New music and composer news from Musik Fabrik Music Publishing

samedi 29 novembre 2008

Tailleferre/Wehage "Choral et Fugue" by the Italian Police Band in Rome on Sunday

Paul Wehage's orchestration of Germaine Tailleferre's Choral et Fugue will be presented in Rome in a concert by the Italian National Police band under the direction of Ten Col. Massimo Martinelli. The concert, on 30 november, 2008 at 11 a.m. at the Via Aurelia, is part of the 30th anniversary celebration of the Adkins-Chiti Donne In Musica foundation.

The work, which has also been performed by James Ripley and the Carthage Wind Ensemble in Kenosha, Wisconsin, will be presented in its European Première. The work is available from the Musik Fabrik Concert Band Catalog.

From the notes for the published version :

The two pieces which make up “Choral et Fugue” were used by Tailleferre in several ways throughout her long career as a composer. The “Choral” was probably first written as a work for organ, with optional trumpet and trombone which dates from around 1934. It is possible that the “Fugue” was perhaps part of this initial setting, but the manuscrit title page lists only “Choral”. The Fugue was used in Tailleferre’s 1954 film score “L’Aigle des Rues” which exists in a version for piano (which was most likely orchestrated for the film) and a version with two of five pieces arranged into a “Prelude et Fugue” for Organ.

In 2003, I came across a manuscript with a title page of “Choral et Fugue” with the dedication “à L’Harmonie Municipale de Lyon” which consisted of the first version of the Choral for organ with optional brass followed by the orchestral score of the Fugue (probably from the film music). I asked Mrs. Elvire de Rudder, Tailleferre’s granddaughter and heir, whether or not she had any recollection of this work and she only remembered her grandmother talking about it. I called up the City of Lyons and discovered that the Town Band had been disbanded several years before. My letters to the Lyons City archives went unanswered. Questions to Désiré Dondeyne, a French band conductor who worked with Tailleferre during the last ten years of her life, did not lead to anything of significance.

So, it appeared that either Tailleferre orchestrated this work for wind band and it is lost somewhere in Lyons or that she intended to orchestrate it for wind band and never finished the project. When this hypothetical score is finally discovered, I shall gladly withdraw this arrangement to make way for the composer‘s original work, but until such time, this version will allow the work to be performed. The “Choral” is entirely my own orchestration, retaining the scoring for the trumpet and the trombone in the original version of the Choral, but the “Fugue”, being for orchestra, retains the scoring for winds and percussion largely as Tailleferre conceived it.

I would like to add that this orchestration was completed with the approval and the participation of Mrs. Elvire de Rudder, Tailleferre’s heir and herself a musician and musicologist.

(a note for Anglophones: The term “Choral” in French is spelled correctly without the “e” at the end. The word “Chorale” in French refers to a Chorus or a Choral Society.)

Libellés : , , ,

vendredi 28 novembre 2008

Musik Fabrik's project in honor of Claude Lévi-Strauss' 100th birthday

Today is Claude Lévi-Strauss' 100th birthday. Seven Musik Fabrik composers have each written a short piece in honor of the great French Anthropologist which will be published together in the same album. The seven pieces are :

Thérèse Brenet: Dans l'or vibrant du désert... for violin and piano

Gloria Coates: Elegy for flute and piano

Jean-Thierry Boisseau: Sur le bord du fleuve assoupi for flute and marimba

Gian Paolo Chiti: Nocturnal for piano, left hand

Carson Cooman: Un Regard Eloigné for Flugelhorn and Violoncello

Jean-Yves Malmasson: Points de Suspension for Clarinet and Violoncello

Paul Wehage: Savage Thoughts for Tenor Saxophone and Harp

Jean-Thierry Boisseau, who was behind the organization of this project, describes it as follows :


During my participation in the Cahier de L’Herne dedicated to the work of Claude Lévi-Strauss (on the request of Michel Izard), I had the chance to explore the work of this great thinker. He honored me greatly by thanking me for my article which corrected some misunderstandings concerning his ideas about music and also for exposing the poetic qualities of his work...It seemed clear to me that, not being a poet, I should use musical means to honor this great man who could easily have been a musician himself.

Claude Lévi-Strauss is celebrating his 100th birthday. I asked several of my friends who are also composers to mark this occasion by writing a short piece. Since Lévi-Strauss is one of the most open spirits which I have been privileged to consider, it was understood that these pieces would also be completely free in both instrumentation and form. Six different composers of different ages and nationalities agreed to write works.

