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Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
New Works for Guitar Quartet
David Kechley · Voices from the Garden
Leo Brouwer · Cuban Landscape with Rumba
Leslie Bassett · Narratives
Janika Vandervelde · Genesis V
Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
The Minneapolis Guitar Quartet was founded in 1986. From the beginning, aside from the challenge of learning to play as a quartet, we dedicated ourselves to creating, through commissioning, a larger and more substantive repertoire so that the elegance and power of this medium might be successfully conveyed to a wide audience without excessive reliance on transcription. Transcription has played some role in our efforts to augment the repertoire, but the present recording represents the work of six composers whose creative talents have been focused directly on the guitar quartet medium. Their respective musical styles represent some of the variety and wealth of musical expression that has flourished in the late twentieth century. Of the six, only Brouwer is a guitarist, familiar with the intricacies of the instrument as well as the guitar quartet medium; ironically his piece is his transcription of his own music. The others have had to create their own way. These six are in the vanguard of those helping to create an important body of literature for guitar quartet, and we are proud to have been able to work with many of the composers whose work is featured here.
We had planned to make this recording for some time, but it comes now as a fitting marker for our ten year anniversary as a guitar quartet. For the members of the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet: Alan Johnston, Joseph Hagedorn, O. Nicholas Raths and David Crittenden, this recording occupies a unique place in our musical experience. Not only does it represent the fruit of ten years of labor, but also the sad end of a very happy collaboration with John Chatterton, erstwhile M.G.Q. member who served as session producer and editor of this recording. On November 14th, 1995, one day after he had finished his work on this album, John died suddenly and unexpectedly at the age of twenty-seven. We all miss him greatly.
This recording was made at Wild Sound in Minneapolis during June and July, 1995.
The members of the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet all play guitars made by Stephen Kakos.
Notes on the Compositions
Voices from the Garden was jointly commissioned by the Minneapolis and North Carolina Guitar Quartets with funding from the Schubert Club, Ben and Mary Whitney, and John and Mary Ellen Golden. The work was premiered by the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet at the 1993 Guitar Foundation of America Festival in Buffalo, New York and given its Southeast premiere by the North Carolina guitar Quartet at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington in April, 1995.
An extended visit to Japan in 1990 has had a profound influence upon all of the work I have done since that time. The greatest impressions were made by visits to temples and shrines and to a lesser degree by the actual traditional Japanese music I heard. The influences are not as evident in the actual musical materials as in the structural and aesthetic concepts behind them. The first work to reflect these new concepts was In the Dragon's Garden, for guitar and alto saxophone, which was commissioned for premiere at the 1992 World Saxophone Congress in Pesaro, Italy.
This first work was inspired by several visits to Ryoangi, a temple in Kyoto. As the title of the present work indicates, Voices from the Garden clearly extends both concepts and techniques from the first work. Particularly important in the "Grooves" section are the changing patterns created by using combinations of open strings and fingered notes combined with specific "picking" patterns and accents. The effect is one of "precise randomness" which was created by one guitar in a consecutive manner in the first work, In the Dragon's Garden, and is created in a simultaneous manner by four guitars in Voices from the Garden.
The individual movements of Voices from the Garden can generally be recognized as the work progresses, due to the clear changes in mood and texture. Much of the material for all the movements is derived from a four note motive (E-F answered by D-E). Despite the separate movement titles, the entire work is conceived as one which flows continuously from beginning to end and is played without pause. David Kechley
Cuban Landscape with Rumba was originally composed for Frans Brüggen and his flute ensemble who premiered it. Subsequently, the guitarist Robby Faverey asked me for a guitar version, which he played with an accompanying recording in the Havana and Ricercare (Florence) music festivals. The subsequent version for guitars is clearly tied to my collaboration with Guitar Symphonietta (Italy). I am Cuban, and the Cuban black rumba has very little in common with the dance themes popularized in Europe in the 1950s songs. On the contrary, it is an intensely dramatic ritual which perpetuates an Imperial Bull issued by Spain in the 16th century: this gave black slaves the right to gather just once a year to dance and make merry.
