Harry Partch composed SEVENTEEN LYRICS BY LI PO (1930-33)
in just intonation based on a published translation of Li Po’s 8th
Century Chinese poetry into English by Shigeyoshi Obata (E.P. Dutton &Co.,
1922). Two of the songs, more intoned
than sung, are included (“I Am A Peach Tree” and “A Midnight Farewell”),
perhaps representative of the many live performances that Anastasia Solberg and
Johnny Reinhard have presented over the years.
Past performances include Bergen (Norway), London, Amsterdam, Boston,
and New York. These were among the
first compositions of Harry Partch (1900-1974) to use a notation of ratios,
however there were different ratios in use than were later settled upon in the
fixed percussion still to be built.
While an “adapted viola” proved opportune for Partch at the time (cello
fingerboard outfitted with brads on a viola body played on the knee), a fuller
–boded viola now has thicker gauge strings available allowing a retuning to
Partch’s requisite perfect fourth below the standard viola.
Harry Partch: I AM A
PEACH TREE
I am a peach tree blossoming in a deep
pit.
Who is there I may turn to and
smile?
You are the moon up in the far sky;
Passing, you looked down on me an
hour, then went on forever.
A sword with the keenest edge,
Could not cut the stream of water in
twain
So that it would cease to flow.
My thought is like the stream, and
flows and follows you on forever.
The title
of Violeta Dinescu’s DIN
CINPOIU (1986) is Romanian for “from bagpipes played” which is also the
name of an ancient dance for seniors in her native Romania. The performance is recent, on May 2, 2009 at
the church of St. Luke in the Fields in New York City. The viola solo essentially imitates the
bagpipes in character. By transforming various
dance motifs and other stylized elements, but without any direct quotations,
new processes create new structures. It
should be possible to recognize a kin of a bagpipes’ “sound space” in the
playing of the viola through its droning.
Alternatively, we find an imaginary odyssey through memories of varying
intensities and expressivities so that a dance “attitude,” or a dance impulse, achieves
a whole world of feelings. The piece is
in the traditional tonality of Romanian folk music, notated
quartertonally.
Violeta Dinescu (b. 1953) is
an award-winning Romanian composer living in Baden-Baden in Germany, who
frequently composes microtonally.
HYMNUS UND ORGANUM (c. 1000) is an anonymous duo
performed on viola and flute in the historically appropriate Pythagorean tuning,
built exclusively upon a spiral of pure (3/2) fifths. There is a single just intonation major third (5/4) strategically
placed in the score over the word amour (love).
The COIMBRA
MANUSCRIPT (c. 1500) selection attributed to one Portuguese Anonymous
makes use of clear microtonal connecting notes. It was discovered and described in an academic article from which
we seized it for performance.
Percy Grainger’s FREE MUSIC #2 was once
conceived for string quartet, followed by a quartet of theremin. Finally, any combination of instruments able
to work within a microtonal milieu can work.
The AFMM has indeed performed both versions in premiere performances. The piece was arranged by Johnny Reinhard
for viola, flute, clarinet, and bassoon, performed on May 27, 1999 at St.
Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, in New York City.
Ivan Wyschnegradsky wrote ETUDE ULTRACHROMATIQUE for
a 31-tone equal temperament organ in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The organ was built by Adriaan Daniel
Fokker, who also composed for the instrument.
The piece was arranged by Johnny Reinhard for viola, flute, clarinet,
and bassoon. The performance was May
27, 1999 at St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, in New York City.
Harry Partch‘s POTION SCENE features a
selection from William Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.” Here, Juliet is faced with the decision to
do herself in. This premiere on this
recording of the December 1931 duo composed in San Francisco was performed on May
27, 1999 in the St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University. The piece was later amplified in 1955 in a new
version to include an added two sopranos, kithara, bass marimba, chromelodeon,
and cello.
Farewell: God knows when we
shall meet again.
I have a faint cold fear
thrills through my veins.
That almost freezes up the
heat of life: I’ll call them back again to comfort me.
Nurse: What should she do
here?
My dismal scene I needs must
act alone.
Come, vial. What if this mixture do not work at all?
Shall I be married then
tomorrow morning?
No. No; this shall forbid it; lie thou there.
What if it be a poison which
the friar subtly hath minister’d to have me dead.
Lest in this marriage he
should be dishonour’d because he married me before to Romeo.
And yet, methinks, it should
not, for he hath still been tried a holy man.
I will not entertain so bad
a thought.
How if, when I am laid into
the tomb, I wake before the time that Romeo come to redeem me?
There’s a fearful point!
Shall I not then be stifled
in the vault to whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,
And there die strangled ere
my Romeo comes?
Or, if I live, is it not
very like the horrible conceit of dee3ath and night,
Together with the terror of
the place is in a vault, an ancient receptacle, where, for those many hundred
years, the bones of all my buried ancestors are pack’d;
Where bloody Tybalt, yet but
green in earth,
Lies festering in his
shroud; here, as they say, at some hours in the night spirits resort:
Alack, alack! Is it not very
like that I, so early waking,
What with loathsome smells,
and shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth, that living mortals, hearing
the, run mad: O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,
Environed with all these
hideous fears, and madly play with my forefathers’ joints, and pluck the
mangled Tybalt from his shroud?
And in this rage, with some
great kinsman’s bone, as with a club, dash out my desperate brains?
O Looks! Methinks I see my
cousin’s ghost, seeking out Romeo,
That did spit this body upon
a rapier’s point. Stay, Tybalt, stay.
Romeo, I come! This do I drink to thee.
Anton Rovner‘s APPEL A DEUX was conceived for two dissimilar
instruments, heard here for viola and horn.
