Nessessary Music

Saturday, June 5, 2010

Carl Nielsen - Songs, Vol. 1 (1988)

Liner Notes:

Carl Nielsen's songs are part of the Danish national heritage, but it may surprise many people to learn that these popular songs amount to only one fifth of his total production of approximately 250 songs. There are many reasons for this. When Carl Nielsen published his first songs—»Five Poems« and »Songs and Verse« with texts by J.P. Jacobsen—at the end of the last century, they seemed singularly odd in comparison with the romantic song tradition familiar from the works of Heise and Lange-Müller. It was not until he composed songs like »O, Danish Man« and, in particular, Jeppe Aakjær's »Jens the Roadman« that he struck a popular note which was to make him widely loved, even by people who did not generally appreciate his music. It was strophic songs that Carl Nielsen came to concentrate on in his vocal music, one of the few exceptions being »The Song of the Bear«, which, with its use of polytonality and dissonance, stands in sharp contrast to the songs that have become known through the Folk High School Song Book.

But Carl Nielsen's song production is richer and more varied than these songs suggest, as for example his »Four Jutland Songs«, in which he, a native of Funen, so successfully brings out the essentially Jutland character of the poems by Anton Berntsen, or his settings for Johannes V. Jensen's two humorous though bitter ballads from The Fall ofthe King.

Hans Christian Andersen's »Studies from Nature«, which could well be the motto for all Carl Nielsen's works,—not the outward appearance of nature, but nature as he himself formed—was composed in 1916 and published separately the same year.

»Ariel's Song« was written for a small play by Helge Rode, performed at Kronborg, Elsinore, also in 1916, on the occasion of the tercentenary of Shakespeare's death. It was published separately and dedicated to the singer Anders Brems.

During the years 1902-1907 Carl Nielsen composed two volumes of »Strophic Songs«, which were published in 1907 as Op. 21. »Shall the Flowers Wither Then« and »The Hawk« are from the first volume, while the two ballads from The Fall of the King—»Homeless« and »Good Nights—are from the second.

»Songs and Verse by J.P. Jacobsen«, Op. 6, were composed in the same year as Carl Nielsen's first collection of Jacobsen poems, Op. 4, and were published in 1893. The piano part plays an important role here. In many places, as for example in The Seraphs«, Carl Nielsen seems to hover between major and minor keys—a peculiarity that was later to become characteristic.

Like, »The Golden River«, »The Land of the Future«, was printed for the first time in Ubberup High School's yearbook. The latter is dated 28 November, 1929, but was not included in the Folk High School Music Book until 1940; the former was composed in the previous year and printed in the Folk High School Paper in 1928. It has never been reprinted.

In 1924 Carl Nielsen became interested in Anton Berntsen's collection GjemmÆvvel. From this he first of all set to music, partly in through-composed form, the amusing and dramatic account of the fisherman Jens Madsen, who was out spearing eels when the ice started to break up. In 1925 he composed another three songs originating from the same collection. The four songs were published posthumously in 1941 under the title »Four Jutland Songs«.

»The Song of the Bear« has acquired an opus number of its own, and it the longest through-composed song Carl Nielsen ever wrote. In a letter to his friend, the composer Rudolf Simonsen, dated 29 June, 1922, he writes: » ... and I have meet the Swedish poet Almqvist (1793-1866), a most remarkable, extremely distinctive and varied poet (I feel as if I were »Wahlverwandt« with this strange man)—and I shall probably become closer acquainted with him later on . . .«

This was to be in the following year. Carl Nielsen had persuaded Aage Berntsen, the poet responsible for »Springtime in Funen«, to re-create Almqvist's saga of the wilderness, »The She-Bear« from Book of the Rose, in rhymed verse. This extremely complicated tone poem was finally dated 15 November, 1923. Carl Nielsen wrote to his son-in-law Emil Telmanyi: » ... my daughter Irmelin thinks it very dramatic, and I my self am reasonably satisfied with the work.«

On 21 December, 1929, Carl Nielsen wrote a melody in a ballad style entirely his own to Thøger Larsen's poem »Denmark, Now Sleeps the Light Night«. Oluf Ring's well-known setting to this poem was then already eight years' old, and has retained its popularity:

»Danish Weather«, a poem by Ove Rode set to music by Carl Nielsen, was published separately by Borup's Music Publishers in 1927, the same year as it was composed.

