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SELECTED CHAMBER WORKS
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American Journal (2001-2007)
for baritone voice with string quartet
Available in three versions:
• Complete work in five scenes with Prologue and Epilogue: 37 min.
• American Journal, Part I (Prologue and Scene 1): 16 min.
• Scenes from American Journal: 11 min.
Set to the poetry of Robert Hayden, the journal entries of an extraterrestrial investigating what is an American. An eclectic, probing, often humorous work open to semi-staging.
Score and parts for sale.
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Anima (1996)
for percussion quartet (moderate instrumentation)
5 min.
The most-performed work in the catalog, Anima is popular with conservatory and professional percussion groups.
Set of four performance scores for sale.
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Brooklyn Variations (2004-2005)
version for piano trio (2004)
version for piano quartet (2005)
11 min.
Composed for members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, using an original theme based on the initials of "Robert Spano, Music Director, Brooklyn Philharmonic."
Score and parts for sale.
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Claws! (2009)
bagatelle for violin and piano
4 min.
A humorous flirtation with danger.
Music for sale.
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Dark Love (1999)
I. Dark Love / II. History / III. In Memoriam C.G.
for percussion quartet (large instrumentation)
32 min.
Music to accompany three paintings by Pat Lipsky–large, diamond shaped grids of infinite shades of black. Premiered as part of a multimedia concert entitled Dark Love in 1999.
Score and parts for sale.
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Deo Gratia Virtute (1997)
for viola and organ or piano
5 min.
Composed to honor the Rev. Donald R. Goodness at his retirement from the Church of the Ascension in New York City.
Score and parts for sale.
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A Georgia Song (1992)
for tenor, soprano saxophone, and piano
13 min.
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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Set to the poetry of Maya Angelou, a powerful evocation of the South through the African-American experience. Premiered by Darryl Taylor.
Score and parts for sale.
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Hustle (2003)
for bassoon quartet (3 bassoons and 1 contrabassoon)
or clarinet quartet (3 clarinets and 1 bass clarinet)
12 min.
Arrangement of the second movement of the Saxophone Quartet.
Score and parts for sale.
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Passages (1991-2001)
Romance (5 min.) / Fiolin, Fiolin (7 min.) / Go Gentle (12 min.)
suite for violin and piano
21 min.
Each piece can be played alone. The three life passages depicted—marriage, immigration, and death—evoke increasingly dark textures, attaining a final note of peace.
Score and parts for sale.
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Pysanky: Three Scenes For Children With Brass
(2008)
for narrator and brass quartet (trumpet, two horns, trombone)
12 min.
A work designed for audience interaction. Premiered at Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival.
Score, parts, and script for sale.
Saxophone Quartet (1997)
I. Assertive / II. Punchy; Gentle swing time / III. Brisk
for saxophone quartet (satb)
28 min. (approx.)
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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A substantial quartet composed for MATA new music festival, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Amherst Saxophone Quartet, and others. The second movement, a scherzo in five containing an extended slow middle section, can be played separately. Overall duration varies according to an optional improvisation in the second movement.
Score and parts for sale.
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Sirens' Song (2010)
for contralto voice and flute/alto flute
6 min.
A semi-verbal evocation of the Sirens from The Odyssey.
Score for sale.
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String Quartet No. 1: Refining Fire (1989)
12 min.
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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Based on Canti XXV-XXVII of Dante's Purgatorio. Premiered by the Diorama Quartet in London, and performed by several U.S. ensembles.
Score and parts for sale.
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String Quartet No. 2: Intimations and Incarnations (2001)
15 min.
Inspired by a mural by John LaFarge, and premiered by FLUX Quartet as part of a multimedia concert titled Beyond Words in 2001. In two movements, titled as is the overall work.
Score and parts for sale.
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Viola Sonata (1985)
I. Bold / II. With quiet resolve / III. Moving ahead
for viola and piano
25 min.
A substantial early work. The second movement, 13 minutes long, can be played separately.
Music for sale.
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American Journal (2001-2007)
for baritone voice with string quartet
Available in three versions:
• Complete work in five scenes with Prologue and Epilogue: 37 min.
• American Journal, Part I (Prologue and Scene 1): 16 min.
• Scenes from American Journal: 11 min.
American Journal was premiered in New York as part of a two-concert series created by the composer entitled I Too Sing America.
PROGRAM NOTE
Robert Hayden's poem "American Journal" first appeared in 1978; a revised version came out in 1982, two years after Hayden's death. Nominated for a National Book Award, this was the most extended single work of one of America's greatest poets. The poem is a remarkable piece of social commentary—the alleged journal entries of an extraterrestrial visitor studying America undercover, preparing to report to The Counselors just what an 'American' is. Full of both wit and a tragic sensibility, the poem raises questions without answering them. The alien's awkwardness as he tries to fit into American society in various guises suggests several interpretations—an allegory of race in America, or a reflection on the position of the intellectual? American brashness, contrasted with the control exerted by The Counselors, at first repels but gradually attracts the alien investigator. He discovers much; he grows more like his subjects; but ultimately he cannot understand them.
I have approached the poem as the libretto of a one-character opera. The poem's 15 stanzas fall quite naturally into a five-stanza prologue followed by five scenes, each scene comprising a stanza of action and a stanza of reflection. Partly in homage to Samuel Barber's great Dover Beach, I chose to accompany my baritone with string quartet—in effect a small orchestra, infinitely flexible, full of color. This is my most eclectic score to date, its references to various musical languages (from sci-fi flick to Americana to rock-and-roll) capturing the investigator's chameleon abilities.
I began setting American Journal in 2000 at the suggestion of baritone Andre Solomon-Glover, who performed Part 1 (Prologue and Scene 1 with a short coda) in 2001 in Boston with the Lydian String Quartet and in New York with the Corigliano Quartet. Andre suffered a stroke soon after, putting this project on hold for several years. I continued writing scenes in between other projects, and finally completed the entire work in the summer of 2007 for a 2008 premiere on the Victoria Bond's Cutting Edge Concerts. During these seven years, I have seen the relevance of the poem grow with every day's headlines. What, indeed, is an American?
—Theodore Wiprud
American Journal
by Robert Hayden
Note: All headings in parentheses are the composer's inventions.
