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The years have passed three decades and counting since the works in this collection could stand tall under a "New Music for the Piano" rubric. Robert Helps recorded this collection in 1966 (during, he remembers, a transit strike that had New York City walking if not staggering).
The music came from a published anthology of the same name, an American collection compiled under the auspices of the Abby Whiteside Foundation by Joseph Prostakoff, a student of the late Abby Whiteside. "They knew practically every composer in the country," Helps remembers, "and asked many of them for pieces for the collection. Some said they were too busy, but all of them at least sent their good wishes."
Think of the state of music in Americain New York in particular in 1966. Lincoln Center was brand new, and with it the concept of a centralized performing arts center in every major city, not merely as concert halls and opera houses but also as a creative force governing (and even funding) the works of new composers and the emergence of new performers. For better or for worse, government was getting into the act, through the creation of the National Endowment. Music had its stars Beverly Sills, Leonard Bernstein, Glenn Gould and it also had its new languages. Electronic music, exotic scales and instruments from Asia and Africa, multi-media "happenings" that involved the interaction of sight and sound, abstract expressionism and chance music these all combined to project the notion that everything we'd heard in music up until then was merely the base of the mountain.
From the evidence of this collection, however, even the "base of the mountain" was a lively place. Take this hour long sampling of the work of twenty-one greatly eminent Americans, music whose dates range from 1946 (George Perle's Six Preludes) to 1964 (Josef Alexander's Incantation) as a document of an era, a time of ending and beginning. (For an update, there is CRI's recent release Solo Flights, another American piano anthology that brings us up to 1997.) The variety is remarkable; there was not then, and there is not now, any single definition of "American music" that covered the territory. The metaphor of the "melting pot," which authors had used for decades to describe the "new Americans" drawn to this country since it was new from a worldwide diversity of origins, applies to its music as well.
Even before the cultural purges instigated by Adolf Hitler's Nazis, composers emigrating from abroad had instilled a magnificent impurity into the American musical mix. Joseph Prostakoff, composer, teacher and editor of this collection, had arrived in 1922. Paul Pisk came in 1936; Ingolf Dahl in 1938, Samuel Adler a year later. Native-born composers had access to their teaching, and as well to the guiding presence of Arnold Schoenberg and Darius Milhaud on the West Coast, Paul Hindemith at Yale, Ernst Krenek in Minnesota and Karol Rathaus at Queens College.
There were other kinds of "impurity" as well, all contributing to the vitality and the indefinability of Americas "New Music" circa 1964. There was, for one thing, jazz already a shaping force in the world's music for nearly fifty years, still making its way into the "serious" music world in the hands of Morton Gould, Hall Overton and Sol Berkowitz. There was also a growing tendency for composers to examine their own backgrounds and draw inspirations therefrom: American roots clearly showing in music of Norman Cazden and Ernst Bacon, the Armenian tradition in Alan Hovhanesss voluminous output.
Born in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1928, Robert Helps began serious musical study under both his hats as a teenager: piano with Abby Whiteside, composition with Roger Sessions. He remembers Whiteside's teaching particularly for its emphasis on "the physical aspects, how you use your body to create rhythm . . . really, the most basic questions of how d'ya play the piano?" Since 1978 he has been on the music faculty of the University of South Florida in Tampa.
He had taken on the New Music for Piano project at Whiteside's urging; the original recording, on RCA Victor, was distributed by the Abby Whiteside Foundation to 600 libraries and educational radio stations. It was later reissued on CRI, again with Foundation support. "There were three or four pieces I didn't like," says Helps, "and they were the hard ones to learn. I've forgotten which ones they were, and I never listen to my own recordings anymore."
Given the changes in the whole definition of music since the 1960s, can you, Bob Helps, still encourage a youngster to go into musicas a pianist, a composer, whatever?
"Oh sure," says Helps. "Sometimes I get pessimistic, but then I discover that whatever it was isn't as bad as I'd thought. After all, the alternative to doing is not doing, and that's worse. I will always encourage a youngster to pursue a career in music provided and that's a big word that there's absolutely nothing else in that person's life. If there is . . . forget it."