»Reunion«—to a text by Paludan-Müller—was composed on Saturday 4 January, 1930, and printed in the April edition of the Folk High School Paper in the same year. It has never been reprinted.

From the two famous collections »Twenty Danish Songs I-II«, respectively 1915 and 1917, come »She Knows Me Not« and »My Little Bird«—both to poems by Hans Christian Andersen—as well as »Look Around, One Summer Day«. These are all from the second volume, while »Farewell, My Blessed Town of Birth« and »The Refsnæs Lads« are from the first.

»The Groves Are Shining Green Now« was printed for the first time in the collection »Twenty Folk Melodies, 1921« and, with its simple, catching melody, it became part of the Danish national heritage when included in the Folk High School Music Book together with another song from the same collection: »Morning Dew Which Gently Trembles.«

The melody to »In Cooling Shadows« from Johannes Ewald's »The Joys of Rungsted« was published for the first time in Johan Borup's Danish Song Book from 1926, for which Carl Nielsen had been asked, as previously, to write melodies. However, to judge from some correspondence with, for example, the High School principal Harald Balslev, Carl Nielsen does not appear to have been entirely satisfied with them.
Thus, in a letter to Balslev dated 10 May, 1926, he writes: » ... but don't you think I could soon stop composing these popular songs?« What Carl Nielsen does not mention, however, is that he also composed an arrangement, with independent piano passages. It is this version, the manuscript of which is housed in the Royal Library, that has been used in this recording.

»My Native Soil« was composed in 1929 to a text by Frederik Poulsen, but was not printed until 1940, nine years after Carl Nielsen's death.

Peder Severin. Trained at the Opera Academy of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen. Thereafter awarded grants for continued studies at St. Cecilia in Rome, with Professor Georges Cunelli in London and Anton Dermota in Vienna.

Debut in 1971 at the Jutland Opera—in 1972 at the Royal Theatre, Copenhagen. Since then Peder Severin has sung a great many lyrical tenor parts, in opera and operetta and as a soloist in classical oratorio both with Danish symphony orchestras and symphony orchestras abroad, such as the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Slask and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. He has also given many lieder recitals.

His collaboration with Dorte Kirkeskov began in 1981 with a lieder concert in the Tivoli Concert Hall. Since then they have given many recitals, their repertoire ranging from Danish and Norwegian composers like Carl Nielsen, Lange-Müller, Peter Heise, Grieg, Sibelius, and Peterson-Berger to lieder by Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Beethoven and Mahler.

Dorte Kirkeskov was taught by Esther Vagning at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, graduating in 1973. Thereafter she studied for a period with Hans Leygraf at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik and Theater in Hannover. From 1975-77 she studied in the soloist class under John Damgaard at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, from which she made her debut in 1977. She has since supplemented her education with international master classes, and today she is very much in demand in Denmark as a chamber music player, and not least as an accompanist of lieder.

Henrik Poulsen, designer and one of Denmark's leading Carl Nielsen specialists, has taken the initiative regarding this recording of Carl Nielsen's songs, most of which are relatively little known, and many of which have never been published or recorded before.

Credits:

Peder Severin, tenor
Dorte Kirkeskov, piano

Track List:

