Setting That Record Straight: Revised Program Notes for Sounds of New Music, Smithsonian Recordings Page: 3
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Setting That Record Straight: Revised Program Notes for Sounds of New Music, Smithsonian
Recordings. FX 6160. Notes by Eugene Bruck. Revised by Ralph Hartsock, 2005.Track 1: Bahnfahrt
Bahnfahrt is a musical version of a sort of
narrow gauge "Toonerville Trolley," performed in
Germany in the mid-1920s, before Spike Jones.
Tubas and trombones, whistles and woodwinds create
a cartoon image. This type of music first found favor
in Burlesque orchestras at the turn of the 20th century
and continued, much to every child's delight, to be
the standard accompaniment to the animated cartoons
until recently.
Track 2: Alexandr Mosolov (1900-1973).
Symphony of Machines. Steel Foundry. (Stal.
Zavod)
The ballet Zavod, op. 19, composed in 1927
during the reign of Stalin in the Soviet Union, depicts
a realistic image of an Iron Foundry. Almost every
listener is able to picture some sort of factory, with its
relentless pounding and clanging movement of
machines. The only concrete clue to the Steel
Foundry is the constant rattling of a thin sheet of
metal (flexatone or Lamina de ferro), the only non-
conventional instrument in the orchestra.
Track 3: IUlii Sergeevich Meitus (1903-1997) Na
Dnieprostroe (Dnieper Water Power Station)
Born Jan. 28, 1903, in Elizavetgrad (now
Kirovgrad), Meitus was a Ukrainian composer and
pianist. Composed in 1930, Dnieper Water Power
Station depicts the construction of a hydroelectric
power station on the Dnieper River. We hear the
initial work on the dam, the digging of the
foundations and the sinking of posts. Meitus uses a
conventional orchestra, with large woodwind and
brass sections, and additional percussion featuring the
xylophone and glockenspiel.
Track 4: John Cage (1912-1992) Dance no. 1, from
his Three Dances for 2 prepared pianos.
Composed in 1944, this dance symbolizes
Cage's invention of prepared piano music. He altered
the timbre of instrument by inserting nuts, bolts,
screws, rubber, weather stripping and other objects
between the strings of the piano at different angles
and at different distances from the dampers. Some
liken this to the sound of the gamelan. The entire
Dance is six minutes in length. We hear an excerpt
from the conclusion of this dance.
Track 5: Edgard Varese (1883-1965). Ionisation,
for 13 percussionists.
lonisation (1931) employs 13 percussionists with
41 unpitched instruments. Nicolas Slonimsky, the
dedicatee, conducted the premiere in March of 1933.
Only the second work of the western tradition
specifically for a percussion ensemble, itdemonstrates Varbse's use of alternation and
variation of rhythmic cells. Percussion instruments,
liberated from their subservient role to melody and
harmony, were used here for resonance, something
Varbse would further explore in Deserts. Varbse
utilized instruments which had previously been used
infrequently: West Indies bongos, a Cuban guiro,
sirens, and the tambour a corde, also known as the
lion's roar. Varese had previously used this eerie
sounding instrument in Ameriques, Hyperprism, and
Intdgrales. This recording includes the first sixteen
measures.
Track 6: Henry Cowell (1897-1965). Sinister
Resonance (1930, revised 1968).
Cowell makes new use of the existing instrument
by plucking the strings of the piano in various
methods to extend its timbre. The minor tonality is
almost modal and employs the use of parallel fifths in
the bass. Cowell instructs the pianist to cut off the
string in its middle, and later to create a muted
quality. He also utilizes harmonics or overtones by
pressing gently with the finger of the right hand in
the middle of the string of the note an octave below
that which is written.
Track 7: Henry Cowell (1897-1965). Banshee.
The player stands at the crook of the piano and
utilizes the open strings of the instrument. By
scratching, plucking, pounding and sweeping the
strings and talking full advantage of the strings'
sympathetic vibrations, the composer evoked the
Banshee of Irish and Scottish folklore, the female
spirit whose wailings forewarn the approaching death
of a family member. Cowell has almost entirely
obliterated the sound of the original instrument, so
that all attention can be drawn to the work itself.
Track 8: Vladimir Ussachevsky (1911-1990).
Underwater Valse.
Along with Transposition, Reverberation,
Experiment, Composition, this was premiered at a
Columbia University Composers Forum on
Thursday, May 8, 1952. Ussachevsky utilizes piano
tones in what he called an experiment, with an easy
going waltz rhythm.
Track 9: Otto Luening (1900-1996): Fantasy in
Space.
Otto Luening, in one of his first explorations into
tape music, recorded himself performing on his
baroque flute. He extends the range of the instrument
by slowing down and speeding up the tape. This
work, along with his Invention in Twelve Tones, Low
Speed, and Ussachevsky's Sonic Contours, premiered
at the Museum of Modern Art, on October 28, 1952.
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Hartsock, Ralph. Setting That Record Straight: Revised Program Notes for Sounds of New Music, Smithsonian Recordings, text, 2005; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc181696/m1/3/: accessed April 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; .