Ingolf Dahl (1912-1970): Fanfares (1958)
Born in Hamburg of Swedish parents, Ingolf Dahl settled in Los Angeles in 1938, and studied with Nadia Boulanger when she gave master classes on the West Coast. On the faculty at the University of Southern California, he numbered Michael Tilson Thomas among his students. His most characteristic music, which includes this brief piano work and his popular Concerto a Tre, have a jaunty, Coplandesque character that testify to his assimilation into the American musical scene.
Kent Kennan (1913-): Two Preludes (1951)
I. Rather freely; with a feeling of yearning and unrest
II. Boldly, with vigor
Born in Milwaukee, Kent Kennan studied at the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music, and with Ildebrando Pizzetti in Rome as winner of the 1936 Prix de Rome. His Night Soliloquy for flute and orchestra was performed by Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. His textbooks on orchestration and counterpoint are still widely used; his 1951 Preludes show a leaning toward the lean, athletic contrapuntal style of, among others, Paul Hindemith.
Samuel Adler (1928-): Capriccio (1954)
Born in Mannheim, Germany, Samuel Adler came to the United States in 1939. His composition teachers included Walter Piston and Paul Hindemith; he also studied conducting with Serge Koussevitzky. Formerly teacher of composition at North Texas State University, he later moved to Eastman where he was professor of composition for almost thirty years. He is currently on the composition faculty at the Juilliard School. His compositions include a folk-opera based on Bret Hartes The Outcasts of Poker Flat; his 1954 Capriccio has some of the same folksy lilt.
Hall Overton (1920-1972): Polarities No. 1 (1958)
While best known as a composer operating on the cusp between "serious" music and jazz his Polarities No. 1 echoes the exquisite harmonies of Duke Ellington Michigan-born Hall Overton came to an involvement with the latter art while on combat duty overseas with the U.S. Third Armored Division. Before that he had studied counterpoint in Chicago with Gustav Dunkelberger; after the War he studied composition with Vincent Persichetti at Juilliard. His output, therefore, includes string quartets, symphonies and a chamber opera, as well as a splendid legacy of jazz-tinged compositions.
Milton Babbitt (1916- ): Partitions (1957)
Composer, theorist, formidable teacher (at Princeton, Juilliard, wherever) and proponent of the abstruse art of music at the cutting edge, Philadelphia-born Milton Babbitt was before any of the above a composer of popular songs and show tunes. He claims, probably with accuracy, that he didnt write the title of his most famous article "Who Cares If You Listen," a guide for braving the perils of hardcore atonality. His Partitions, delightfully quirky for all its complex terrors, was composed for Robert Helps.
Miriam Gideon (1906-1996): Piano Suite No. 3 (1951)
I. Restlessly
II. Tenderly
III. Vehemently
Born in Greeley, Colorado, Miriam Gideon received her masters in musicology at Columbia University. She studied piano with Abby Whiteside; her composition teachers were Lazare Saminsky and Roger Sessions. Her major works include an opera, Fortunato; a cantata, The Habitable Earth; and a legacy of choral works, song cycles, several sonatas and chamber music.
Sol Berkowitz (1922): Syncopations (1958)
Another Abby Whiteside-trained pianist, Sol Berkowitz also studied composition with Karol Rathaus at Queens College and Otto Luening at Columbia. Born in Warren, Ohio, he moved to New York at an early age. In 1956 he composed the jazz opera Fat Tuesday on a Ford Foundation grant; from then on most of his compositions were for theater and television. If his 1958 Syncopations reminds you a little of the grand old "stride piano" style of James P. Johnson or Fats Waller, youre hearing correctly.
Ben Weber (1916-1979): Humoreske, Op. 49 (1958)
Originally headed toward a medical career, William Jennings Bryan ("Ben") Weber had his course diverted after meeting Arnold Schoenberg. Largely self-taught in music, he evolved a musical style that respected Schoenbergs tone-row principles to a degree, while maintaining a hold on tonality. Born in St. Louis, Weber moved to New York in 1945. His legacy includes concertos for piano and violin and his Symphony on Poems of William Blake, recorded by Leopold Stokowski and still available.
