With the help of her brother Orestes, Electra murders her mother.)
4. Clytemnestra: "That sword you hold...do I not know it? Yes, 'tis the sword with which I killed your father."
5. Epilogue: "Lo, they are fallen, and around great storms and the outreaching sea! They are fallen!"
NEW YORK TIMES, AUG. 30, 1964
1964
1. The Blue Whale 2. Politics 3. Science
4.Civil Rights
Corinne Curry, mezzo soprano; Robert Miller, piano; Harold Farberman, percussion
This work was written for Corinne Curry's Carnegie Recital Hall debut, October 25, 1964.
It had been decided well before the concert that a new work would be written, but as the end of August approached, not a note of music was on paper. The two principals, soloist and composer; could not agree on a text. The composer indicated that if a text were not chosen he would extract one from the New York Times. The four articles in that days newspaper; August 30, 1964, are the text for the four songs.
1. The Blue Whale: "Southampton, England—The whaling industry is on the verge of collapse. Conservation of whales has failed. The blue whale, the biggest animal in the world is believed to be close to extinction. The whale belongs to no one, and they have no one to look after them."
2. Politics: "Newport Beach, Cal.—Special: Sen. Barry Goldwater continued to attack the Johnson administration from his boating vacation, accusing the Democrats of refusing to discuss foreign policy."
"Wash., D.C. —'Clarify your foreign policy,' challenged Sec. of State Dean Rusk, 'If a choice is being offered, the American people ought to know what it is. '"
"Newport Beach, Cal.—Goldwater reported that Mrs. Goldwater could catch a fish out of a bathtub."
"Wash., D.C.—Wm. E. Miller attacked the use of the term 'front-lash.' Johnson is admitting that Democratic losses are so great that he must go hunting among Republicans for votes."
"Wash. D.C.—Special Reporters assigned to Goldwater have agreed on the difficulty of getting a clear statement from the Senator."
3. Science: voice and piano only; "Houston, Texas—After a study of seven hundred and seventeen patients, Dr. E.O. Strassman, Prof. at Baylor Univ. College of Medicine, can offer doctors the following: 'The bigger the brain, the smaller the breasts, the smaller the breasts, the higher the I.Q.'"
4. Civil Rights: voice and vibraphone only; "Birmingham, Ala: Rev V. H. Cross asked forgiveness for those who bombed the church last year; killing four Negro girls in Sunday school. He said we must follow the example of Jesus. He was put on the cross, it appeared all the good, all the truth had been lost. Hatred was rampant, love was buried. But then Jesus said, 'My God, Father forgive them for they know not what they do.'"
CRUMBLE'S BALLET for six musicians
1964
Gerald Tarack, violin; Robert Miller, piano; Charles McCracken, cello; Hubert Laws, flute; Ronald Anderson, trumpet; Harold Farberman, percussion-conductor
This one movement work was formerly entitled Three States of Mind. The music has been extracted from a much larger suite commissioned by Emily Frankel's American Dance Drama Company. The original suite was recorded for use by the Company. The Suite and Crumble's Ballet were premiered in New York late in 1964.
This work is meant to represent a series of adventures of a puppet-like figure, or thing, or robot, from birth or beginning, to death or end. Each of the soundscapes or adventures may be interpreted as the listener wishes to perceive them.
Five Images for Brass for brass quintet
1964
1. Moderato 2. With complete freedom
3. Very fast 4-5 Slowly, Moderato, Very fast
Paul Ingraham, trumpet; John Swallow, trombone; Harvey Phillips, tuba
This work was created especially for the virtuoso New York Brass Quintet and dedicated to them. The piece is organized so that each of the quintet's players has a movement to display their skills. It was written in the last month of 1964 and recorded shortly thereafter.
Movement One is a 'group movement,' in moderate tempo.
Movement Two features the french horn and trombone.
Movement Three launches into a very fast jazz inflected rhythmic featuring the two trumpets. It breaks rhythm for a very mechanical canon-like section and finishes as it began.
Movements Four and Five are played without pause. The fourth movement is a showpiece for the tuba. The final movement reflects on first movement materials and concludes with a blazing rhythmic charge to the end.
About Corinne Curry
She is a graduate of the New England Conservatory in Boston and is renowned for her musicianship and her beauty of sound.
After making these early recordings she led an active life as a much sought-after singer-musician. She appeared at the Marlboro Festival with Rudolph Serkin and Alexander Schneider; at Tanglewood for two seasons as a soloist for the Fromm Foundation where she performed the Emily Dickenson Songs with Aaron Copland at the piano. She was a member of the Metropolitan Opera Studio, sang with the Chicago Lyric Opera, San Francisco Opera, Washington Opera, and opened the opera season in Brussels in Monteverdi's Coronation of Poppea. She sang with many symphony orchestras including Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Denver, Oakland and sang very often with the Boston Pops and its conductor Arthur Fiedler. Miss Curry recorded an award-winning album of Charles Ives songs, one of the earliest singers to perform his music.
The last music Corinne Curry sang professionally was the final movement of Mahler's Fourth Symphony in a recording session in London with the London Symphony Orchestra, Harold Farberman conducting. The orchestra had never seen nor heard her sing. At the conclusion of her final take she received a long and sustained standing ovation from the orchestra. She stopped singing at the top of her form.
About The Recording
All the works were recorded in the mid 1960s in New York City with a variety of engineers under the supervision of the composer.
Dan Goodwin, editor and engineer of the Clubhouse in Germantown, N.Y., remastered the original tapes.
Cover Design: William Lessner
ALBANY RECORDS U.S.
915 Broadway, Albany, NY 12207
Tel: 518.436.8814: Fax: 518.436.0643
ALBANY RECORDS U.K.
Box 12, Warton, Carnforth, Lancashire LA5 9PD
Tel: 01524 735873 FAX: 01524 736448
WARNING: COPYRIGHT SUBSISTS IN ALL RECORDINGS ISSUED UNDER THIS LABEL.
© 2000 HAROLD FABERMAN
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