Studie efter naturen (Study after Nature), song for voice and piano, FS 82
Ariel's Song ('Selv naar Tordenen tynger'), for voice and piano (from FS 80)
Strophic Songs (7), for voice and piano, FS 42 (Op. 21): No 1, Skal Blomsterne da visne? (Shall the Flowers Wither Then?)
Strophic Songs (7), for voice and piano, FS 42 (Op. 21): No 2, Høgen (The Hawk)
Viser og vers (Songs and Verses) (5), FS 14 (Op. 6): No 1, Genrebillede (Genre Piece)
Viser og vers (Songs and Verses) (5), FS 14 (Op. 6): No 2, Seraferne (The Seraphs)
Viser og vers (Songs and Verses) (5), FS 14 (Op. 6): No 3, Silkesko over gylden Læst (Silken Shoes on a Golden Last)
Viser og vers (Songs and Verses) (5), FS 14 (Op. 6): No 4, Det bødes der for (A Moment of Pleasure, and Age of Pain)
Viser og vers (Songs and Verses) (5), FS 14 (Op. 6): No 5, Vise af Mogens (Song from Mogens)
Fremtidens land (The Land of the Future), song for voice and piano, FS 145
Strophic Songs (7), for voice and piano, FS 42 (Op. 21): No 6, Husvild (Homeless)
Strophic Songs (7), for voice and piano, FS 42 (Op. 21): No 7, Godna (Good Night)
Fire Jydske sange (Jutish Songs) (4), for voice and piano, FS 115: Jens Madsen a An-Sofi (Jens Madsen)
Fire Jydske sange (Jutish Songs) (4), for voice and piano, FS 115: Wo Dætter (Our Daughter)
Fire Jydske sange (Jutish Songs) (4), for voice and piano, FS 115: Den Jenn a den Anden (One and the Other)
Fire Jydske sange (Jutish Songs) (4), for voice and piano, FS 115: Ae Lastræ (The Haypole)
Balladen om bjørnen (The Ballad of the Bear), song for voice and piano, Op. 47 (FS 109)
Guldfloden (The Golden River), song for voice and piano, FS 127
Danmark, nu blunder den lyse Nat (Denmark, now sleeps the pale Night), song for voice and piano, FS 146
Dansk vejr (Danish Weather), song for voice and piano, FS 122
Gensyn (Reunion), song for voice and piano, FS 151: Gensyn
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: Hun mig har glemt (She Knows Me Not)
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: Min lille Fugl (My Little Bird)
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: Farvel min velsignede Fødeby (Farewell, My Blessed Town of Birth)
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: De Refsnædrenge, de Samsøpiger (The Refsnæs Lads, the Samsø Lasses)
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: Se dig ud Sommerdag (Look Around, One Summer Day)
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: Nu lyser Løv i Lunde (The Groves Are Shining Green Now)
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: Morgendug der sagte bæver (Morning Dew Which Gently Trembles)
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: Rungsteds Lyksaligheder: I kølende Skygger (The Joys of Rungsted: In Cooling Shadows)
En snes danske vise (20 Danish Songs), FS 70: Hjemstavn (My Native Soil)

Download Links: Enjoy the Music, or here.

Other recordings of music by Carl Nielsen:

Friday, June 4, 2010

Music by Dello Joio, Thompson & Moross (1989)

Liner Notes:

EPIGRAPH FOR ORCHESTRA, NORMAN DELLO JOIO

Epigraph was commissioned by Mrs. Frederic H. Douglas in commemoration of her late brother, A. Lincoln Gillespie, Jr., for the Denver Symphony Orchestra. It was first performed by that group on January 29, 1952 with Saul Caston conducting. The composer describes it as "simply a piece written to the memory of a man. It is at best a musical inscription that is conceived in terms of my own imagination as to what A. Lincoln Gillespie was like. It is musically in form a three-part song. I did not feel compelled to write a dirge-like type of music, but a music that sang, maybe roughly at times, and maybe with humor—because I suspect that is what A. Lincoln Gillespie would have wanted. For me to give a technical analysis, I am afraid, would be boring. Music that has lasted for a long time is worthy of detailed treatment but let us not get confused by a composer who hopes that maybe sometime in the future the music may be worth that trouble for someone else."

Dello Joio's first musical studies were with his father, an organist and composer, from whom he went to Pietro Yon, then organist at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Enrollment at the Institute of Musical Art, undergraduate division of the famous Juilliard School of Music, brought him under the tutelage of Gaston Dethier, and it was while enrolled here that Dello Joio discovered his talents for composition. Later studies at the Juilliard School, at the Berkshire Music Center and the Yale School of Music were carried on under the noted composers Bernard Wagenaar and Paul Hindemith.

In 1942 Dello Joio's "Magnificat” for Orchestra won him the Town hall Composition Award, and later recognition of his talents came in the grant of two successive Guggenheim Fellowships, a grant of $1,000 from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the New York Music Critics' Circle Award, given him in 1949 for his "Variations, Chaconne and Finale".

SYMPHONY NO. 2 - RANDALL THOMPSON

Scored for 3 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, English horn, 3 clarinets, 3 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, tuba, tympany, cymbals, and strings.

Randall Thompson was born in New York City in 1899, He received his B.A. and M.A. from Harvard University. His awards include the Guggenheim Fellowship and that of the American Academy in Rome, as well as the Eastman Publication Award, He taught at Wellesley and at the University of California; was Director of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; head of the Department of Music at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Composition at Princeton University.