(Prologue)
here among them the americans this baffling
multi people extremes and variegations their
noise restlessness their almost frightening
energy how best describe these aliens in my
reports to The Counselors
disguise myself in order to study them unobserved
adapting their varied pigmentations white black
red brown yellow the imprecise and strangering
distinctions by which they live by which they
justify their cruelties to one another
charming savages enlightened primitives brash
new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy how
describe them do they indeed know what or who
they are do not seem to yet no other beings
in the universe make more extravagant claims
for their importance and identity
like us they have created a veritable populace
of machines that serve and soothe and pamper
and entertain we have seen their flags and
foot prints on the moon also the intricate
rubbish left behind a wastefully ingenious
people many it appears worship the Unknowable
Essence the same for them as for us but are
more faithful to their machine made gods
technologists their shamans
oceans deserts mountains grain fields canyons
forests variousness of landscapes weathers
sun light moon light as at home much here is
beautiful dream like vistas reminding me of
home item have seen the rock place known
as garden of the gods and sacred to the first
indigenes red monoliths of home despite
the tensions i breathe in i am attracted to
the vigorous americans disturbing sensuous
appeal of so many never to be admitted
(Scene 1: The Tavern)
something they call the american dream sure
we still believe in it i guess an earth man
in the tavern said irregardless of the some
times night mare facts we always try to double
talk our way around and its okay the dream's
okay and means whats good could be a damn sight
better means everybody in the good old u s a
should have the chance to get ahead or at least
should have three squares a day as for myself
i do okay not crying hunger with a loaf of
bread tucked under my arm you understand i
fear one does not clearly follow i replied
notice you got a funny accent pal like where
you from he asked far from here i mumbled
he stared hard i left
must be more careful item learn to use okay
their pass word okay
(Scene 2: The Riot)
crowds gathering in the streets today for some
reason obscure to me noise and violent motion
repulsive physical contact sentinels pigs
I heard them called with flailing clubs rage
and bleeding and frenzy and screaming machines
wailing unbearable decibels I fled lest
vibrations of the brutal scene do further harm
to my metabolism already over taxed
The Counselors would never permit such barbarous
confusion they know what is best for our sereni
ty we are an ancient race and have outgrown
illusions cherished here item their vaunted
liberty no body pushes me around I have heard
them say land of the free they sing what do
they fear mistrust betray more than the freedom
they boast of in their ignorant pride have seen
the squalid ghettoes in their violent cities
paradox on paradox how have the Americans
managed to survive
(Scene 3: Independence Day)
parades fireworks displays video spectacles
much grandiloquence much buying and selling
they are celebrating their history earth men
in antique uniforms play at the carnage whereby
the americans achieved identity we too recall
that struggle as enterprise of suffering and
faith uniquely theirs blonde miss teen age
america waving from a red white and blue flower
float as the goddess of liberty a divided
people seeking reassurance from a past few under
stand and many scorn why should we sanction
old hypocrises thus dissenters The Counse
lors would silence them
a decadent people The Counselors believe i
do not find them decadent a refutation not
permitted me but for all their knowledge
power and inventiveness not yet more than raw
crude neophytes like earthlings everywhere
(Scene 4: Passing)
though I have easily passed for an american in
bankers grey afro and dashiki long hair and jeans
hard hat yarmulke mini skirt describe in some
detail for the amusement of The Counselors and
though my skill in mimicry is impeccable as
indeed The Counselors are aware some thing
eludes me some constant amid the variables
defies analysis and imitation will i be judged
incompetent
america as much a problem in metaphysics as
it is a nation earthly entity an iota in our
galaxy an organism that changes even as i
examine it fact and fantasy never twice the
same so many variables
(Scene 5: Suspicion and Epilogue)
exert greater caution twice have aroused
suspicion returned to the ship until rumors
of humanoids from outer space so their scoff
ing media voices termed us had been laughed
away my crew and i laughed too of course
confess i am curiously drawn unmentionable to
the americans doubt i could exist among them for
long however psychic demands far too severe
much violence much that repels i am attracted
none the less their variousness their ingenuity
their elan vital and that some thing essence
quiddity i cannot penetrate or name
© 1985 Emma Hayden.
Reprinted by permission of Liveright Publishers, New York.
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Anima (1996)
for percussion quartet (moderate instrumentation)
5 min.
Anima was composed for Talujon Percussion Quartet to perform on a concert presented by Friends and Enemies of New Music in New York in 1996. Because it is fairly brief but full of variety and specific challenges, Anima has proved popular among conservatory percussion departments.
PROGRAM NOTE
Stasis and motion; weight and weightlessness; pulse and impulse: these are the materials of Anima. Two heavy downbeats, immobile; a stream of offbeats takes flight, forever in motion. The reverberation of a bell hangs in space, suspends time: Anima delves into that reverberation, into that moment between moments, and explodes the lingering sonority into a world of rhythm and texture. The silence roars with life; the interval of reflection is filled with vivid experience, with wonder and shudders of awe.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Brooklyn Variations (2004-2005)
version for piano trio (2004)
version for piano quartet (2005)
11 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
Brooklyn Variations is a gift to the Brooklyn Philharmonic—its musicians and its patrons, my neighbors—from a composer who has learned much in working with them all. It was premiered in its original piano trio form on April 18, 2004, on one of the many Brooklyn Philharmonic's Music Off The Walls concerts that I produced at the Brooklyn Museum, by members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic: Robin Bushman, violin; Lanny Paykin, cello; and Ken Bowen, piano. I expanded it to a piano quartet in 2006, for a performance at Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, organized by cellist Lanny Paykin.
This is a set of variations intended to mirror not so much the diverse neighborhoods of Brooklyn, to which no one composer could do justice, but rather the excitement of music-making by members of the orchestra in many of those neighborhoods, and especially onstage under the direction of Robert Spano.
The sound of the work was inspired by a performance of Olivier Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen given by Robert Spano and Ursula Oppens at Tanglewood in the summer of 2003. The theme meanders among the musical letters derived from the initial letters of "Robert Spano, Music Director, Brooklyn Philharmonic" (R=re=D; S=Es=Eb; M=mi=E; D=D; B=Bb; Ph=F). My variation procedure, rather unorthodox, is highly elastic, as different parts of the theme move ahead at different speeds and take up varying amounts of time in any given variation. The last bars of the theme in particular (tolling Bb-F for "Brooklyn Philharmonic") are treated briefly in some variations and expansively in others; ultimately they provide a coda for the work as a whole.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Claws! (2009)
bagatelle for violin and piano
4 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
Claws! was composed for a production of Composers Concordance at Drom, a club on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Janey Choi was the violinist and the composer was at the piano. It is designed to sound more virtuosic than it really is.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Dark Love (1999)
I. Dark Love / II. History / III. In Memoriam C.G.
for percussion quartet (large instrumentation)
32 min.
PERFORMANCE NOTE
Dark Love was originally composed as part of a multimedia production of abstract art and percussion, itself entitled Dark Love. This work can be played in a regular concert setting, but makes an even bigger impact if experienced together with their inspiration, Pat Lipsky's Black Paintings. Presenters may either rent slides of the paintings from the artist, or stage the performance with the paintings alongside the musicians, as in the original production. For more information about previewing the paintings, renting slides, or producing a full staging, please contact Allemar Music.
PROGRAM NOTE
Pat Lipsky's Black Paintings are extraordinary to me because they open themselves to the viewer over time and convey such powerful emotion in purely abstract terms. In both ways they work like music, and from the first time I saw them, I began thinking of how they might sound. Percussion would clearly be the medium of choice. These paintings deal in color, rhythm, and form—the very qualities in which percussion excels. Melody and functional harmony are not in the Black Paintings. They are not representational; they do not illustrate situations or emotions. Instead they simply are; they mysteriously embody mood and emotion with great subtlety and complexity. Their music is both austere and intimate; formal and mercurial; monochrome and polychrome.
