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Program Notes for Friday, 4/12/13

In his Winterreise song cycle, Franz Schubert based a lied on Heinrich Heine's poem 'Die Nebensonnen', and that lied inspired David Taylor to write Song and Dance for bass trombone and piano. Composed in a 12 bar blues form, 'Song' begins with dark harmony, has an improvised solo in the middle, and ends on the interval of an open 5th. As Taylor notes "using a buzzing mute to create mystery, and putting beads in the piano, mirrors both the bass trombone sound, and gives the piano an implication of the sound of the upright pianos used when blues was invented". According to Taylor, "the brilliance of Heine's line of poetry, 'and on me shone as if they never would be gone', demonstrated his understanding of the extreme highs and lows of bi-polarity, a concept at least 100 years ahead of its time," and it inspired me to write 'Dance', a very fast, joyous piece with complicated, edgy harmony, in an odd meter, 7/4".

Hearing a radio broadcast in the wake of the disastrous 2011 Japanese tsunami describing the early 17th c. painting 'Waves at Matsushima' by Japanese artist Tawaraya Sotatsu, which depicts a tumultuous sea battering a submerged coastline, inspired John Bacon to compose his work for marimba solo Waves at Matsushima. Bacon writes "the piece is structured in three sections and a coda, and each section opens with a monophonic chant and then elaborates improvisationally on the material. The final coda is a brittle chorale. I hasten to describe the music in programmatic terms but the imagery of the waves is unmistakable in the cresting of the musical gestures both sonically and visually on the manuscript".

Schubert's Impromptu No. 3 in G-flat major is one of a series of eight pieces for solo piano composed in 1827. Its use of long melodic lines allows the composer to fully demonstrate his exceptional lyrical gifts.

David Taylor composed his instrumental version of Schubert's lied Der Doppelgänger, taken from the Schwanengesang song cycle, as an encore piece, to be used after his performance of a concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic in its famed home in the Musikverein. Taylor arranged the lied for low string orchestra, and he noted "I was frightened to present it to the group, Schubert being Vienna's hometown boy. The first time the orchestra ran through it, I saw some snickers, but when they heard where I took the piece, they insisted on my performing it at all the performances, encore needed or not. Since then I've performed it often, and with different configurations. The piece has a repeating bass line, and for the most part a very low open harmony. To express the deep words and vocal quality I choose to use a plunger mute, and I prefer to have the accompaniment steady, and play the melody freely".

German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, one of the seminal figures in post-World War II music, originally composed Signs of the Zodiac in1975 for music boxes as part of a theatre piece for children. The twelve melodies are character pieces, each representing one of the signs of the Zodiac, and notable for their striking simplicity, they form an autonomous work which can be played by any suitable instruments. This performance features arrangements of five movements from the work for piano, marimba, vibes, bass trombone and cello by David Taylor, John Bacon and Jonathan Golove. About his arrangements of the Aquarius and Aries movements Bacon says "I'm always interested in timbral variety and exploration and the unison areas of this ensemble are ripe with possibilities. The simplicity of Stockhausen's original score allows these timbral shifts to take a prominent role and I've also explored some improvisational concepts". Golove, who arranged the Leo movement, notes "Leo struck me as a sunny, bold piece, and I was looking for bright and direct sounds to express those qualities. As the melody is to be repeated several times, I decided upon an alternation of melodic instruments--theremin cello and bass trombone--with the clear ringing tones of the vibraphone and piano to accompany, and just of touch of summer haze in the marimba".