Thérèse Brenet; First Grand Prix de Rome; Gloria Coates; the noted American doyen of German composers; Gian Paolo Chiti, ancien vice-directeur of the Academia Santa Cecilia de Rome and pianist; Carson P. Cooman; organist and graduate of Harvard University; Jean-Yves Malmasson; First prize of the CNSM de Paris, pianist, ondist and conductor; Paul Wehage; First prize of the CNSM de Paris, saxophonist and conductor: these six musicians are, in addition to their many musical talents, first-rate composers. I wrote the seventh work myself.

This is a celebration of Lévi-Strauss outside of all official commemorations and with no preoccupations towards the media. Rather, this is an imitate way of thanking an important thinker who has given us new ideas, stimulated our own reflection and has given us much pleasure.

Jean-Thierry BOISSEAU.

Libellés : , , , , , , ,

mardi 25 novembre 2008

Two new works for the Pianoforte by Gian Paolo Chiti

Two new works for the Pianoforte by the Italian composer Gian Paolo Chiti have just been published by Musik Fabrik : Sonatensatz for Piano and Under the Left Hand, Three pieces for the Piano, Left Hand only.

The Sonatensatz is a compression of a three-movement Sonata-form into a one movement work, with elements of all movements which interplay with each other in a highly interactive manner. The three pieces which make up the cycle "Under the Left Hand" are a modernist view of the piano left-hand tradition of Ravel and Scriabin. The first of the three pieces "Nocturnal" is Gian Paolo Chiti's contribution to the Musik Fabrik project in honor of Claude Lévi-Strauss.

Both of these works, as well as other works for Pianoforte by Gian Paolo and other composers, are available in our Piano Music Catalog.

Libellés : ,

vendredi 7 novembre 2008

Cooman premières : "Flying Machine" for Orchestra and "Moonshards" for alto saxophone, horn, trumpet, percussion, and piano

Carson Cooman's new orchestral work Flying Machine, scored for 2+Picc.2+Eh.2+Bcl.2+Cbn/4.3.3.1/2perc.timp/hp.pno/strings was recently premièred by the Harvard-Radcliffe orchestra. In a review of the October 31st concert in the Harvard Crimson, the piece was described as follows:

The piece, depicting the construction and flight of a machine, immediately conjured the mystery of creation, with unpredictable harmonies and a rumbling tension foreshadowing the takeoff to come. The percussion creaked, supporting the piece from underneath and generating a sense of the machine that was flecked with eerie harmonics deftly executed by the violins.

After the sound of the assembly grew to a roar, the orchestra launched. The strings propelled the machine with driving triplets, and the entire ensemble shifted and swelled together as if impelled by an unrelenting force.


On November 2nd, Cooman's Moon Shards (2007) for alto saxophone, horn, trumpet, percussion, and piano, commissioned by Andrew Pelletier, the International Horn Society, and the MidAmerican Center for Contemporary Music at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio received its formal première.

Other Cooman performances in November, 2008 include the November 19, 2008 consortium premiere of Enchanted Tracings (Piano Concerto No. 2) (2008) for solo piano and wind ensemble; Donna Amato, piano, Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble, Denis Colwell, conductor; Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the European première of Two Fragments (2004) for guitar quartet; Corona Guitar Kvartet, Literaturhaus, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Libellés : , ,

jeudi 6 novembre 2008

Hommage à Germaine Tailleferre tomorrow at the University of Mexico

There will be a concert in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Death of Germaine Tailleferre tommorow (Friday, November 7, 2008) at 12h30 at the National School of Music of the National University of Mexico, Mexico City.

Hommage à Germaine TAILLEFERRE

XXV Anniversaire de son décès

Sala Huehuecóyotl

Escuela Nacional de Música

Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

Xicoténcatl 126, Coyoacán, Ciudad de México

Vendredi 7 novembre 2008, 12:30 hs.

Xicoténcatl 126, Coyoacán, Ciudad de México

The programme, which will be presented by musicologist and pianist Carmen Betancourt and performed by students of the Academy of Singing, features the Three Jean Tardieu Songs, the Two Poemes of Lord Byron, and Tailleferre's hommage to Francis Poulenc, L'Adieu du Cavalier.

The program will be repeated in another concert on November 27th, again at the University of Mexico.

Libellés : , ,