Each painting is both an imposing sensory experience and a deep psychological statement. They are large geometric works, eight feet tall in diamond form; heavy ridge lines describe deceptively curving grids; an indescribable array of shades of black fill the spaces and bleed off the edges. As a triptych, in the order in which Pat painted them, the three convey a powerful inner journey. The first movement ("I. Dark Love") is scored almost completely for metals. The movement is obsessive, given to vertigo, finally overwhelmed by an astonishing, glowing patch of color. The second movement ("II. History") is scored mainly for woods and skins, a warmer palette of sound. A deeper, more regular stratum pulses behind a ruffled surface. The third movement ("III. In Memoriam C.G.") includes most of the instruments heard already with the addition of a steel drum. Here the grid is most regular, the colors most jewel-like, the effect like stained glass. In place of the obsessive few pitches of the opening movement are tall, colorful, ringing chords, seeking this painting's calm, its profound reflection, its awe.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Deo Gratia Virtute (1997)
for viola and organ or piano
5 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
I composed Deo Gratia Virtute for the service of thanksgiving for the ministry of Donald R. Goodness, Rector of the Church of the Ascension, to which my family belonged and where our children were baptized. Father Goodness, true to his unlikely name, was a powerful influence on many people and his retirement was a big event. This piece was a collaboration with another member of the parish, the choreographer and dancer Kristin Jackson, and its performance featured her solo dance, which beautifully conveyed gratitude and honor. Those familiar with service music in the Episcopal Church will recognize in Deo Gratia Virtute musical phrases that we had all heard Father Goodness sing countless times. I hope they will also pardon the pun in the title.
—Theodore Wiprud
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A Georgia Song (1992)
for tenor, soprano saxophone, and piano
13 min.
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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A Georgia Song was a key part of a two-concert series created by the composer entitled I Too Sing America. Quoting that famous line from Langston Hughes, the concerts celebrated the inspiration that African-American poetry has provided to composers of all races.
PROGRAM NOTE
How can a white composer offer an authentic musical response to African-American poetry rooted in a history of striving against oppression? That was my question when Darryl Taylor asked me to set poetry of Maya Angelou for him. Darryl responded with a great truth, still not universally accepted: that any composer can and should bring an individual response to any poetry they find moving. No group has a monopoly on any cultural expression. I was moved and challenged by his conviction, and soon completed A Georgia Song, a setting of Maya Angelou's poem of the same name, for tenor with soprano saxophone and piano.
Maya Angelou's deeply ambivalent paean to the South invokes the names of Georgia cities and towns, with warm associations of home as well as blood-chilling recollections of cruelty. With its intense bittersweetness, its recurring but varied refrain, and its innate musical rhythms and vowel sounds, "A Georgia Song" proved a potent text for this composer. This extended song was the first work I composed on returning from a year in England, where I marinated in all things European. It was in A Georgia Song that I declared my allegiance to the whole panoply of American musics; influences on this work range from Charles Ives to Robert Johnson.
A Georgia Song was commissioned in 1990 by Echosphere, an ensemble including Darryl Taylor, pianist Deon Nielsen-Price, and saxophonist Bill Wilson. It is dedicated to Darryl, who opened to me a whole new range of literary and musical possibilities.
—Theodore Wiprud
A Georgia Song
by May Angelou (b. 1928)
We swallow the odors of Southern cities,
Fat back boiled to submission,
Tender evening poignancies of
Magnolia and the great green
Smell of fresh sweat.
In Southern fields,
The sound of distant
Feet running, or dancing,
And the liquid notes of
Sorrow songs,
Waltzes, screams, and
French quadrilles float over
The loam of Georgia.
Sing me to sleep, Savannah.
Clocks run down in Tara's halls and dusty
Flags droop their unbearable
Sadness.
Remember our days, Susannah.
Oh, the blood-red clay,
Wet still with ancient
Wrongs, and Abenaa
Singing her Creole airs to
Macon.
We long, dazed, for winter evenings
And a whitened moon,
And the snap of controllable fires.
Cry for our souls, Augusta.
We need a wind to strike
Sharply, as the thought of love
Betrayed can stop the heart.
An absence of tactile
Romance, no lips offering
Succulence, nor eyes
Rolling, disconnected from
A Sambo face.
Dare us new dreams, Columbus.
A cool new moon, a
Winter's night, calm blood,
Sluggish, moving only
Out of habit, we need
Peace.
Oh Atlanta, oh deep, and
Once lost city,
Chant for us a new song. A song
Of Southern peace.
© 1983 Maya Angelou. All rights reserved.
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Hustle (2003)
for bassoon quartet (3 bassoons and 1 contrabassoon)
12 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
Hustle is an arrangement for bassoon quartet—three bassoons and contrabassoon—of the second movement of the Saxophone Quartet. Key relationships have changed in order to fit the range of the instrument, but otherwise the music is very little changed.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Passages (1991-2001)
Romance (5 min.) / Fiolin, Fiolin (7 min.) / Go Gentle (12 min.)
suite for violin and piano
21 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
Passages is a suite of memories—three pieces that I composed for violin and piano at different times, and in response to different events. I grouped them under this title recognizing that each concerns a major life passage. Together they describe points in a journey, both from light to dark to, perhaps, a new light; and also from one compositional voice to another.
"Romance" is the earliest of the three, dating to 1991 and my mother's re-marriage. Although the original form of the work was altogether too long and complex for its intended use in the marriage service, it has proved an effective concert work, especially with revisions made in 2001. This lyrical work wears its heart on its sleeve, full of joy and reflection and vigor and nostalgia as I thought of this couple embarking on a whole new chapter in what were already full and fruitful lives. This is also the first music in which I applied the terza rima rhyme scheme of Dante's Divine Comedy to melodic construction, creating of short phrases or single notes an interlocking pattern—aba, bcb, cdc, etc.—in a seamless, organic flow.
"Go Gentle" was composed in 1996, shortly after my father's death. It is my effort to go a few steps with him on that final journey, to imagine what he experienced in his final days. Debilitated by stroke, dying ultimately of pneumonia, unable to speak, his breathing labored, he drifted in and out of reverie, occasionally visibly gripped with emotion, always returning his gaze to his visitor's eyes, clinging to that last human link for dear life, but also, away from any other's knowing, perhaps reliving times or sensations, sorting out a life of happiness as of pain, and finding at least in ebbing consciousness, release and rest.
I composed "Fiolin, Fiolin" in 2001 to bring the outer two pieces together. A couple of years earlier I had received my grandfather's storied violin. This instrument was brought home one day some ninety years ago by my great-grandfather, a Norwegian immigrant who longed for the music of home and wanted to hear the old tunes. His young son (my future grandfather, and my namesake) dutifully learned many such melodies, including his father's very favorite, Saetergentens Sontäg ("The Chalet Girl's Sunday"). I recently sought out this piece written by the Norwegian violinist-composer Ole Bull, and discovered a sentimental song of love and loss. Many a time his father had young Theodore play this tune for him, including when he lay ill in his fifties. One evening Theodore begged off; his friends were waiting for him; he would play it another time. But he never had a chance; his father passed away that night. Now that the violin is in my home, I think about the power of old melodies, and about how this very construction of wood and gut conveyed such essential feelings so long ago. "Fiolin, Fiolin" (Norwegian for violin) is the voice of this violin itself—first just sounding its open strings through ever-flowing days and years; then essaying the simplest, first-position gestures; then gradually assembling the old tune from scraps found among many memories, and finally succumbing to its power.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Saxophone Quartet (1997)
I. Assertive / II. Punchy; Gentle swing time / III. Brisk
for saxophone quartet (satb)
28 min. (approx.)