Paul A. Pisk (1893-1990): Nocturnal Interlude
Closely associated with the Second Viennese School in the 1920s, Paul Amadeus Pisk was also one of the founders of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), one of the foremost activist groups for maintaining the cutting edge. He emigrated to the U.S. in 1936 and was best known for founding the music department at the University of Redlands, an enclave of high cultural achievement in the California desert. His Nocturnal Interlude manages in less than four minutes to epitomize the European musical scene he was obliged to abandon: some Schoenberg (atonal but not serial), some Hindemith and, above all, some Bach.
Mel Powell (1923-1998): Etude (1957)
The New York-born Mel Powell was first lured into music via his wonderful touch as a jazz pianist; some of Benny Goodmans best old recordings find the teenage Powell on piano; later, heading his own band, Powell had Goodman returning the favor on clarinet. From there Powell moved on to Yale, where he founded one of the countrys first electronic music studios. He then answered the siren call of Walt Disneys money, and founded the experimental music department at the Disney-funded California Institute of the Arts. His own beautifully chiseled music, much of it small perfect jewels like this Etude, was capped by Duplicates, a massive two-piano concerto that earned the 1990 Pulitzer Prize.
Morton Gould (1913-1996): Rag-Blues-Rag
Like many names already noted in this compendium, Morton Gould spent a productive life on a commute between "serious" and jazz. His orchestral works included the evergreen Spirituals for Orchestra and the Latin-American Symphonette. For the ballet he created Fall River Legend and Interplay; Broadway welcomed his Billion-Dollar Baby and Arms and the Girl. Born in New York, Gould studied piano with Abby Whiteside and composition with Vincent Jones. His legacy remains fresh and widely popular.
Alan Hovhaness (1911-2000): Allegro on a Pakistan Lute Tune, Op. 104 No. 6 (1952)
At the time of his death in 2000, Alan Hovhanesss symphonic legacy had climbed toward eighty, not to mention an output of comparable size in several other forms. Born in Somerville, Massachusetts, of Scottish-Armenian parentage, he most often drew on the latter
side of his heritage, creating music full of near-Eastern melodic shapes and harmonies. They come through even in smaller works like this Allegro, with its sinuous melody over a repeated, drum-like bass.
George Perle (1915-): Six Preludes, Opus 20B (1946)
Renowned as a foremost authority on the music of the Second Viennese school, most of all for his books on Alban Berg, New Jersey-born George Perle is equally known for a long list of compositions which, even into his ninth decade, shows no sign of running dry. He studied composition with Wesley La Violette and Ernst Krenek, taught at Yale, the University of Southern California and the University of California at Davis, and is now emeritus professor of composition at Queens College.
Norman Cazden (1914-1980): Sonata, Opus 53, No. 3) (1950)
Pianist, musical scholar and composer Norman Cazden, born in New York, gave his first piano recital at twelve in New Yorks Town Hall. He studied composition with Walter Piston and Aaron Copland, worked as pianist with several major dance companies, composed incidental music for Shakespearian plays (The Tempest and The Merry Wives of Windsor), and has taken his tape recorder into rural areas to collect and annotate American folksongs. His interest in folk sources is clearly audible in this Sonata.
Joseph Prostakoff (1911-1980): Two Bagatelles
I. Adagio molto e espressivo
II. Con moto
Born in Kokand, Central Asia, Joseph Prostakoff was brought to the United States, at age eleven, in 1922. He studied composition with Mark Brunswick and Karol Rathaus, and piano with Abby Whiteside. He worked with Whiteside and with Sophia Rosoff in maintaining the Whiteside Foundation, in preparing Whitesides own writings on various aspects of piano playing, and in assembling the anthology that became this recording; he was also highly regarded as a piano teacher in his own right. His legacy of compositions includes works for small instrumental ensemble, voice and piano.
Peggy Glanville-Hicks (1912-1990): Prelude for a Pensive Pupil
Born in Melbourne, Peggy Glanville-Hicks emigrated first to England and France, where she studied with Ralph Vaughan Williams, Egon Wellesz and Nadia Boulanger, and in 1939 to the United States. In New York she wrote criticism for the late Herald Tribune, and received awards from the National Institute of the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She wrote four operas, including Nausicäa in which Maria Callas sang the title role, and The Transposed Heads, commissioned and recorded by the Louisville Orchestra. This charming small piano piece suggests that Glanville-Hickss heart remained, at least in part, in France.
