Piano variations. Piano fantasy - Internet Archive · 2017. 11. 30. · Sidel . COPLAND: PIANO...
Transcript of Piano variations. Piano fantasy - Internet Archive · 2017. 11. 30. · Sidel . COPLAND: PIANO...
stereo 3216 0040
3216 0039
COPLAND PIANO FANTASY
PIANO VARIATIONS
WILLIAM MASSELOS PIANO
Sidel COPLAND: PIANO VARIATIONS (10:56)
Side 2 COPLAND: PIANO FANTASY (29:40)
The selections are ASCAP.
WILLIAM MASSELOS, Piano
Piano Variations Notes by Julia Smith
®That Aaron Copland is a man of his time, reflect¬
ing the spirit and mood of his age through his music, is no less true of the disillusion-filled depression years of the early thirties than it was of the careless, extravagant, jazzy, “bourgeois” twenties. Because of
their “absolute” aesthetic conception, the works of the years 1929 to 1935 have been termed “esoteric” or “abstract.” Paul Rosenfeld has stated that Cop¬ land’s works of this time “resemble nothing so
much as steel cranes, bridges and the frames of sky¬
scrapers.”
One of the most controversial of Copland’s works
is the Piano Variations of 1930. With the possible exception of the Piano Quartet (1950), Copland in
the Variations has come closer to the Schoenberg principles of the “serial” technique (use of the “tone row”) without, however, completely relinquishing
the principle of tonality. This complex composition,
now regarded as one of the important works in con¬ temporary piano literature, has made its way surely
and steadily, propelled to a large extent by the com¬ poser’s excellent performances of the work here and
in Europe. Published in 1932, the Piano Variations has been more widely circulated in the concert hall,
in the dance theater [in 1932, Martha Graham based a choreographic work, Dythirambic, on the
Piano Variations] and through phonograph record¬ ings than have the other works of the Abstract Period.
It was in Paris in 1922 that Copland first heard
Schoenberg’s “atonal” Pierrot Lunaire, which evi¬ dently had some effect on his subconscious thought. His contact with Alban Berg’s Lyric Suite, heard at the Baden-Baden Festival (July, 1927), seems to
have interested him further in the “serial,” or twelve-tone, technique, for he was groping in that direction in the Song composed later that summer in Konigstein. This was an isolated experiment, and he did not return to this technique until the Piano Variations, written three years later.
Tire Piano Variations differs from the other works of this period and is unique because of its “sharper” dissonances; these are achieved through a combina¬ tion of “serial” principles in conjunction with poly-
tonal relationships. By means of the device of pointillism, tonal heights and depths are sculp¬
tured in terms of a texture that is sparse, transpar¬
ent, economical, but sufficient. With the composer himself at the piano, the
Piano Variations was first performed at a League of Composers’ concert, January 4, 1931, at the Art Center, 65 East Fifty-sixth Street [in New York], Copland played from a pencil copy at the time, the definitive version not being completely established
until after the first performance. The New York Times reported that the young
American composer, “who started out in orthodox
fashion not many years ago, has been attracted more
and more to the ‘stream of consciousness’ school, and more than one passage yesterday recalled simi¬
lar essays in words of Gertrude Stein.” The New York Herald Tribune noted: “Mr.
Copland, always a composer of radical tendencies,
has in these variations sardonically thumbed his
nose at all of those esthetic attributes which have hitherto been considered essential to the creation of
music.” Observing that on the subject of modern
music he did not wish to play the prophet, the critic hoped “some day to find enjoyment in such music
as Mr. Copland’s.”
Condensed from Aaron Copland by Julia Smith. Copyright, ©, 1956, by Julia Smith. Reprinted by permission of E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. All rights reserved.
Piano Fantasy The Piano Fantasy was commissioned by the
Juilliard School of Music on the occasion of its fif¬ tieth anniversary and was completed on January 19,
1957. It is dedicated to the memory of the Ameri¬
can pianist William Kapell. The work was given its premiere at the Juilliard Concert Hall by William
Masselos on October 25, 1957. The composer sup¬ plied the following note on the work:
“Sketches for an extended piano solo work are to be found in my notebooks as far back as the early
fifties. Consecutive work on the Fantasy was carried on during 1955 and 1956 in southern France, at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire and at my home in the Hudson Valley. Like my two previous
extended works for solo piano, the Piano Variations (1930) and the Piano Sonata (1939-40), the new Fantasy belongs in the category of absolute music. It makes no use whatever of folk or popular music
materials. My purpose was to attempt a composi¬
Cover: Cato
Stereo—32 16 0040 Mono—32 16 0039
tion that would suggest the quality of fantasy, that
is, a spontaneous and unpremeditated sequence of ‘events’ that would carry the listener (if possible) from the first note to the last, while at the same time exemplifying clear if somewhat unconven¬ tional structural principles.
“The musical framework of the entire piece is based upon a sequence of ten different tones of the
chromatic scale. To these are joined, subsequently, the two unused tones of the scale, treated through¬ out as a kind of cadential interval. Thus, inherent
in the materials are elements able to be associated with the twelve-tone method and with music tonally
conceived. The Piano Fantasy is by no means rigor¬ ously controlled twelve-tone music, but it does
make liberal use of devices associated with that technique.”
odyssey William Masselos is internationally known as a champion
of contemporary music and has given the world premieres of
many new works, among them the First Piano Sonata of
Charles Ives, the Piano Fantasy of Aaron Copland and most
of the major keyboard music of Ben Weber.
Mr. Masselos was born in Niagara Falls, New York. At
the age of twelve, he entered the Juilliard School of Music
and at eighteen, made his New York debut in Town Hall.
Since then he has concertized widely in Europe and America
and has appeared frequently with the New York Philhar¬
monic under the direction of such distinguished conductors
as Dimitri Mitropoulos, Pierre Monteux and Leonard Bern¬
stein.
The pianist has received many important awards for his
service to contemporary music, among them the Award of
Merit from the National Association of American Com¬
posers and Conductors.
At the present time, Mr. Masselos divides his time be¬
tween concert tours and resident teaching duties at Catholic
University in Washington, D.C.
Library of Congress catalog card number R67-2577 applies to
32 16 0039/R67-2578 applies to 32 16 0040.
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STEREO
COPLAND:
PIANO FANTASY
WILLIAM MASSELOS, Plano