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"The Amherst Saxophone Quartet has had as much fun performing subsequent concerts of Theodore Wiprud's Saxophone Quartet as we did playing the complete premiere of this major new work. It is a work of substance, is rewarding to perform, and is warmly received by audiences. We recommend including it in what is becoming the standard repertory for saxophone quartet."
—Stephen Rosenthal, Amherst Saxophone Quartet
PROGRAM NOTE
For some time I considered writing for saxophone quartet because it is the only wind group really comparable to the string quartet in homogeneity and expressive range; to me, it is the American answer to the string quartet. This, my first work for the saxophone quartet, was commissioned by five outstanding institutions—PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Amherst Saxophone Quartet, Resounding Winds, Western Illinois University, and Adolphe Saxquartette—along with the New York series, Music at the Anthology. The first performance took place at the Anthology Film Archives, where PRISM played the first two movements. The first complete performances, incorporating substantial revisions of the first movement, were given in Buffalo by the Amherst Saxophone Quartet.
Since each of the five groups commissioning the piece has a rather distinct repertory and audience, my challenge was to write a work that would stand up anywhere: music with plenty of character, but with plenty of room too for interpretation, for each group to apply its own ideas. My approach, the classical approach, is to structure simple materials into a clear, logical, and compelling form. Among other things, my Saxophone Quartet emerged as a study of the whole step, the most basic melodic interval, which in different contexts can mean many different things. The whole step is the opening gesture of the first movement, marked "Assertive;" it is prominent in all of that movement's melodic material, which ranges from stern motivic cells to gleeful dances to monumental chorales. The second movement is a scherzo with driving 5/4 outer sections. The inner section, which actually constitutes the work's slow movement, is a ballad with recurring whole-step motion, inspired by several of John Coltrane's compositions. In the repeat of the fast scherzo, the players encounter the opportunity to improvise over the ostinato bass line. The final movement picks up exactly where the first movement left off, developing the first movement's coda into a whirlwind of runs, punctuated by another whole-step melody and by brisk, rising chorales.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Sirens' Song (2010)
for contralto voice and flute/alto flute
6 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
The Sirens are famous from The Odyssey, twin creatures half woman-half bird, luring sailors to their doom with their irresistible song. Claude Debussy wisely rendered their song in wordless female chorus in his Nocturnes because no mere words can evoke their power to drive men insane. My approach is only slightly more verbal. I have worked with just a few words from their song's brief lines, and used them more as sound sources than as exposition—"come," "our twain voices," "our sweet lips," "all that shall be" (the temptation, as ever in Greek mythology, is to the pleasure of wisdom more than of the flesh).
The music is alternately very quiet (as heard by Odysseus' crew, their ears stopped with wax) and very loud (as heard deep in his psyche by Odysseus, lashed to the mast). I have exploited a variety of coloristic effects discovered to me by contralto Christina Ascher and flutist Laura Falzon to suggest the two Sirens' weird allure. Bizarre modes arose as I composed, like scales from some ancient time. The result is a short work requiring virtuosity in its subtle moments as much as in its bravura flourishes.
—Theodore Wiprud
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String Quartet No. 1: Refining Fire (1989)
12 min.
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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PROGRAM NOTE
String Quartet No. 1: Refining Fire is inspired at every level by a passage from Dante’s Purgatorio. The quartet has three main sections, following the narrative: Dante (in the position of the listener) encounters a wall of flame forcing him toward the edge of a miles-high precipice; all is confusion; he becomes aware of souls passing through the flame, and eventually of the hymn they sing. In the middle section, the souls of the lustful who have repented are personified as the great love poets. They converse with Dante, in their various inflections and meters. In the final section, Dante realizes that he must pass through the flame himself in order to reach his beloved Beatrice. In terror, he makes his way through and is transformed. He hears ever more clearly the hymn sung by an angel on the far side, welcoming him to the gates of Paradise.
I have used two Gregorian hymn tunes, specifically mentioned by Dante—the first as the climax of the first section, and the second as the angel's song, suffusing the second and third parts and being fully assembled only at the close.
My musical image for purification is harmonic simplification. The first measure of the piece is saturated with harmonic change; the last is a single unison note. Each instrument has a characteristic melody, played in myriad forms throughout the work, and each takes part as well in the two hymn tunes. At the outset, all four of the characteristic tunes play simultaneously; when the poets converse in the middle section, the tunes come out as solos. By the end they all fade as the hymn of the angel becomes simple and direct.
Finally, the musical phrases are built according to the terza rima scheme Dante devised for the Divine Comedy (aba, bcb, cdc, etc.). I alternate contrasting thematic ideas in the same pattern, creating in some passage a confusion of cross-cutting, and elsewhere an easy conversational back-and-forth.
—Theodore Wiprud
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String Quartet No. 2: Intimations and Incarnations
(2001)
15 min.
String Quartet No. 2: Intimations and Incarnations was composed for a specific moment in a theatrical concert called Beyond Words, which took place in 2001 at the Church of the Ascension in New York City. Beyond Words realized Theodore Wiprud's vision of a sacred music without text, and argued for the resurgence of such music among a wide variety of living composers.
PROGRAM NOTE
Intimations: a sensation of the infinite; longing, sweet and strong; symbols pointing but not revealing.
Incarnations: direct experience of the infinite; a surge of love, testing human endurance; the spirit in the flesh, here and now.
The reredos at the Church of the Ascension in New York City, with its haunting mural by John LaFarge, stunning framing by Stanford White, and sculptural angels by Saint-Gaudens, inspires the two-movement String Quartet No.2: Intimations and Incarnations. The lower half of the reredos underlies the first movement: the tracery in the mosaic around the altar is in the opening violin vocalise; the rapt reverence of the angels is in the ascending hymn of yearning. The upper half of the reredos, the mural itself, inspires the second movement. Christ's bodily Ascension underlines his Incarnation, the unity of flesh and spirit. Alan Watts writes in Behold the Spirit, "...the Incarnation occurs not only at a distance of two thousand years in Palestine, but within all human beings, past, present, and future. Whenever and wherever men have known or glimpsed the gift of union with God, the power of the incarnation has been at work." The experience can terrify as much as it can transform.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Viola Sonata (1985)
I. Bold / II. With quiet resolve / III. Moving ahead
for viola and piano
25 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
My Viola Sonata is in many ways my Opus 1—the piece in which I began to break free of the powerful influences of composers like Bartok, Brahms, and Beethoven, from whose works I had learned so much. I was then heading the music department of Walnut Hill School, an arts preparatory boarding school. Two friends on the faculty—violist Jonathan Bagg (now of the Ciompi Quartet) and his wife Susan Greenberg, a pianist—very kindly asked me to compose something for the faculty recital they were planning together. Little did they or I know it would amount to a 30-minute opus.
The entire three-movement work has a Mahlerian scope and much turmoil, punctuated by a recurring moment of calm reflection that marks the first movement's introduction and then recurs in the later movements. The moody second movement has been played separately on several occasions. Its opening, slowly rising melody in 6/4 contrasts with a spiky section in 5/8, followed by rhapsodic flights including a cadenza for viola alone. At the heart of the movement, the reflective moment from the first movement appears in its most extended form over rippling piano accompaniment. The rising melody from the opening returns in highly elaborated form before the movement closes with a new kind of resolve.
—Theodore Wiprud
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American Journal (2001-2007)
for baritone voice with string quartet
Available in three versions:
• Complete work in five scenes with Prologue and Epilogue: 37 min.
