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The music of Scott Steidl is rooted in the vernacular of his time and represents the varied influences and rich imagination of
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
There are few sounds as satisfying as an orchestra when it is allowed to play out with the great force and great subtlety of which it is capable. I enjoyed the creation of this recording greatly because of my love for this medium. As the creation of a musical idea represents a journey, so does the realization of that musical idea in performance. I hope the result of that journey will be both dramatic and satisfying for you as the listener.
The music of Scott Steidl is rooted in the vernacular of his time and represents the varied influences and rich imagination of current American culture. His compositions are the distillation of a varied career and life. A composer as well as a medical doctor, his work strikes a balance among contrasting influences. A lover of popular music, jazz, music theater and western classical music, with teachers as diverse as Ron Nelson, David Diamond and Elliott Carter, Steidl's musical point of view has been inclusive rather than exclusive. In a concise description of Scott Steidl's music in the New York Times, John Rockwell characterized his work as “All American.” His travels to southern India and Brazil have added to his range of musical influences and heightened his desire for rhythmic drive. This propulsive inclination manifests itself in syncopation, use of percussion, and mounting textural densities. Also characteristic of Steidl's music is his tendency to juxtapose contrasting elements such as tempi, dynamics, and textures to great dramatic effect. Allan Kozinn of the New York Times commented on this already apparent aspect of his music at his debut recital in New York City, stating “the interplay and integration of the disparate elements were immensely persuasive.” Steidl's formal structures are both non-traditional and intuitively understood even upon first hearing. All of these elements appear in context of a harmonic language which can be described as one of extended tonality.
Born in LaGrange, Illinois in 1956, Scott Steidl grew up in Minneapolis. There he studied piano, bassoon, and saxophone and developed an interest in playing jazz, eventually becoming co-founder of the Golden Valley Jazz Ensemble. Later, as an undergraduate at Brown University, he studied composition with Ron Nelson and continued his activities in the field of jazz as director of the Brown University Stage Band. After graduating from Brown, Steidl studied composition with David Diamond and Elliott Carter at the Juilliard School, earning his Masters and Doctoral degrees in composition. He then completed his education by pursuing his other major interest: medicine. Steidl holds two bachelors degrees with honors from Brown University, and a doctoral degree in Medicine, from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and specialty training at Harvard Medical School.
Among his musical awards are two full scholarships to the Juilliard School, the Alexander Gretchaninoff Scholarship, the Irving Berlin Prize in memory of Cole Porter, and two American Society of Composers Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) composer grants. He was winner of the Sigvald Thompson composition commission, and won finalist prizes in the Eugene O`Neill Music Theater Competition, and the ASCAP Nissim Composition Competition.
He has received numerous commissions and performances in the United States and abroad. One of his most important orchestral compositions, Fire Dreams, was premiered by JoAnn Falletta and the Long Beach Symphony and was most recently performed in Russia by the Tomsk Philharmonic under the baton of John Dodson. Joel Revzen and the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony commissioned and premiered Nightscape, and October Paint, was commissioned and premiered by conductor John Dodson and the Bryan Symphony Orchestra. Scott Steidl has also been commissioned or performed by the Aspen Music Festival, the Circle in the Square theater of New York, the El Paso Pro Musica, the Forum Theater of Massachusetts, and New Mexico State University. Recent commissions include the piano trio Landing for Robin Becker Dance Company, and the choral works The Snow and We Give Them Back for the Cantabile Chorale of New Jersey. The work Landing recently received a performance commission from the Mary Flagler Carey Charitable Trust of New York.
His music has been performed in New York City at Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall, as well as at Lincoln Center, and Merkin Recital Hall of the Abraham Goodman House. With his wife and long time collaborator, Mary Duncan, he has worked on numerous theater and music-theater projects. Ms. Duncan has directed over 40 opera productions and is currently the Associate Artistic Director of the Berkshire Opera Company of Massachusetts, as well as a freelance writer, director, and choreographer.
