MILTON BABBITT

Septet but Equal is scored for three clarinets (the third alternating with bass clarinet), piano, and string trio. The composer states:

"The pertinence of the title should be inferable from the opening three measures, the disambiguation of whose polyphony, through oscillating stages of reorientation, recombination, and - ultimately - explicit simplification is primary determinant of the unfolding of this extended one-movement work. The process is initiated immediately by the cello solo which follows those opening measures, and the multiple instrumental paths so begun have as their guide those opening lines, and their familiarly transformed derivatives, directly or genidentially related. Septet but Equal was completed July 7, 1992."
(MBB)

The performers are Mark van de Wiel, Duncan Prescott, clarinets; Robert Ault, clarinet/bass clarinet; Ian Brown, piano; David le Page, violin; Sophie Renshaw, violin; and Zoe Martlew, cello.

Four Play is written for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano and was composed in 1984.

"As the title intimates, there is constant musical interplay among the four players, within an overall, constantly maintained two-part polyphony, whose constituents are expressed not instrumentally, but by a combination of registral, pitch, and temporal dependencies. A correspondence of recurrences within and between those "parts" creates surface punctuations at ten points, including the end, of this one movement work. Within and among the barely discrete sections so created the minimally redundant underlying series participates in and secures compositional associations and references by its function in a variety in compositional dimensions, by forming and influencing underlying and explicit lines, durational succession, simultaneity, and therefore, the total structure."
(MBB)

Performers: Mark van de Wiel, clarinet; David le Page, violin; Zoe Martlew, cello; and Ian Brown, piano.

MORTON FELDMAN

Instruments 1 was written in 1974 and is scored for alto flute, oboe, trombone, celesta, and percussion. Crudely speaking, the work is in ABABABA form, A and B being two different textures. The initial exposition of A is quite long - 151 measures. The subsequent A are much shorter, ending with a final A of three measures. In all instances, B is a "type of machine" in which there is a succession of bars with different meters for each bar, but while the total duration remains constant across all parts, the ordering of meter changes differs for each part. This creates a coordination conflict which, it can be argued, should or should not be solved rigorously, and demonstrates that the "degree to which music notation is responsible for much of the composition itself, is one of history's best kept secrets."¹

Performers: Kate Lukas, alto flute; Melinda Maxwell, oboe; Simon Wills, trombone; Catherine Edwards, celesta; Simon Limbrick, percussion; and Tim Wright, percussion.

Three Clarinets, Cello, and Piano was composed in 1971.

"The titles from my 'Berlin period' (Three Clarinets, Cello, and Piano; Chorus and Orchestra, Cello and Orchestra; etc.) simply state the compositions' orchestration. What is orchestration? The means by which music becomes audible might be a definition of orchestration. Orchestration is composition. All other musical ideas eventually become unimportant, swallowed whole or pounded into sediments like the ground beneath us."

"Orchestration is the life of music without 'taking thought.' In almost Freudian terms it is both the instinctual and outer reality of the composer's musical character. No other idea in the body of the work transcends this."²

Performers: Mark van de Wiel, Duncan Prescott, Robert Ault, clarinets; Zoe Martlew, cello; and Catherine Edwards, piano.

¹ Morton Feldman, "Crippled Symmetry," in Give My Regards to Eighth Street, ed. B.H. Friedman (Cambridge, MA: Exact Change, 2000) p. 144.

² Morton Feldman, "Unpublished Writings," in Give My Regards...p. 205.

Milton Babbitt: (1916- )
SEPTET BUT EQUAL
FOURPLAY
Publisher for both works: C.F. Peters Corporation

Morton Feldman: (1926-1987)
INSTRUMENTS
THREE CLARINETS, CELLO AND PIANO
Publisher for both works: Universal Edition

All works recorded at Studio 2, BBC Maida Vale, Delaware Rd., London, W9, July 20-21, 1997.

Co-produced by



CP²111
© 2004 Musical Observations, Inc.
Warning: Copyright subsists in all recordings issued under this label.

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