• American Journal, Part I (Prologue and Scene 1): 16 min.
• Scenes from American Journal: 11 min.
Set to the poetry of Robert Hayden, the journal entries of an extraterrestrial investigating what is an American. An eclectic, probing, often humorous work open to semi-staging.
Score and parts for sale.
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Anima (1996)
for percussion quartet (moderate instrumentation)
5 min.
The most-performed work in the catalog, Anima is popular with conservatory and professional percussion groups.
Set of four performance scores for sale.
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Brooklyn Variations (2004-2005)
version for piano trio (2004)
version for piano quartet (2005)
11 min.
Composed for members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic, using an original theme based on the initials of "Robert Spano, Music Director, Brooklyn Philharmonic."
Score and parts for sale.
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Claws! (2009)
bagatelle for violin and piano
4 min.
A humorous flirtation with danger.
Music for sale.
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Dark Love (1999)
I. Dark Love / II. History / III. In Memoriam C.G.
for percussion quartet (large instrumentation)
32 min.
Music to accompany three paintings by Pat Lipsky–large, diamond shaped grids of infinite shades of black. Premiered as part of a multimedia concert entitled Dark Love in 1999.
Score and parts for sale.
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Deo Gratia Virtute (1997)
for viola and organ or piano
5 min.
Composed to honor the Rev. Donald R. Goodness at his retirement from the Church of the Ascension in New York City.
Score and parts for sale.
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A Georgia Song (1992)
for tenor, soprano saxophone, and piano
13 min.
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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Set to the poetry of Maya Angelou, a powerful evocation of the South through the African-American experience. Premiered by Darryl Taylor.
Score and parts for sale.
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Hustle (2003)
for bassoon quartet (3 bassoons and 1 contrabassoon)
or clarinet quartet (3 clarinets and 1 bass clarinet)
12 min.
Arrangement of the second movement of the Saxophone Quartet.
Score and parts for sale.
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Passages (1991-2001)
Romance (5 min.) / Fiolin, Fiolin (7 min.) / Go Gentle (12 min.)
suite for violin and piano
21 min.
Each piece can be played alone. The three life passages depicted—marriage, immigration, and death—evoke increasingly dark textures, attaining a final note of peace.
Score and parts for sale.
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Pysanky: Three Scenes For Children With Brass
(2008)
for narrator and brass quartet (trumpet, two horns, trombone)
12 min.
A work designed for audience interaction. Premiered at Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival.
Score, parts, and script for sale.
Saxophone Quartet (1997)
I. Assertive / II. Punchy; Gentle swing time / III. Brisk
for saxophone quartet (satb)
28 min. (approx.)
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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A substantial quartet composed for MATA new music festival, PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Amherst Saxophone Quartet, and others. The second movement, a scherzo in five containing an extended slow middle section, can be played separately. Overall duration varies according to an optional improvisation in the second movement.
Score and parts for sale.
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Sirens' Song (2010)
for contralto voice and flute/alto flute
6 min.
A semi-verbal evocation of the Sirens from The Odyssey.
Score for sale.
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String Quartet No. 1: Refining Fire (1989)
12 min.
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Based on Canti XXV-XXVII of Dante's Purgatorio. Premiered by the Diorama Quartet in London, and performed by several U.S. ensembles.
Score and parts for sale.
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String Quartet No. 2: Intimations and Incarnations (2001)
15 min.
Inspired by a mural by John LaFarge, and premiered by FLUX Quartet as part of a multimedia concert titled Beyond Words in 2001. In two movements, titled as is the overall work.
Score and parts for sale.
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Viola Sonata (1985)
I. Bold / II. With quiet resolve / III. Moving ahead
for viola and piano
25 min.
A substantial early work. The second movement, 13 minutes long, can be played separately.
Music for sale.
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American Journal (2001-2007)
for baritone voice with string quartet
Available in three versions:
• Complete work in five scenes with Prologue and Epilogue: 37 min.
• American Journal, Part I (Prologue and Scene 1): 16 min.
• Scenes from American Journal: 11 min.
American Journal was premiered in New York as part of a two-concert series created by the composer entitled I Too Sing America.
PROGRAM NOTE
Robert Hayden's poem "American Journal" first appeared in 1978; a revised version came out in 1982, two years after Hayden's death. Nominated for a National Book Award, this was the most extended single work of one of America's greatest poets. The poem is a remarkable piece of social commentary—the alleged journal entries of an extraterrestrial visitor studying America undercover, preparing to report to The Counselors just what an 'American' is. Full of both wit and a tragic sensibility, the poem raises questions without answering them. The alien's awkwardness as he tries to fit into American society in various guises suggests several interpretations—an allegory of race in America, or a reflection on the position of the intellectual? American brashness, contrasted with the control exerted by The Counselors, at first repels but gradually attracts the alien investigator. He discovers much; he grows more like his subjects; but ultimately he cannot understand them.
I have approached the poem as the libretto of a one-character opera. The poem's 15 stanzas fall quite naturally into a five-stanza prologue followed by five scenes, each scene comprising a stanza of action and a stanza of reflection. Partly in homage to Samuel Barber's great Dover Beach, I chose to accompany my baritone with string quartet—in effect a small orchestra, infinitely flexible, full of color. This is my most eclectic score to date, its references to various musical languages (from sci-fi flick to Americana to rock-and-roll) capturing the investigator's chameleon abilities.
I began setting American Journal in 2000 at the suggestion of baritone Andre Solomon-Glover, who performed Part 1 (Prologue and Scene 1 with a short coda) in 2001 in Boston with the Lydian String Quartet and in New York with the Corigliano Quartet. Andre suffered a stroke soon after, putting this project on hold for several years. I continued writing scenes in between other projects, and finally completed the entire work in the summer of 2007 for a 2008 premiere on the Victoria Bond's Cutting Edge Concerts. During these seven years, I have seen the relevance of the poem grow with every day's headlines. What, indeed, is an American?
—Theodore Wiprud
American Journal
by Robert Hayden
Note: All headings in parentheses are the composer's inventions.
