Recital Notes for January 16, 2007
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The primal basis of music is rhythm, whose visceral vibrations send sound waves into motion. It is no accident that we perceive sound by means of eardrums, which resonate to the countless simultaneous frequencies of our auditory world. The potency of rhythm is the focus of Iannis Xenakis's set for solo percussionist, titled Rebonds (Rebounds). In both portions of this work, the sole performer plays multiple instruments: bongos, tom-toms, and bass drums in Rebonds "a", with the addition of a set of woodblocks for Rebonds "b". A basic pulse is immediately established in the first part, starting with the simple alternation of strokes between one bongo and one bass drum.  By the third repetition, a tom-tom is interposed, signaling the additive processes that provide the compositional underpinnings of the work. For example, the number of strokes within each of the first four beats follows the pattern 2-2-2-3. Next, one stroke is added to the first beat, changing the arrangement to 3-2-2-3. Such arithmetic permutations, including the Fibonacci series, inevitably produce rhythmic combinations of formidable complexity, belying the straightforward simplicity of their initial presentation. Our ability to consciously track these patterns evaporates quickly, allowing us to turn attention to the diversity of sound-colors and rhythmic variants emanating from within this relentless, undulating sound-field. Rebonds "b", which opens the second half of tonight's program, employs woodblocks to delineate contrasting sections within its larger form, layering further complication upon an already inextricable percussive thicket. These escalating complexities drive the work toward its inexorable conclusion, a virtuoso display incorporating all the instruments in spectacular fashion.

The impossibility of sound lies in its mysterious ability to bridge physical distance. Language and music convey their myriad meanings through empty space, filling that distance with a sort of sonic tactility. The solo flutist in Toru Takemitsu's alluringly titled Voice alternately speaks, shouts, growls, and whispers a brief text over the course of the performance, forging an amalgam of breath, word, and tone whose communicative secret lies in the very nexus of its combined sound materials. The text, from Handmade Proverbs by Shuzo Takiguchi, is heard in both French and English:

Qui va là? Qui que tu sois, parle, transparence!

Who goes there? Speak, transparence, whoever you are!

These disembodied words emanate ex nihilo, demanding a reply from an unseen or imagined other. The performer breathes creative life (inspiration) into the generative clay of the flute to birth a fledgling universe of nascent, inchoate sonorities, which include instrumental key-clicks and multiphonics. Takemitsu also employs the sounds of his native Japan in a synthesis of eastern and western music. The bending of notes and the audible sounds of the breath evoke a fue, the traditional flute used in ancient Japanese Noh dramas. The voices of an unremembered past whisper furtively, persistently.

Flute, voice, and percussion are combined for tonight's performance of John Cage's Music for Three. The composer's score is labeled "Music for . . ." with the instruction that the number of available players should complete the title for that particular performance. Cage wrote parts for seventeen players and indicated that any number or combination of those would constitute a performance of the piece. Even the length of the piece is chosen by the performers, who also decide the durations of pitches while strictly adhering to the ordering of sound-events and phrases composed by Cage. This mobility of concept and organization typifies much of the output of the infamous American composer, whose attempts to deconstruct musical sound and experience spawned as many admirers as detractors. The musical result of these procedures is the creation of a distinctive sound environment that imbues the space with shades of sound that filter into the hall like colors on a Morris Louis canvas. The spectacle of this musical aurora borealis allows us the opportunity to revel in the unfolding of a spontaneous musicscape, free from haste and the imposing burdens of expectation.

Tonight's concert features the Buffalo premiere of the Sonata no. 2 for solo violin, composed in 1967 by Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Though his musical influences and sound are undeniably Russian, he was born to a Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland as Mieczys¥aw Wajnberg. His name has been a source of confusion due to his move to the Soviet Union, where he took the name "Moisey", the Russian version of the Jewish "Moishe". His surname was transliterated into the Cyrillic alphabet and later re-transliterated alternately as "Vainberg", "Vaynberg", and "Weinberg", the last being the one used most commonly by musicologists. Weinberg studied piano at the Warsaw Conservatory and graduated in 1939. Shortly after Germany invaded Poland, he left for the Soviet Union, but his family remained and died in the Trawniki concentration camp. Mieczys¥aw went on to study composition in Minsk, and in 1943 he moved to Moscow at the behest of his friend, Dmitri Shostakovich. Though he never studied with the famous composer, he was greatly influenced by him personally and musically. After some of Weinberg's works were officially banned, he was charged with "Jewish bourgeois nationalism" and arrested in 1953. Shostakovich appealed on behalf of his friend, but it was only due to Stalin's death that Weinberg was finally freed. He continued his musical career in Moscow, attracting the interest of such performers as Emil Gilels and Mstislav Rostropovich. Weinberg's works often invoke the sounds of ethnic Moldavian, Polish, and Armenian music, and his use of klezmer themes may have piqued Shostakovich's interest in that style.

The vernal stirrings of renewed life course through the virtuosic gestures of Primavera (Spring) by the Scottish composer, Thea Musgrave. Both voice and flute are firmly rooted in their opening musical ground note, while the subterranean yearnings of ebullient spring growth make themselves felt in the flute's unstoppable rhythmic thrust. A breathy, fluttering pause in the flute line opens the way for the soprano to embark on her own vital, temporal peregrinations. With rejuvenating breath invigorating both performers, voice and flute begin their florid journey up through the music-rich soil toward the sustaining sun. After venturing in the stratospheric upper limits of their ranges, a quick return to the original ground and the work's opening remind us of the source from which all arises and invariably returns. The Spanish poem is by Musgrave's frequent collaborator, the Peruvian playwright, poet, and librettist, Amalia Elguera.

In three movements, Zoltán Kodály's 1914 Duo for violin and cello portrays a series of shifting musico-dramatic relationships. These commence with airs of propriety in the first movement, confrontational challenge in the second, and playful, egalitarian exchange in the third. Movement one is cast in the classical sonata-allegro form, with a declamatory introduction followed by the violin playing a folk-style, pentatonic theme over a repeated ostinato bass line in the cello. The roles are duly reversed, with the cello sounding the melody while the violin accompanies. The cello closes the development section with a cadenza, and when the first theme reappears in the recapitulation, it is the cello that plays the first restatement– which is only fair, since the violin took the lead the first time through! This formal protocol constrains the first movement throughout its multifarious changes of mood, tempo, and meter. The Duo's middle movement is as much the centerpiece of the work as it is a point of repose. The instruments continue their mutual exchanges, but the emotional tone is quite different than the first movement. Its languid, mysterious opening measures give way to deep, taunting tremolos in the cello. The atmosphere intensifies, as if each instrument were drawing a line in the sand, daring the other to cross in a brusque, competitive manner. This overt tension contrasts with the whimsical, capricious nature of the concluding rondo, a game of changes in which vigorous dances are taken up or left off at the drop of a hat. After an introductory cadenza for violin, each dance in the series offers a different mood than the one it has displaced, even though many reveal an obsession with a single, repeated note. Both instruments take turns with cooperative equality and much aplomb, each given over to the revelry of the game itself. It is no coincidence that the word play is used to describe how music is performed. Like playing games, performing and listening to music are participatory activities, inviting all to throw off familiar roles and concerns, even for a moment. That experience is shared, with each taking something different from it, but only if we are willing to throw ourselves into playing along.

Program notes by Marc McAneny