SYMPHONY NO. 2 was composed from July 1930 to September 1931. It received its first performance at an American Composers' Concert on March 24, 1932, Howard Hanson conducting. It was first performed in New York by Bruno Walter and the New York Philharmonic on November 2, 1933 and since has been widely performed. Lawrence Gilman writing in the Herald-Tribune said, The important point about this symphony is that he has really succeeded in keeping the music simple, unforced, unaffected. He has made use of popular idioms, melodic and rhythmic, and his manipulation of these is civilized and craftsmanlike. He has not hesitated at times to be obvious, he has not strained; he has not constricted his fancy and his feeling; he has not been afraid to sound quite different from Schoenberg. His music has humor and warmth and pleasantness; many will find it agreeable and solacing."

Thompson said of his symphony, "It is based on no program, either literary or spiritual. It is not cyclical. I wanted to write four contrasting movements separate and distinct, which together should convey a sense of balance and completeness."

"I have not used all the instruments in every movement. Limiting the percussion to cymbals and kettledrums may seem to be a curious twist for a contemporary composer. I have been sparing in my use of percussive punctuation in an attempt to make the music itself intrinsically rhythmic."

THOMPSON'S ANALYSIS

"I. ALLEGRO, E minor; 3/4 time. The movement runs from beginning to end without change in tempo. The principal theme is announced immediately by the horns, forte, and answered by the trumpets. From this motive is derived a series of rhythmic figures which form the toccata- like background of the entire movement. The subsidiary theme (G minor, oboes, English horn, and bassoon) is of a more reticent nature, but the celli accompany it in a persistent rhythm. "The development section begins quietly, and forms a gradual crescendo, at the apex of which the first theme returns in an ominous fortissimo against a counter-rhythm on the kettledrums. A more extended transition leads to a sinister presentation of the second theme (C minor, muted trumpets answered by bassoon and clarinets antiphonally). At the close, a major version of the second theme in augmentation is sounded fortissimo by the horns and trumpets against the continuous pulse of the strings. The movement subsides, apparently to end in the major. An abrupt minor chord brings it to a close.

II. LARGO, C major 4/4 time. The violins play a warm, quiet melody against pizzicato chords in the celli. A contrasting melody is sung by the oboe. The movement is not long, but its mood is concentrated. It ends simply, on a C major chord with lowered seventh.

III. VIVACE, 7/4 time. Scherzo with trio. The first section begins in G minor and ends in D minor. The trio (Capriccioso, 6/8 and 9/8 time) progresses from B major to G major. The first section returns transposed. Now beginning in C minor and ending in G minor, it serves as a kind of extended "subdominant answer" to its former presentation. There is a short coda making an intensified use of material from the trio.

IV. ANDANTE MODERATO—ALLEGRO CON SPIRITO—LARGAMENTE, E major. The slow sections which begin and end this movement serve to frame the Allegro, a modified rondo.
"The theme of the Allegro is a diminuation of the theme of the first and last sections. The Largamente employs for the first time the full sonorities of the orchestra in a sustained assertion of the prinicpal melody."

FRANKIE & JOHNNY - JEROME MOROSS
THE SCANDALOUS LIFE OF FRANKIE AND JOHNNY

FRANKIE AND JOHNNY was originally composed on commission from Ruth Page, and then presented by her in collaboration with the Chicago Federal Theater. It was completed in March, 1938 and first produced at the Great Northern Theater in Chicago, June 20, 1938. It is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 3 Bb clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, piano, timpani, percussion and strings. Scheduled to run for a few nights only, the work created a sensation and ran for six weeks through traditionally unremuneraive July. In 1945 the Ballet Ruse de Monte Carlo bought the ballet, and for a number of seasons FRANKIE AND JOHNNY was an established work in their repertoire. Alleged "extremes" in the choreography created a problem with censors in certain communities, and eventually the pressure won out: the work was dropped. It was resuscitated, however, in Paris in May 1950. There it was the subject of a typical French artistic scandale. The adherents of Serge Lifar used the performance to demonstrate their anger at the treatment he had received in America, and the next morning the New York Herald-Tribune and other New York papers were delighted to report that at last an American work had received the "chair-throwing" treatment that had been reserved until then for such revolutionary works as Le Sacre du Printemps and L'Apres-mmidi d'un Faune. After the premiere, counter-demonstrations began. The famous artist Le Corbusier wrote a panegyric for the press, and the ballet was performed 20 times in the month.