(Prologue)
here among them the americans this baffling
multi people extremes and variegations their
noise restlessness their almost frightening
energy how best describe these aliens in my
reports to The Counselors
disguise myself in order to study them unobserved
adapting their varied pigmentations white black
red brown yellow the imprecise and strangering
distinctions by which they live by which they
justify their cruelties to one another
charming savages enlightened primitives brash
new comers lately sprung up in our galaxy how
describe them do they indeed know what or who
they are do not seem to yet no other beings
in the universe make more extravagant claims
for their importance and identity
like us they have created a veritable populace
of machines that serve and soothe and pamper
and entertain we have seen their flags and
foot prints on the moon also the intricate
rubbish left behind a wastefully ingenious
people many it appears worship the Unknowable
Essence the same for them as for us but are
more faithful to their machine made gods
technologists their shamans
oceans deserts mountains grain fields canyons
forests variousness of landscapes weathers
sun light moon light as at home much here is
beautiful dream like vistas reminding me of
home item have seen the rock place known
as garden of the gods and sacred to the first
indigenes red monoliths of home despite
the tensions i breathe in i am attracted to
the vigorous americans disturbing sensuous
appeal of so many never to be admitted
(Scene 1: The Tavern)
something they call the american dream sure
we still believe in it i guess an earth man
in the tavern said irregardless of the some
times night mare facts we always try to double
talk our way around and its okay the dream's
okay and means whats good could be a damn sight
better means everybody in the good old u s a
should have the chance to get ahead or at least
should have three squares a day as for myself
i do okay not crying hunger with a loaf of
bread tucked under my arm you understand i
fear one does not clearly follow i replied
notice you got a funny accent pal like where
you from he asked far from here i mumbled
he stared hard i left
must be more careful item learn to use okay
their pass word okay
(Scene 2: The Riot)
crowds gathering in the streets today for some
reason obscure to me noise and violent motion
repulsive physical contact sentinels pigs
I heard them called with flailing clubs rage
and bleeding and frenzy and screaming machines
wailing unbearable decibels I fled lest
vibrations of the brutal scene do further harm
to my metabolism already over taxed
The Counselors would never permit such barbarous
confusion they know what is best for our sereni
ty we are an ancient race and have outgrown
illusions cherished here item their vaunted
liberty no body pushes me around I have heard
them say land of the free they sing what do
they fear mistrust betray more than the freedom
they boast of in their ignorant pride have seen
the squalid ghettoes in their violent cities
paradox on paradox how have the Americans
managed to survive
(Scene 3: Independence Day)
parades fireworks displays video spectacles
much grandiloquence much buying and selling
they are celebrating their history earth men
in antique uniforms play at the carnage whereby
the americans achieved identity we too recall
that struggle as enterprise of suffering and
faith uniquely theirs blonde miss teen age
america waving from a red white and blue flower
float as the goddess of liberty a divided
people seeking reassurance from a past few under
stand and many scorn why should we sanction
old hypocrises thus dissenters The Counse
lors would silence them
a decadent people The Counselors believe i
do not find them decadent a refutation not
permitted me but for all their knowledge
power and inventiveness not yet more than raw
crude neophytes like earthlings everywhere
(Scene 4: Passing)
though I have easily passed for an american in
bankers grey afro and dashiki long hair and jeans
hard hat yarmulke mini skirt describe in some
detail for the amusement of The Counselors and
though my skill in mimicry is impeccable as
indeed The Counselors are aware some thing
eludes me some constant amid the variables
defies analysis and imitation will i be judged
incompetent
america as much a problem in metaphysics as
it is a nation earthly entity an iota in our
galaxy an organism that changes even as i
examine it fact and fantasy never twice the
same so many variables
(Scene 5: Suspicion and Epilogue)
exert greater caution twice have aroused
suspicion returned to the ship until rumors
of humanoids from outer space so their scoff
ing media voices termed us had been laughed
away my crew and i laughed too of course
confess i am curiously drawn unmentionable to
the americans doubt i could exist among them for
long however psychic demands far too severe
much violence much that repels i am attracted
none the less their variousness their ingenuity
their elan vital and that some thing essence
quiddity i cannot penetrate or name
© 1985 Emma Hayden.
Reprinted by permission of Liveright Publishers, New York.
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Anima (1996)
for percussion quartet (moderate instrumentation)
5 min.
Anima was composed for Talujon Percussion Quartet to perform on a concert presented by Friends and Enemies of New Music in New York in 1996. Because it is fairly brief but full of variety and specific challenges, Anima has proved popular among conservatory percussion departments.
PROGRAM NOTE
Stasis and motion; weight and weightlessness; pulse and impulse: these are the materials of Anima. Two heavy downbeats, immobile; a stream of offbeats takes flight, forever in motion. The reverberation of a bell hangs in space, suspends time: Anima delves into that reverberation, into that moment between moments, and explodes the lingering sonority into a world of rhythm and texture. The silence roars with life; the interval of reflection is filled with vivid experience, with wonder and shudders of awe.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Brooklyn Variations (2004-2005)
version for piano trio (2004)
version for piano quartet (2005)
11 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
Brooklyn Variations is a gift to the Brooklyn Philharmonic—its musicians and its patrons, my neighbors—from a composer who has learned much in working with them all. It was premiered in its original piano trio form on April 18, 2004, on one of the many Brooklyn Philharmonic's Music Off The Walls concerts that I produced at the Brooklyn Museum, by members of the Brooklyn Philharmonic: Robin Bushman, violin; Lanny Paykin, cello; and Ken Bowen, piano. I expanded it to a piano quartet in 2006, for a performance at Bruno Walter Auditorium at Lincoln Center, organized by cellist Lanny Paykin.
This is a set of variations intended to mirror not so much the diverse neighborhoods of Brooklyn, to which no one composer could do justice, but rather the excitement of music-making by members of the orchestra in many of those neighborhoods, and especially onstage under the direction of Robert Spano.
The sound of the work was inspired by a performance of Olivier Messiaen's Visions de l'Amen given by Robert Spano and Ursula Oppens at Tanglewood in the summer of 2003. The theme meanders among the musical letters derived from the initial letters of "Robert Spano, Music Director, Brooklyn Philharmonic" (R=re=D; S=Es=Eb; M=mi=E; D=D; B=Bb; Ph=F). My variation procedure, rather unorthodox, is highly elastic, as different parts of the theme move ahead at different speeds and take up varying amounts of time in any given variation. The last bars of the theme in particular (tolling Bb-F for "Brooklyn Philharmonic") are treated briefly in some variations and expansively in others; ultimately they provide a coda for the work as a whole.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Claws! (2009)
bagatelle for violin and piano
4 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
Claws! was composed for a production of Composers Concordance at Drom, a club on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Janey Choi was the violinist and the composer was at the piano. It is designed to sound more virtuosic than it really is.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Dark Love (1999)
I. Dark Love / II. History / III. In Memoriam C.G.
for percussion quartet (large instrumentation)
32 min.
PERFORMANCE NOTE
Dark Love was originally composed as part of a multimedia production of abstract art and percussion, itself entitled Dark Love. This work can be played in a regular concert setting, but makes an even bigger impact if experienced together with their inspiration, Pat Lipsky's Black Paintings. Presenters may either rent slides of the paintings from the artist, or stage the performance with the paintings alongside the musicians, as in the original production. For more information about previewing the paintings, renting slides, or producing a full staging, please contact Allemar Music.
PROGRAM NOTE
Pat Lipsky's Black Paintings are extraordinary to me because they open themselves to the viewer over time and convey such powerful emotion in purely abstract terms. In both ways they work like music, and from the first time I saw them, I began thinking of how they might sound. Percussion would clearly be the medium of choice. These paintings deal in color, rhythm, and form—the very qualities in which percussion excels. Melody and functional harmony are not in the Black Paintings. They are not representational; they do not illustrate situations or emotions. Instead they simply are; they mysteriously embody mood and emotion with great subtlety and complexity. Their music is both austere and intimate; formal and mercurial; monochrome and polychrome.
