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NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
GERHARDT ZIMMERMANN, CONDUCTOR
JAMES HOULIK, SAXOPHONE
Total Time = (53:24)
Pulitzer Prize winning composer Robert Ward was born in Cleveland, Ohio on September 13, 1917. He received his early musical training in Cleveland's public schools and graduated from the Eastman School of Music where he studied under Bernard Rogers and Howard Hanson. His graduate work was undertaken at the Juilliard School studying composition with Frederick Jacobi and conducting with Albert Stoessel and Edgar Schenkman. During that time he was also a student of Aaron Copland at the Berkshire Music Center.
Before and after World War II, Ward served on the faculties of Queens College, Columbia University and the Julliard School, later becoming music director of the Third Street Music School and conducting the Doctor's Orchestral Society of New York. In 1956 Ward became the Executive Vice President and Managing Editor of Galaxy Music Corporation and Highgate Press. In 1967 he was named President of the North Carolina School of the Arts and in 1979 became Mary Duke Biddle Professor of Music at Duke University.
Ward has always taken an active part in musical organizations across the country and has and continues to serve on many distinguished panels, boards, and advisory committees. Ward holds an honorary degree of Fine Arts from Duke University and an honorary Doctorate of Music from the Peabody Institute. A member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, he has had three Guggenheim Fellowships as well as grants from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Rockefeller Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He has received the North Carolina Award in Fine Arts, the Eastman School Achievement Award, the Cleveland Arts Prize, and the Morrison Award from the Roanoke Island Historical Society.
Robert Ward has been a conductor with many orchestras worldwide. He was the first American ever to conduct a premiere of his own work in a German opera house when The Crucible, with libretto by Bernard Stambler after the play by Arthur Miller, was presented at the Hessisches Staatstheater in Wiesbaden (1963). In 1962 Ward received the Pulitzer Prize in Music and the New York Music Critics Citation for The Crucible. Many of Ward's works have been commissioned by such musical organizations as the opera companies of New York City, Central City, Charlotte, and Greater Miami; the Chattanooga, Knoxville, Phoenix and Milwaukee Symphonies; and the New York and Erie Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as many other presenting and performing organizations.
Robert Ward has provided the following notes about his works:
JUBILATION OVERTURE
Jubilation Overture (1945) was premiered by the National Orchestral Association, Leon Barzin, Conductor, at Carnegie Hall in 1946.
The work demonstrates the influence of my association with jazz through my army experience which included a swing band that I wrote and arranged for.
Jubilation Overture was composed during my 7th Infantry Division's participation in the Philippines and Okinawa campaigns. It reflects the optimism about the early ending of the war which we felt following the capitulation of the Germans rather than the combat conditions in which I was living.
SYMPHONY NO. 4
As for my music, I love a good tine and when one comes to me I like to turn it around and try it in different guises. When I have enough of such tunes to make a symphony, I am likely to be found stretched out on my studio couch thinking about them until they assemble themselves into a larger design which satisfies me.
A verbal description of my Fourth Symphony would be little different from those of hundreds of other symphonies. Each of the three movements has four musical ideas. In the opening allegro they are arranged in sonata form with the first theme broadly stated as an introduction. The `Grave' which follows states its meditative melodies and then restates them in varied form and order. In the finale, several lively phrases and a fugue subject precede a broad tune which ends the symphony. All are then tossed back and forth before the singing tune has the last word. The work was commissioned by the Musical Arts Society of La Jolla (1958).
CONCERTO FOR SAXOPHONE AND ORCHESTRA
Sometime after I came to the North Carolina School of the Arts (1967), I met James Houlik and very soon succumbed to his artistry. He assured me that I was a “great composer and that great composers should do their part in enlarging the rather slim repertory for the saxophone.” My ideas of a chamber work for saxophone changed quickly when Jim told me that the Charlotte Symphony was enthusiastic about premiering a new work from me. Recalling other happy premieres in Charlotte, I decided to write a concerto and set to work.
It was not by chance that the melodies that began to occur to me took me back to my World War II days with the 7th Infantry Division which included a swing band and a hot combo. The first movement, reflecting the Blues, has melodic flights which may suggest the improvisations of some of the great jazz men. The finale is a free sonata allegro movement and has as its lyric theme a tune which I wrote for my army swing band some forty years ago. That tune has haunted me ever since and the Concerto seemed the right permanent home for it. The Concerto is dedicated to James Houlik, the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra and its conductor, Leo Driehuys. It was supposed by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.