Formally, FRANKIE AND JOHNNY consists of an introduction and a suite of seven dances described by the composer as follows:

STOMP (The doings around town)
BLUES (A duet between Frankie and Johnny)
RAG I (The Barroom scene; Johnny goes off with Nellie Bly; Frankie comes looking for him; the local denizens help, Nellie and Johnny get away)
RAG II (The bartender's dance. The bartender tells Frankie what's what, in the meantime offering himself as a substitute)
TUNE (Frankie whips herself into a frenzy and goes off to get her gun)
FOX-TROT (Frankie catches Johnny with Nellie Bly and shoots Johnny)
ONE-STEP (The funeral. Everybody gets roaring drunk and Frankie and Nellie end up crying on one another's shoulders)

Throughout the piece, a trio of Salvation Army lasses wanders through the scenes beating cymbal, tambourine and bas-drum, and commenting on the action. At the end, they get three glasses of beer and sing the final lyrics with their feet on the coffin, as if it were a bar-rail. The whole is an astoundingly virtuosic orchestral setting of the familiar American folk tune. In the recorded version, the Blues is omitted. Otherwise, this is the complete music used for the ballet.

ABOUT MOROSS

Jerome Moross was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., August 1, 1913. He was educated in New York public and high schools and has a large number of newspaper clippings that testify he was the youngest student ever to graduate from a Metropolitan school. He graduated from New York University at 18. During his Senior year at college, he also held a Juilliard fellowship. Moross' works for the stage have brought him the major portion of his recognition to date. The first was his score for "Parade", a revue produced by the Theater Guild in 1935. A ballet, "American Pattern", was produced at the Chicago Opera in 1937. His most successful work so far has been his contributions to "Ballet Ballads", a folk dance production staged on Broadway in 1948 by the American National Theater and Academy. It has been performed since in Los Angeles, Cleveland, and in dozens of little theaters and colleges throughout the country. His most-performed piece, however, is his score for Garcia Lorca's drama, "Blood Wedding", which has been unusually popular with little theater groups. Moross also completed "The Golden Apple", a full-length work for the theater which was produced on Broadway in 1952. Mr. Moross has also written several classic film scores which include "The Proud Rebel" (1958), "The Cardinal" (1963), "The War Lord" (1965), and of course his most beloved work "The Big Country" (1958).

Moross' activity has been most pronounced in the fields of theater, radio and films, but he has not omitted formal concerts works. His First Symphony (1942) was premiered by Sir Thomas Beecham and the Seattle Symphony in 1944. His "Tall Story for Orchestra" was commissioned by the Columbia Broadcasting System and performed over that network in 1938, with Howard Barlow conducting. Other works for orchestra include Paeans, Biguine and The Wolf Waltzes.

Track List & Credits:

Norman Dello Joio

Epigraph for Orchestra

Vienna Symphony Orchestra - Hans Swarowsky, conductor

Randall Thompson
Symphony No. 2

I. Allegro
II. Largo
III. Vivace
IV. Andante moderato - Allegro con Spirito

Vienna Symphony Orchestra - Dean Dixon, conductor

Jerome Moross

Frankie and Johnny

Vienna Symphony Orchestra - Walter Hendl, conductor

Download Links: Enjoy the Music, or here.

Other Recordings:

Norman Dello Joio

Randall Thompson

Jerome Moross

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Paul Creston - Orchestral Works, Vol. 2 (1994)

This recording combines two things I like: the Seattle Symphony (my home town is Seattle) and Paul Creston. Creston is not one of the better known American composers, but he should be. His music is innovative and modern, but not to the point of discouraging less determined listeners. He was essentially a self-taught composer who won fame the hard way. His compositions are often very rhythmic and always tonal, although with his own distinctive style.

Liner Notes:

“I make no special effort to be American," Paul Creston once declared. "I conscientiously work to be my true self, which is Italian by parentage, American by birth, and cosmopolitan by choice." Despite this disclaimer, there is in fact something very American indeed about Creston, both the music and the man. The music, in large forms like the Fifth Symphony, radiates a breadth and boldness that seem to reflect the robust quality of the American experience. And as for the man, his rise from poverty and his extraordinary tenacity in developing his own Capacities capture the very essence of the American tradition of optimism and opportunity.