Each painting is both an imposing sensory experience and a deep psychological statement. They are large geometric works, eight feet tall in diamond form; heavy ridge lines describe deceptively curving grids; an indescribable array of shades of black fill the spaces and bleed off the edges. As a triptych, in the order in which Pat painted them, the three convey a powerful inner journey. The first movement ("I. Dark Love") is scored almost completely for metals. The movement is obsessive, given to vertigo, finally overwhelmed by an astonishing, glowing patch of color. The second movement ("II. History") is scored mainly for woods and skins, a warmer palette of sound. A deeper, more regular stratum pulses behind a ruffled surface. The third movement ("III. In Memoriam C.G.") includes most of the instruments heard already with the addition of a steel drum. Here the grid is most regular, the colors most jewel-like, the effect like stained glass. In place of the obsessive few pitches of the opening movement are tall, colorful, ringing chords, seeking this painting's calm, its profound reflection, its awe.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Deo Gratia Virtute (1997)
for viola and organ or piano
5 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
I composed Deo Gratia Virtute for the service of thanksgiving for the ministry of Donald R. Goodness, Rector of the Church of the Ascension, to which my family belonged and where our children were baptized. Father Goodness, true to his unlikely name, was a powerful influence on many people and his retirement was a big event. This piece was a collaboration with another member of the parish, the choreographer and dancer Kristin Jackson, and its performance featured her solo dance, which beautifully conveyed gratitude and honor. Those familiar with service music in the Episcopal Church will recognize in Deo Gratia Virtute musical phrases that we had all heard Father Goodness sing countless times. I hope they will also pardon the pun in the title.
—Theodore Wiprud
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A Georgia Song (1992)
for tenor, soprano saxophone, and piano
13 min.
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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A Georgia Song was a key part of a two-concert series created by the composer entitled I Too Sing America. Quoting that famous line from Langston Hughes, the concerts celebrated the inspiration that African-American poetry has provided to composers of all races.
PROGRAM NOTE
How can a white composer offer an authentic musical response to African-American poetry rooted in a history of striving against oppression? That was my question when Darryl Taylor asked me to set poetry of Maya Angelou for him. Darryl responded with a great truth, still not universally accepted: that any composer can and should bring an individual response to any poetry they find moving. No group has a monopoly on any cultural expression. I was moved and challenged by his conviction, and soon completed A Georgia Song, a setting of Maya Angelou's poem of the same name, for tenor with soprano saxophone and piano.
Maya Angelou's deeply ambivalent paean to the South invokes the names of Georgia cities and towns, with warm associations of home as well as blood-chilling recollections of cruelty. With its intense bittersweetness, its recurring but varied refrain, and its innate musical rhythms and vowel sounds, "A Georgia Song" proved a potent text for this composer. This extended song was the first work I composed on returning from a year in England, where I marinated in all things European. It was in A Georgia Song that I declared my allegiance to the whole panoply of American musics; influences on this work range from Charles Ives to Robert Johnson.
A Georgia Song was commissioned in 1990 by Echosphere, an ensemble including Darryl Taylor, pianist Deon Nielsen-Price, and saxophonist Bill Wilson. It is dedicated to Darryl, who opened to me a whole new range of literary and musical possibilities.
—Theodore Wiprud
A Georgia Song
by May Angelou (b. 1928)
We swallow the odors of Southern cities,
Fat back boiled to submission,
Tender evening poignancies of
Magnolia and the great green
Smell of fresh sweat.
In Southern fields,
The sound of distant
Feet running, or dancing,
And the liquid notes of
Sorrow songs,
Waltzes, screams, and
French quadrilles float over
The loam of Georgia.
Sing me to sleep, Savannah.
Clocks run down in Tara's halls and dusty
Flags droop their unbearable
Sadness.
Remember our days, Susannah.
Oh, the blood-red clay,
Wet still with ancient
Wrongs, and Abenaa
Singing her Creole airs to
Macon.
We long, dazed, for winter evenings
And a whitened moon,
And the snap of controllable fires.
Cry for our souls, Augusta.
We need a wind to strike
Sharply, as the thought of love
Betrayed can stop the heart.
An absence of tactile
Romance, no lips offering
Succulence, nor eyes
Rolling, disconnected from
A Sambo face.
Dare us new dreams, Columbus.
A cool new moon, a
Winter's night, calm blood,
Sluggish, moving only
Out of habit, we need
Peace.
Oh Atlanta, oh deep, and
Once lost city,
Chant for us a new song. A song
Of Southern peace.
© 1983 Maya Angelou. All rights reserved.
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Hustle (2003)
for bassoon quartet (3 bassoons and 1 contrabassoon)
12 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
Hustle is an arrangement for bassoon quartet—three bassoons and contrabassoon—of the second movement of the Saxophone Quartet. Key relationships have changed in order to fit the range of the instrument, but otherwise the music is very little changed.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Passages (1991-2001)
Romance (5 min.) / Fiolin, Fiolin (7 min.) / Go Gentle (12 min.)
suite for violin and piano
21 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
Passages is a suite of memories—three pieces that I composed for violin and piano at different times, and in response to different events. I grouped them under this title recognizing that each concerns a major life passage. Together they describe points in a journey, both from light to dark to, perhaps, a new light; and also from one compositional voice to another.
"Romance" is the earliest of the three, dating to 1991 and my mother's re-marriage. Although the original form of the work was altogether too long and complex for its intended use in the marriage service, it has proved an effective concert work, especially with revisions made in 2001. This lyrical work wears its heart on its sleeve, full of joy and reflection and vigor and nostalgia as I thought of this couple embarking on a whole new chapter in what were already full and fruitful lives. This is also the first music in which I applied the terza rima rhyme scheme of Dante's Divine Comedy to melodic construction, creating of short phrases or single notes an interlocking pattern—aba, bcb, cdc, etc.—in a seamless, organic flow.
"Go Gentle" was composed in 1996, shortly after my father's death. It is my effort to go a few steps with him on that final journey, to imagine what he experienced in his final days. Debilitated by stroke, dying ultimately of pneumonia, unable to speak, his breathing labored, he drifted in and out of reverie, occasionally visibly gripped with emotion, always returning his gaze to his visitor's eyes, clinging to that last human link for dear life, but also, away from any other's knowing, perhaps reliving times or sensations, sorting out a life of happiness as of pain, and finding at least in ebbing consciousness, release and rest.
I composed "Fiolin, Fiolin" in 2001 to bring the outer two pieces together. A couple of years earlier I had received my grandfather's storied violin. This instrument was brought home one day some ninety years ago by my great-grandfather, a Norwegian immigrant who longed for the music of home and wanted to hear the old tunes. His young son (my future grandfather, and my namesake) dutifully learned many such melodies, including his father's very favorite, Saetergentens Sontäg ("The Chalet Girl's Sunday"). I recently sought out this piece written by the Norwegian violinist-composer Ole Bull, and discovered a sentimental song of love and loss. Many a time his father had young Theodore play this tune for him, including when he lay ill in his fifties. One evening Theodore begged off; his friends were waiting for him; he would play it another time. But he never had a chance; his father passed away that night. Now that the violin is in my home, I think about the power of old melodies, and about how this very construction of wood and gut conveyed such essential feelings so long ago. "Fiolin, Fiolin" (Norwegian for violin) is the voice of this violin itself—first just sounding its open strings through ever-flowing days and years; then essaying the simplest, first-position gestures; then gradually assembling the old tune from scraps found among many memories, and finally succumbing to its power.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Saxophone Quartet (1997)
I. Assertive / II. Punchy; Gentle swing time / III. Brisk
for saxophone quartet (satb)
28 min. (approx.)
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"The Amherst Saxophone Quartet has had as much fun performing subsequent concerts of Theodore Wiprud's Saxophone Quartet as we did playing the complete premiere of this major new work. It is a work of substance, is rewarding to perform, and is warmly received by audiences. We recommend including it in what is becoming the standard repertory for saxophone quartet."