The title references particular Ivan Wyschnegradsky and Olivier Messiaen
works. The composer originally wrote
the athematic work for the Darbellay Duo of Switzerland, intended for a Moscow
performance.
This composition if Anton
Rovner’s first microtonal composition following his studies with Milton Babbitt
at The Juilliard School. His doctorate
was with Charles Wuorinen at Rutgers University. Anton Rovner directed and produced the Bridge series of concerts
in NYC during the ‘90s.
Adriaan Daniël Fokker’s SEPTIMES IN DE TATRABERGEN
was premiered in the United States. on May 2, 2009 in the Church of St. Luke of
the Fields. The composed music of A.D.
Fokker (1887-1972), usually composing under the name Arie de Leon, was compiled
and published by musicologist Rudolf Rasch as volume I of his Corpus
Microtonale series based in Utrecht.
The scientist turned composer and 31-tone equal temperament enthusiast
was born in Java, in modern Indonesia. As
a result of the NAZI invasion of The Netherlands, Fokker was no longer
permitted to practice science. Fokker became
engrossed in the work of Christian Hughens, and consequently, of 31-tone equal
temperament.
Iannis Xenakis’ EMBELLIE for solo viola
was recorded live on May 22, 1997 at the Columbia University St. Paul’s Chapel
in New York City. Xenakis, born in
Rumania in 1922 of Greek parentage, studied engineering in Athens, later moving
to Paris to study architecture with Le Corbusier, and composition with Olivier
Messiaen. Quintessentially Xenakis is
the following admonition from the composer: “We must open our eyes and try to
throw bridges towards other
cultures,
as well as to the immediate future of musical thought, before dying suffocated
by electronic techniques, applied either on the instrumental level or on the
level of computer compositions.
Harry Partch’s A MIDNIGHT FAREWELL was
composed in Pasadena, California on January 17, 1933. [see notes in first paragraph.]
Harry Partch: A Midnight Farewell
By a pale lantern—under a cold moon
We were drinking heavily together.
Frightened by our orgies, a white
heron
Flapped out of the river
shallows. It was midnight.
Anastasia Solberg, violist, completed her graduate studies in performance at the Hochsule der Kunste, Berlin, with Prof. Bruno Giurranna. She is founder and director of Ensemble Solange, a mixed chamber ensemble who performed primarily in Europe, focusing on works and composers of rarely performed works. She participated one year in the “Neue Musik Tage” which led to collaborations with Dutch soprano, Dorien Verheijden and German clarinetist Michael Heitzler. Anastasia became involved with microtonal music as a natural segue to the life she had led as a child. She spent 4 years of her childhood in Korea and with the influence of her father was culturally immersed in that country. This was important in opening the ears to many different sounds and was the beginning of the search for the unknown. It was in Israel where her middle eastern interest with its microtonal twinge became even more apparent. It was after this journey that she then landed in NYC, met up with Johnny and the microtonal world. She was the violist in the first AFMM concert in 1981, and violist for the AFMM since 1996. Anastasia played all five viola parts on the commercially released CD of the “Universe Symphony” by Charles Ives. She has premiered works by Harry Partch, Victoria Bond, John Eaton, Anton Rovner, Violetta Dinescu, Luc Marcel, and Johnny Reinhard. Anastasia Solberg is an adjunct professor at New York University and Temple University. Anastasia now resides in the Catskills of New York. She opened a music school in 2001, the Music Institute of Sullivan and Ulster Counties (MISU).
Anastasia
Solberg, violist, became involved with microtonal music as a natural segue to
the life she had led as a child. She spent 4 years of her childhood in Korea
and with the influence of her father was culturally immersed in that country.
This was important in opening the ears to many different sounds and was the
beginning of the search for the unknown.
It was in Israel where her middle eastern interest with its microtonal
twinge became even more apparent. It was after this journey that she then
landed in NYC, met up with Johnny and the microtonal world. She was the violist in the first AFMM
concert in 1981, and violist for the AFMM since 1996.
In
1982 she returned to Germany and completed her graduate studies in performance
at the Hochsule der Kunste, Berlin, with Prof. Bruno Giurranna. In her
continued journey looking for new sounds she thought it appropriate to attend
the “Neue Musik Tage in Darmstadt,
Germany,” were she began her working relationship with the Dutch soprano, Dorien Verheijden. Along with
Michael Heitzler, clarinet and Michael Bauman, piano Anastasia formed and
directed “Ensemble Solange,a mixed
chamber ensemble who performs and records primarily in Europe, focusing on
works and composers of rarely performed works.
Anastasia
played all five viola parts on the commercially released CD of the “Universe
Symphony” by Charles Ives. She has
premiered works by Harry Partch, Victoria Bond, John Eaton, Anton Rovner,
Violetta Dinescu, Luc Marcel, and Johnny Reinhard.
After teaching as adjunct at various institutions of higher
learning (New York University, Temple University), as well as running her own
private studio, Anastasia decided that she could best assist those around her
by opening a music school. In 2001 she founded the Music Institute of Sullivan
and Ulster Counties (MISU) in Ellenville New York . She also has been
collaborating with 2 local community colleges (SUNY Ulster and SUNY Sullivan)
in performance and instruction.
All recordings “live” from
AFMM concerts
Mastered by Paul Geluso
Recording Engineer: Norman
Greenspan
Cover Artist: Orlanda
Brugnola
www.afmm.org ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
AMERICAN FESTIVAL OF
MICROTONAL MUSIC © 2009
Johnny Reinhard, Director,
AFMM
318 East 70th
Street, Suite #5-FW