This recording marks his debut with the New Zealand Symphony and his first collaboration with conductor James Sedares. While Steidl's compositions include a range of works from solo piano to full chorus and orchestra, the selections represented on this compact disk represent works from his output for orchestra. Their instrumentation is for full symphonic orchestra (Nightscape, Fire Dreams, and Distant Thunder), chamber orchestra (Swirl) and smaller forces of strings, piano, celeste and percussion in October Paint.
The New Zealand
Symphony Orchestra
The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand's leading arts organization, is based in Wellington, but performs regularly throughout the country. Formed in 1946, the orchestra was until 1988 part of the Broadcasting Corporation of New Zealand, but thereafter has enjoyed independence as a Crown Owned Entity, with a Board of Directors appointed by the Government. The Chief Conductor, appointed in 1999, is James Judd. Now with some ninety players, the orchestra gives 120 concerts a year, in addition to its work in the theatre and in television, broadcasting and recording studios. Foreign tours include performance at the Seville Expo in 1992 with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, one of a long line of distinguished musicians, from Stravinsky to John Dankworth, who have appeared with the orchestra. The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra acknowledges major funding support from the New Zealand Government through the Ministry of Cultural Affairs
As Music Director and Principal Conductor of the Phoenix Symphony, twice Grammy nominated James Sedares brought that orchestra to national and international recognition. Led by Sedares, the Phoenix Symphony's critically acclaimed debut recording of Copland works was released in September of 1991; it went on to win the prestigious Indie Award for classical album of the year from the National Association of Independent Record Distributors (NAIRD). Sedares's second recording with the Symphony, works of William Schuman and Bernard Herrmann appeared on the Billboard classical albums chart for several months. A third Phoenix Symphony recording led by Sedares featured Elmer Bernstein's reconstructed score for The Magnificent Seven. This disc appeared on Billboard's classical crossover chart and won Germany's ECHO Award and a further NAIRD Indie Award for film music release of the year.
James Sedares is an active guest conductor. In addition to American engagements, he has led orchestras in Europe, Australasia, and South America, including the London Symphony and English Chamber Orchestra, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, the national orchestras of Brazil and Mexico, as well as the Slovenian Radiotelevision Symphony in Ljubljana and the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra in Spain.
Written on the heels of his father's death from cancer, Scott Steidl considers Swirl a statement of life affirmation. It is a work for chamber orchestra whose creation stems from a Carl Sandburg poem of the same name, primarily inspired by images conjured from the title itself. The poem is a reminiscence of a departed friend, a coincidence, since the poem was chosen prior to the news of his father's illness. The single-movement work is in 12/8 meter and creates a joyous dance-like quality which lends itself to constantly undulating, "swirling" accompaniment figures. From the first bar to the last, the work drives forward with one continuous sweep. The simple and majestic thematic statement occurring only seconds into the work is contrasted with shorter, rhythmic passages, which serve to preserve the momentum throughout the work. After the motivic transformation of these materials has run its course, the main theme is presented again near the end of the work in a climactic gesture of arrival and finality.
Fire Dreams is the second of three works on this CD with a title derived from the poetry of Carl Sandburg. As with the work Swirl, Fire Dreams draws only very indirect inspiration from the poem itself. The title in each of the works “was merely a departure point for the musical inspiration involved in their creation,” says Steidl. Before writing Fire Dreams, Steidl explains, “I was on the threshold of a move to Boston after living in Manhattan for thirteen years, and I decided to chronicle some of my past impressions of New York City. The poem, which deals with both distant reminiscence and the image of fire, gave me a good extra-music reference point for the composition of a work based on personal memories and the ever fiery and colorful world of New York City.” Fire Dreams was written in three sections, characterized by a “heavy-light-heavy” variation in density of instrumental textures. Another connecting device is the repetition of the same musical statement, heard in the first several bars, which is brought back note for note in the very last bars of the work. While this depiction of New York is strictly abstract, the free-flowing tableau of musical images and odd meters (7/8 and 5/8) give a disjointed feel that alludes to the pulse of New York City. The middle portion of the work highlights the flute and provides a playful contrast to the opening. Utilizing a much thinner texture, the composer provides contrast without changing tempo. The small motivic punctuations in the background occur more frequently and gain increasing rhythmic energy as the central section progresses. The final portion is a passacaglia structure with a theme first stated in the horn solo, and repeated as the orchestra continuously builds tension and new layers of materials.