This ritual and its periodicity is still handed down by oral tradition, long after the ordinance which caused it fell into oblivion. The feast is held at the end of the month in the open to dance the Rumba (in couples) and sing all together (with a song leader) in the language of the Yoruba people (eastern Guinea), accompanied by a percussion instrument (if no drum is available, a wooden chest is used). Musically speaking, the Rumba avails itself of low frequency sounds (carried better in the humid Caribbean air) accompanied by a rhythmic architecture which is not complete at first but to which elements are added as the dance progresses. A phonic environment made to measure for the minimalist structure of Cuban Landscape with Rumba. Leo Brouwer
Narratives, consisting of five rather brief movements March, Aria, Agitation, Supplication, and Finale was composed in 1992 for the Minneapolis, Buffalo and Los Angeles Guitar quartets and received its premiere performance by the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet at the Fairlane Music Guild, Dearborn, Michigan, on February 28, 1993. It is true chamber music, offering solo opportunities to each performer, yet remaining very much an ensemble work. The titles describe the musical content of each movement. The March sets the stage, introduces the performers, and establishes the mood. Aria's poignant solo line sings from the low register. Agitation calls for fast stroking on all strings, while Supplication presents sustained counterpoint and solo lines. The Finale grows from ascending arpeggios toward the concluding reiteration from the opening of the March. The score is published by C.F. Peters Corporation, New York. Leslie Bassett
The idea and image of Tobila (at the gate) (1993) was created while staying in Jerusalem during the winter of 1992. Tobila, meaning a gate or door in Japanese, specifically refers to the Damascus Gate, the most solemn and inspirational gate in the Old City, which is connected to Syria's capital. The Jewish call this gate "Sha'ar Shechem" (Nablus Gate), the same named street tied to Samaria, the ancient capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. The Arabic name is "Bab el-Amud" (The Gate of the Column) which is named after the Roman emperor Hadrian, who built the column.
Because of the inspiration I received from the gate and the surrounding people, the music is dark but very energetic; political, but very personal. It might even be exotic (I hate to use this word) to Western audiences. These musical and psychological qualities always seem to dominate my compositional language. Naomi Sekiya
Genesis V was written for the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet in 1987 and is part of The Genesis Cycle, a series of seven chamber pieces written between 1982 and 1989. Intended as a study of life cycles and cycles of changes, these pieces were originally inspired by the oriental Tai Chi Diagram and the concept of rotational symmetry images which became the chrystalline, "clockwork" and organic, "expanding palindrome" forms upon which all the pieces are built. Genesis V is a transitional piece between the earlier Genesis works, which are driven by the western tradition of conflict between opposing dual systems, especially cyclical vs. linear time, and the later pieces, which are more exclusively about gylanic process, with internal conflicts and gradually shifting balances playing an increasingly less important role. Janika Vandervelde
Armonia was commissioned by the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet through the Composers Commissioning Program administered by the Minnesota Composers Forum with funding from the Jerome Foundation. The piece was finished in September, 1992, and premiered at the Guitar Foundation of America Festival in New Orleans, November, 1992.
I was fortunate to be able to work closely with the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet in evolving this piece. The title, Armonia, comes from the fact that the piece is built around the overtones of acoustic guitars which are colored and shaped by the use of adjacent microtonal and half-step tones. I realized, in listening to a great deal of guitar music, that the delicacy and glowing properties of the instrument were most intense when the resonances of the total instrument were engaged harmonically in the realms of natural harmonics and overtones. Eleanor Hovda
Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
Session Producer: John Chatterton
Producers: John Chatterton and the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet.
Recording engineer: Matthew Zimmerman. · Digital editing: John Chatterton and Matthew Zimmerman. · Digital mastering: Matthew Zimmerman · Cover Art: Will King · Photograpy: Jim Woosley
Notes for the Leo Brouwer come from Leo Brouwer conducts Brouwer, Vivaldi, Piazzolla, Halffter-Guitar Symphonietta ©1991 Giulia International - Milano - Italy CD Code GS 201006.
Ben and Mary Whitney · The Whitney Foundation · Frank and Muffy Bennett · Dr. Manuel Ramirez-Lassepas · Frederick B. Wells · William and Judith Driscoll
Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
Voices from the Garden* (1993) (16:41)
Dance and Reflection (2:43)
Cuban Landscape with Rumba (1985) (7:58)
Narratives* (1993) (8:31)
Genesis V* (1987) (11:56)
Palindrome Clockwork (3:48)
Minneapolis Guitar Quartet
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