SONIC STRUCTURE
Sonic Structure was written to open the Nashville Symphony Orchestra's first season in the new Andrew Jackson Hall in September, 1980, and to commemorate the life of my brother David, who was an architect. I was therefore preoccupied with the architecture of the work which is a continuum of variations.
The Theme uses all twelve tones, but is clearly in the key of G. Developmental procedures associated with the Viennese serialists are freely used. I had no extramusical program in mind while composing the work, except that I was concerned perhaps that it should be appropriate for the festive opening of a new hall. It was written under a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and is dedicated to Michael Charry and the Nashville Symphony Orchestra.
GERHARDT ZIMMERMANN
Music Director of the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra and the Canton Symphony Orchestra, Gerhardt Zimmermann has also become one of the major American-born guest conductors on the podium. In October, 1987, he brought the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra to Carnegie Hall for a special Robert Ward 70th birthday concert, and in the spring of 1988 he will conduct the orchestras of San Diego and Phoenix. In recent seasons, he has led the American Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, and the orchestras of Cleveland, Saint Louis, Louisville, New Jersey, San Antonio, Grand Rapids, and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. Immediate reengagement has been the rule virtually everywhere he goes.
Gerhardt Zimmermann first came to the attention of the musical world in January, 1978, when he pinch-hit for a snowbound Walter Susskind and conducted the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in a triumphant concert at Carnegie Hall. He returned to Carnegie Hall in 1986 with the American Symphony Orchestra - on another last minute rescue, this time for Michael Tilson Thomas in a performance of Gershwin and Stravinsky works which gained him much acclaim. He joined the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in 1974 as Assistant Conductor and the following year was promoted to be one of this country's original ten Exxon/Arts Endowment Conductors. Zimmermann remained with Saint Louis in the position of Associate Conductor until 1982.
JAMES HOULIK
James Houlik is the pioneer performer on the tenor saxophone as a medium for serious music making. The Robert Ward Concerto is one of more than sixty works that have been dedicated to him. Houlik's performances throughout the world have won acceptance and admiration for his previously neglected instrument and for his unprecedented artistry.
NORTH CAROLINA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
From Carnegie Hall to rural American, the North Carolina Symphony Orchestra has both national stature and a mission as a unique statewide orchestra. The first orchestra in the United States to receive continuous state funding, the Orchestra performs across the state of North Carolina. Founded in 1932, the Orchestra made its Carnegie Hall debut in 1977 and has performed to critical acclaim in other of the country's major concert halls.
This recording was made at Memorial Auditorium, Raleigh, North Carolina on October 8, 1987, under the supervision of the composer.
Producers: Todd Stanton and William Allgood
Engineering and Editing: New Age Sight and Sound
Chief Engineer: William Allgood
Assistant Engineer: Jan Lawry
Microphones: Three Neumann TLM170's in an omni-directional pattern placed in front of the orchestra left, center, and right, spaced 20 feet apart. One Neumann KM84 used for woodwind enhancement. One AKG414 for tenor saxophone enhancement.
Mixer: AMEK BCII without equalization
Digital Processor: Sony PCM1610
Video Recorders: Sony BVU 800DB
Cover Art: FOR INTERNAL USE ONLY, 1945 Stuart Davis (1894-1964)
Barbara B. Millhouse on loan to Reynolda House, Museum of American Art
Stuart Davis has combined a syncopated jazz tempo with a rich complexity of color and pattern in creating For Internal Use Only.The black horizontal and vertical lines and red central band reflect the influence of Davis' friend, the Dutch abstract artist Piet Mondrian. Note the various shapes: Davis has included the images of a boogie-woogie pianist at his piano, playing the hot music that inspired this work.
Graphic Design: Rita Winnis
Type Design: Associated Graphic Services, Ltd.
This recording was made by a major grant from the A.J. Fletcher Foundation with additional support from:
The Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia Unversity
Mrs. Herman Copen
The Richard & Helen DeVos Foundation
Phoenix Communications
Mr. Schuyler G. Chapin
Mr. John M. Kernochan
Mr. & Mrs. Richard Rendleman
Dr. & Mrs. James H. Semans
ALBANY RECORDS IS A DIVISION OF CLASSICAL MUSIC, INC.
BOX 355, ALBANY, NY 12201
(518) 449-5286
© 1988 Classical Music, Inc.
(p) 1988 Classical Music, Inc.
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