—Stephen Rosenthal, Amherst Saxophone Quartet
PROGRAM NOTE
For some time I considered writing for saxophone quartet because it is the only wind group really comparable to the string quartet in homogeneity and expressive range; to me, it is the American answer to the string quartet. This, my first work for the saxophone quartet, was commissioned by five outstanding institutions—PRISM Saxophone Quartet, Amherst Saxophone Quartet, Resounding Winds, Western Illinois University, and Adolphe Saxquartette—along with the New York series, Music at the Anthology. The first performance took place at the Anthology Film Archives, where PRISM played the first two movements. The first complete performances, incorporating substantial revisions of the first movement, were given in Buffalo by the Amherst Saxophone Quartet.
Since each of the five groups commissioning the piece has a rather distinct repertory and audience, my challenge was to write a work that would stand up anywhere: music with plenty of character, but with plenty of room too for interpretation, for each group to apply its own ideas. My approach, the classical approach, is to structure simple materials into a clear, logical, and compelling form. Among other things, my Saxophone Quartet emerged as a study of the whole step, the most basic melodic interval, which in different contexts can mean many different things. The whole step is the opening gesture of the first movement, marked "Assertive;" it is prominent in all of that movement's melodic material, which ranges from stern motivic cells to gleeful dances to monumental chorales. The second movement is a scherzo with driving 5/4 outer sections. The inner section, which actually constitutes the work's slow movement, is a ballad with recurring whole-step motion, inspired by several of John Coltrane's compositions. In the repeat of the fast scherzo, the players encounter the opportunity to improvise over the ostinato bass line. The final movement picks up exactly where the first movement left off, developing the first movement's coda into a whirlwind of runs, punctuated by another whole-step melody and by brisk, rising chorales.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Sirens' Song (2010)
for contralto voice and flute/alto flute
6 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
The Sirens are famous from The Odyssey, twin creatures half woman-half bird, luring sailors to their doom with their irresistible song. Claude Debussy wisely rendered their song in wordless female chorus in his Nocturnes because no mere words can evoke their power to drive men insane. My approach is only slightly more verbal. I have worked with just a few words from their song's brief lines, and used them more as sound sources than as exposition—"come," "our twain voices," "our sweet lips," "all that shall be" (the temptation, as ever in Greek mythology, is to the pleasure of wisdom more than of the flesh).
The music is alternately very quiet (as heard by Odysseus' crew, their ears stopped with wax) and very loud (as heard deep in his psyche by Odysseus, lashed to the mast). I have exploited a variety of coloristic effects discovered to me by contralto Christina Ascher and flutist Laura Falzon to suggest the two Sirens' weird allure. Bizarre modes arose as I composed, like scales from some ancient time. The result is a short work requiring virtuosity in its subtle moments as much as in its bravura flourishes.
—Theodore Wiprud
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String Quartet No. 1: Refining Fire (1989)
12 min.
Featured on Fire In Heaven And Earth: Music Of Theodore Wiprud
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PROGRAM NOTE
String Quartet No. 1: Refining Fire is inspired at every level by a passage from Dante’s Purgatorio. The quartet has three main sections, following the narrative: Dante (in the position of the listener) encounters a wall of flame forcing him toward the edge of a miles-high precipice; all is confusion; he becomes aware of souls passing through the flame, and eventually of the hymn they sing. In the middle section, the souls of the lustful who have repented are personified as the great love poets. They converse with Dante, in their various inflections and meters. In the final section, Dante realizes that he must pass through the flame himself in order to reach his beloved Beatrice. In terror, he makes his way through and is transformed. He hears ever more clearly the hymn sung by an angel on the far side, welcoming him to the gates of Paradise.
I have used two Gregorian hymn tunes, specifically mentioned by Dante—the first as the climax of the first section, and the second as the angel's song, suffusing the second and third parts and being fully assembled only at the close.
My musical image for purification is harmonic simplification. The first measure of the piece is saturated with harmonic change; the last is a single unison note. Each instrument has a characteristic melody, played in myriad forms throughout the work, and each takes part as well in the two hymn tunes. At the outset, all four of the characteristic tunes play simultaneously; when the poets converse in the middle section, the tunes come out as solos. By the end they all fade as the hymn of the angel becomes simple and direct.
Finally, the musical phrases are built according to the terza rima scheme Dante devised for the Divine Comedy (aba, bcb, cdc, etc.). I alternate contrasting thematic ideas in the same pattern, creating in some passage a confusion of cross-cutting, and elsewhere an easy conversational back-and-forth.
—Theodore Wiprud
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String Quartet No. 2: Intimations and Incarnations
(2001)
15 min.
String Quartet No. 2: Intimations and Incarnations was composed for a specific moment in a theatrical concert called Beyond Words, which took place in 2001 at the Church of the Ascension in New York City. Beyond Words realized Theodore Wiprud's vision of a sacred music without text, and argued for the resurgence of such music among a wide variety of living composers.
PROGRAM NOTE
Intimations: a sensation of the infinite; longing, sweet and strong; symbols pointing but not revealing.
Incarnations: direct experience of the infinite; a surge of love, testing human endurance; the spirit in the flesh, here and now.
The reredos at the Church of the Ascension in New York City, with its haunting mural by John LaFarge, stunning framing by Stanford White, and sculptural angels by Saint-Gaudens, inspires the two-movement String Quartet No.2: Intimations and Incarnations. The lower half of the reredos underlies the first movement: the tracery in the mosaic around the altar is in the opening violin vocalise; the rapt reverence of the angels is in the ascending hymn of yearning. The upper half of the reredos, the mural itself, inspires the second movement. Christ's bodily Ascension underlines his Incarnation, the unity of flesh and spirit. Alan Watts writes in Behold the Spirit, "...the Incarnation occurs not only at a distance of two thousand years in Palestine, but within all human beings, past, present, and future. Whenever and wherever men have known or glimpsed the gift of union with God, the power of the incarnation has been at work." The experience can terrify as much as it can transform.
—Theodore Wiprud
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Viola Sonata (1985)
I. Bold / II. With quiet resolve / III. Moving ahead
for viola and piano
25 min.
PROGRAM NOTE
My Viola Sonata is in many ways my Opus 1—the piece in which I began to break free of the powerful influences of composers like Bartok, Brahms, and Beethoven, from whose works I had learned so much. I was then heading the music department of Walnut Hill School, an arts preparatory boarding school. Two friends on the faculty—violist Jonathan Bagg (now of the Ciompi Quartet) and his wife Susan Greenberg, a pianist—very kindly asked me to compose something for the faculty recital they were planning together. Little did they or I know it would amount to a 30-minute opus.
The entire three-movement work has a Mahlerian scope and much turmoil, punctuated by a recurring moment of calm reflection that marks the first movement's introduction and then recurs in the later movements. The moody second movement has been played separately on several occasions. Its opening, slowly rising melody in 6/4 contrasts with a spiky section in 5/8, followed by rhapsodic flights including a cadenza for viola alone. At the heart of the movement, the reflective moment from the first movement appears in its most extended form over rippling piano accompaniment. The rising melody from the opening returns in highly elaborated form before the movement closes with a new kind of resolve.
—Theodore Wiprud
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