He was born Giuseppe Guttoveggio in New York City in 1906, the son of an immigrant housepainter, and was forced to leave high school after two years to go to work. His family had bought him a $10 piano, but a mediocre teacher did little to further his talents at the keyboard, and like so much else in his life, he learned for the most part on his own. In his teens he changed his name, "Creston" suggested by a high school play he took part in, "Paul" picked at random.

He worked as errand boy for a publishing company, then as a bank clerk and an insurance claim examiner. At the end of the working day his real life began. He studied Bach, Scarlatti, Chopin, Debussy and Ravel, "assisted by Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, Scriabin, and Stravinsky." He practiced the piano until midnight, then spent two or three more hours reading history, literature, and philosophy. To stay awake, he smoked ground coffee beans in his pipe, and later said he decided that if Thomas Edison could get along on four hours' sleep, so could he.

The piano practice paid off when he was able to get work as a theater organist for silent movies and then as a regular church organist in New York, and at 26 he determined to devote his life to composition. He married a young dancer in Martha Graham's company, and she is credited with sharpening his perception of rhythm, which became one of the important keystones in his approach to music—so important, in fact, that he wrote two books on the subject.

Creston's first professional showcase was provided by another self-educated American composer, Henry Cowell, who presented a work by him at a composers' forum at New York's New School for Social Research in October, 1934; after that, honors began to accrue—a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1938 and the New York Music Critics' Circle Award for his Symphony No.1 in 1941—the latter, incidentally, given in preference to works by an impressive roster of young Americans: Roy Harris, William Schuman, Morton Gould, and Aaron Copland (whose "Lincoln Portrait" was the work under consideration).

Henry Cowell described Creston as a man of "sincerity, self-discipline, and earnest reflection," and something of these qualities emerges in Creston's statements about music, which are indeed unfailingly earnest and often just a bit ponderous. But they are worth considering, as they give the flavor of a man who won his laurels by hard work and willpower, and who had found his own way with little help from others. "I look upon music, and more specifically the writing of it, as a spiritual practice," he once wrote. "This may be at complete variance with the speculations of art theorists, but inasmuch as it pertains to my way of life, I have found it the most satisfactory justification of my pursuit of art.. ..To me, musical composition is as vital to my spiritual welfare as prayer and good deeds; just as food and exercise are necessities of physical health and thought and study are requisites of mental well-being."

On the more specific aspects of his music, he had this to say: "My philosophical approach to composition is abstract. I am preoccupied with matters of melodic design, harmonic coloring, rhythmic pulse, and formal progression; not with imitations of nature, or narrations of fairy tales, or propounding of sociological ideologies. Not that the source of inspiration may not be a picture or a story. Only that regardless of the origin of the subject matter, regardless of the school of thought, a musical composition must bear judgement purely on musical criteria. Its intrinsic worth depends on the integration of musical elements toward a unified whole."

Creston spent his life as a teacher imparting these truths to students at Swarthmore, the New York College of Music, and Central Washington State College. In 1975 he moved to San Diego, where he died on August 24, 1985.

The Fifth Symphony was commissioned to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the National Symphony in Washington, and was given its premiere there on April 4, 1956 under the direction of Howard Mitchell. The conductor's enthusiasm for Creston's music dated back at least to the mid-1940s, when he had performed the Symphony No. 2 in Belgium, and later recalled the occasion: "I was in my dressing room after the concert receiving visitors, when one of Belgium's most distinguished citizens came and embraced me, saying 'At last we in Belgium have heard the real strength and greatness of America in the music of Paul Creston.' Paul once said to me that writing music came as naturally to him as breathing."

In 1948, Henry Cowell had written of Creston, "There is no one known to me who handles more expertly the traditional types of development of a musical germ." That characteristic is evident in the Fifth Symphony, of which Creston himself wrote, "The keynote of the emotional basis of this symphony is intensity, and the feeling is generally one of spiritual conflicts which are not resolved until the final movement. All thematic material stems from the series of tones presented at the very beginning by the cellos and basses, evenly measured but irregularly grouped. From these tones, three definite, rhythmically patterned themes evolve: The first, aggressive and defiant, the second lyric and impassioned (an inversion of the first theme); and the third, tender and poignant..." It is helpful to keep in mind that the "germ" theme begins on a rising triad; its inversion, of course, first appearing in oboes and violas, is a descending triad. Despite passages of relative quiet and repose, the tenor of the first movement is indeed one of urgency and pressure, punctuated by explosive outbursts of percussion.