Ernst Bacon (1898-1990): The Pig Town Fling
As this works title suggests, Ernst Bacon was deeply committed to American folksong and on subjects drawn from the American scene. Born in Chicago, he studied composition with Ernest Bloch in San Francisco and conducting with Eugene Goossens in Rochester. From 1934-37 he was director of the Federal Music Project in San Francisco. At nineteen he published a short book, Our Musical Idiom, a remarkably wise look at where music ought to be going. His Words on Music, written in 1960, suggested that it hadnt quite gotten there yet.
Robert Helps (1928-): Image (1957)
A longtime student of Roger Sessions (in New York, Berkeley and Princeton), Robert Helps has turned out an impressive body of work that has attracted other pianistsnotably William Masselos and Beveridge Websteralong with soprano Bethany Beardslee and violinist Isidore Cohen. His First Symphony earned a Naumburg Foundation award and his Serenade was commissioned by the Fromm Foundation. The new CRI recording Solo Flights contains a more recent work by Helps, his 1977 In Retrospect. It is, of course, played by him.
Mark Brunswick (1902-1971): Six Bagatelles (1958)
I. Andante
II. Allegro non troppo
III. Lento
IV. Allegro vivace
V. Allegro scherzando
VI. Allegro molto enerico
New York-born Mark Brunswick studied composition with Rubin Goldmark and Ernest Bloch. During an extended stay in Europe (1925-1938) he worked with Nadia Boulanger and earned the notice of Anton Webern, who admired Brunswicks Two Movements for String Quartet. Back in New York, Brunswick became chairman of the music department at the City College of New York. He left a considerable legacy of chamber and choral works, but one project close to his heart, an opera on Ibsens The Master Builder, lay unfinished at his death.
Earl Kim (1920-2000): Two Bagatelles (1948/50)
I. Allegro scherzando (1950)
II. Andante sostenuto (1948)
Born in California of Korean parents, Earl Kim studied composition with Arnold Schoenberg and Roger Sessions. The Bagatelles were composed while both Kim and Robert Helps worked with Sessions at Berkeley. From 1952-67 Kim taught composition at Princeton, then became James Edward Ditson Professor of Music at Harvard. Among his major works are several settings of words of Samuel Beckett. A Violin Concerto (1979) performed by Itzhak Perlman won high praise and was recorded; honors include a Prix de Paris, a National Institute of Arts and Letters award, a Brandeis University Creative Arts award and fellowships from the Guggenheim and the National Endowment.
Josef Alexander (1907-1989): Incantation (1964)
Born in Boston, Josef Alexander studied at the New England Conservatory and at Harvard; his teachers, an impressive parlay, included Walter Piston, Aaron Copland and Nadia Boulanger. In 1943 he was appointed to the music faculty at Brooklyn College, retiring emeritus in 1977. As one critic described it, his music "adopted a facile, laissez-faire idiom marked by a pleasurable admixture of euphonious dissonances." (If you cant recognize the pleasurable, euphonious writing of Nicolas Slonimsky by now, go back and have another listen.)
-Alan Rich
Alan Rich is a music critic for L.A. Weekly and the author of "American Pioneers" in Phaidons 20th-Century Composers series.
CRI Archives
Having received countless inquiries into some of our more popular and well-known CRI LP recordings of new music that have been either out of print or extremely hard to find, CRI is proud to announce creation of the CRI Archives label.
CRI staff members have sorted though the many requests for out-of-print LPs and back catalog and have hand picked releases that CRI feels are significant works of new music and deserve to be a part of the CRI CD catalog. The goal of CRI Archives is to re-release all selected recordings, digitally remastered from the original CRI masters. These newly refurbished recordings will be accompanied by updated liner notes and photography while showcasing the original LP artwork and imagery.
We feel that these new additions to the CRI CD catalog will be as essential to your new music library as our critically-acclaimed American Masters series.
Please enjoy these new CRI Archives releases and relive a part of the history of
CRI and its contributions to the advancement of 20th-century new music.
John G. Schultz, Executive Director
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