Distant Thunder, was written for this recording. It was named after watercolors of Andrew Wyeth, with the first and last of the three movements bearing the title of the painting. “The moods of the movements were clear before their writing,” says Steidl, “but the names came later as the abstract personalities of the sections unfolded and could be characterized.” The large structure of this composition juxtaposes a movement of deep repose between opening and concluding movements of varying levels of tension. Rhythms and harmonies, which seem innately American appear, but without the feeling of cliché. Instead the manner of writing points to a new voice. Like a well-written sentence, Distant Thunder satisfies the listener's desire to understand without drawing undo attention to its individual parts. The proportions of each movement are so natural as to go almost unnoticed, the result of successful interplay of form and content. This is dramatic music whose internal logic is unerring, even as its colorful orchestration and engaging language continuously draw the listener further in.
The first movement of Distant Thunder is constructed around a theme with a characteristic initial ascending seven-note figure, heard first in the bassoon by measure two. This portion of the first movement's serene in intention. It is followed by an extroverted middle section featuring the horns and brass sections in general, which is later followed by the final lyrical section, a cathartic response to the previous energy. The second movement uses a variation of the first movement theme to spin a light lyrical repeating figure, first heard in the oboe. This theme is only minimally transformed, and is repeated multiple times in different sections of the orchestra. A final thematic restatement is made in the oboe. The third movement takes the main ascending motive from the main theme of the first movement, and inverts it to a descending variation of theme, heard early in the trombone. This and secondary derived musical motives are woven into a high energy “concerto for orchestra” type composition that drives relentlessly to the final climactic orchestral chords.
Nightscape is a “poem of the night.” It focuses on the the serene and the turbulent, with no purposeful demarcation between the two. The primary theme of the work is a motive, stated within the first measures of the work in the low strings, which is soon taken up by various instruments and is continually transformed throughout the work. The music builds in size, intensity of sound, range and tempo as the end is approached. It gradually becomes increasingly sinister and frenetic, finally reaching a fever pitch, which transforms into a musical climax as if heralding the appearance of a glorious sunrise to end the nocturnal journey.
Begun in June of 1998, October Paint derives its title from a Carl Sandburg poem of the same name. It is autumnal in spirit, and the music derives from coloristic impulses rather than primarily architectural structures. Of this work, Steidl states, “...my goal was to write an exciting work with a sensitive contrasting side while avoiding a self conscious descent into introspection.”
It is based on two primary musical motives; the first is a three-note fragment heard in the first measures in the vibraphone. This introduction builds to a large presto section which contains the second primary motive of the work, an ascending scale. These two themes are ubiquitous and maintain the fabric of the music as a cohesive one movement structure. As the work develops, it becomes more contrapuntal and goes through many intermediate moods. The final section begins with sustained slow musical material that is periodically interrupted by interjections of faster music, reminiscent of the opening presto material, and finally ends with a frantic vibrant climax within the last few measures.
Recorded at the Michael Fowler Center,
Wellington, New Zealand
in the presence of the composer
915 Broadway, Albany, NY 12207
Tel:518.436.8814 Fax: 518.436.0643
Box 12,
Warton, Carnforth, Lancashire LA5 9PD
Tel: 01524 735873 Fax: 01524 736448
WARNING:
COPYRIGHT SUBSISTSINALLRECORDINGS ISSUEDUNDERTHISLABEL.
6 The Coming Storm (6:31)
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