The pressure does not let up entirely, as one might have expected it to do, in the Largo. The movement is built around the solemn and somewhat mysterious opening motif of the strings in unison, with their upward rush of 16th notes; along the way to a pulsing central episode the motif is touched on by solo oboe and solo flute, and following this intense episode both the English horn and later the flute enter with lovely references to the theme. A final prodding climax makes way for the English horn to appear once again, guiding the movement to a serene conclusion.

The finale embraces a variety of moods, from its portentous opening through an expansive, rhapsodic section based on the "germ" theme in its inverted form, to a jubilant march-like segment that seems to capture the optimism of the movement as a whole.

The Choreografic Suite, commissioned by the Rebekah Harkness Foundation in 1965, reveals a quite different aspect of Creston's orchestral imagination. While the rhythmic pulse so innate in his writing is always apparent, as one would expect in a set of dance movements, the orchestration is consistently airy and transparent, with much sunlit writing for woodwinds. Each movement has its own distinct character. The Preamble (I), robust and assertive, allots a solo to each of the upper wind instruments. The Sarabandesque (II), grave and solemn, in keeping with the stately nature of the traditional sarabande, includes a rhapsodic melody for the oboe, followed by a variety of individual wind statements. The Burletta (III) is a sparkling, rather comic essay in which the clarinet is particularly impish. The Cantilena (IV) is led by the flute in a calm and pastoral vein; and the Festive Dance (V), driven by repetitive, off-center motoric rhythms, eventually gives rise to a closing flourish.

"Toccata" was commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra in celebration of its 40th anniversary in 1957, and was premiered under Georg Sze11 on October 17 of that year. In honor of this virtuoso orchestra—and in keeping with the title, which historically exploited the "touch" and brilliance of the performer—Creston made soloistic demands of almost every instrument. After its propulsive opening, the work moves on to spotlight each wind in turn, starting with the clarinet and leading into a striking passage for the pair of flutes; even the bassoon is brought into the unaccustomed spot of center stage. A slow middle section, marked Andante, continues the soloistic work in a relatively serene atmosphere (and includes the tuba, another orchestral wallflower); the fast tempo returns, making further demands on individual players as well as the rhythm-driven string sections.

Shirley Fleming

Young People’s Notes:

Paul Creston, who was born in New York in 1906, proved one thing very clearly: you can do just about whatever you set your mind to, if you are really determined. He was a poor boy, and because his father was a house painter and never made much money, young Paul left high school after his second year and went to work as an errand boy for a publishing company. He did move on to better-paying jobs, but he was determined to continue his own education—and not only his musical education. So when he came home each evening he practiced the piano and studied music until midnight, and then spent two or three more hours reading on all kinds of subjects. He stayed awake by smoking ground-up coffee beans in a pipe—not recommended for anyone else to try.

He finally succeeded in winning attention to his music, and some of the most famous conductors of the time—Leopold Stokowski and Arturo Toscanini among them—performed hi works. It wasn't long before orchestras were asking for music to be written especially for them. All three pieces on this CD were written on request.

The Fifth Symphony was a celebration of the 25th birthday of the National Symphony Orchestra, which still "lives" in Washington, DC. Creston knew that there was plenty of power and muscle in this orchestra, and he was not in the least afraid to demand a lot of vigor and loud playing, especially from the big drums. The symphony is in three movements, and the composer tells us (in notes he wrote at the time) that he was thinking of conflicts—different clashing ideas—that are finally settled in the third movement. One thing you will notice right away about all of Creston's music are the pulsing rhythms that always drive it along. His wife was a dancer, and she must have reminded him that rhythm is one of the most important things in music as well as in dancing.

And speaking of dancing, the "Choreografic* Suite" was requested by a dance group (not the one his wife had worked with), and each of its five movements requires a different kind of speed and mood. It's easy to hear how different each of these movements is, and also easy to hear how light and airy the instruments sound—mostly because they are woodwinds: flutes, oboes, clarinets, each with its own distinct voice.
"Toccata" comes from an Italian word meaning "touch," and a toccata is supposed to show off the touch and skill of the performer. When he wrote this piece Creston intended to show off the players in the Cleveland Orchestra, one of the country's most famous musical groups, who asked him to write this in honor of the orchestra's 40th anniversary. Again, he calls on the woodwind players to show off a bit, and you can hear them do just that, if you listen carefully. You'll also hear those famous pulsing rhythms, which must have pounded away in Creston's head even in his sleep.