"On the Floor of Heaven": New and Enduring American Music — July 25, 2002

On Thursday, July 25, 2002, Santa Fe New Music concluded its second season with its annual summer concert of contemporary American music at the Santuario de Guadalupe, in Santa Fe. New works by John Luther Adams, John Kennedy, James Matheson, and Molly Thompson were showcased among work by Lou Harrison, Alan Hovhaness, and Steve Reich. The evening's program was:

Featured performers were Judith Gordon, piano; Margaret Lancaster, flute; Guissepina Ciarla, harp; David Tolen, percussion. The works presented on this program emphasized SFNM's commitment to presenting vital new work amidst the context of important and rarely performed works of the 20th Century. As with many Santa Fe New Music concerts, the performances on this program benefited from a strong direct relationship between the composers and the performers; only the Hovhaness lacked direct composer contact.

John Luther Adams, who has lived near Fairbanks, Alaska, for the past quarter-century, has created a multimedia and musical oeuvre that calls upon the landscapes and indigenous cultures of the North. James Matheson (b. 1970) is a remarkable young composer who has already been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship among other accolades, and whose work has been performed by several major orchestras in the United States and abroad.

Molly Thompson (b. 1970) is a rapidly emerging New York composer whose work The Great Hush, for solo flute and prerecorded sounds, was written in part as a response to the events of September 11th. John Kennedy's The Force of its Spirit for small ensemble is in part an evocation of the work of Henry Cowell.

Lou Harrison, Alan Hovhaness and Steve Reich are not usually juxtaposed as composers, yet they share much common ground. They have each attained a position of great regard in American music while remaining "outsiders," committed to their very individual voices. They also share a deep regard and immersion in the music of other cultures, and the incorporation of these influences in their work.

Program Notes

Solo instrumental music often has the character of poetry, intimate and reflective. In general, it also provides a window into the essence of a composer's voice. The typical recital format often places a greater focus on the performer than the music. As such, it is sometimes preferable to hear solo works in mixed programs, with a number of performers and instruments, alone and joined together.

In tonight's program, we hear how today's composers expand the sensibility of the solo. The works by Adams, Matheson, Thompson, and Reich employ different techniques to create multi-layered solo music, generating the impression that there may be more than one performer.

In addition to recent work by younger composers, our program has offerings from three American masters: Lou Harrison, Alan Hovhaness and Steve Reich. These three are usually not juxtaposed as composers, yet they share much common ground. They have each attained a position of great regard in American music while remaining "outsiders," committed to their very individual voices. They also share a deep regard and immersion in the music of other cultures, and the incorporation of these influences in their work.

John Luther Adams, who has lived near Fairbanks, Alaska, for the past quarter-century, has created a multimedia and musical oeuvre that calls upon the landscapes and indigenous cultures of the north. Like James Tenney, his work often follows structural and formal processes which gradually unfold and transform, yet Adams' work also betrays a sensitivity to color reminiscent of Morton Feldman. He was written of Among Red Mountains:

"On a recent trip to New York I heard the premiere performance of a lovely chamber work by Kyle Gann that embraces multiple tempos without sustaining them all at the same time. On the way home to Alaska I passed through the Seattle airport, where there's a large painting by Frank Stella. It's one of his protractor works, in which arcs of bright colors weave in and out of one another in a dizzying counterpoint of imaginary planes. Studying this painting (after hearing Gann's music), it occurred to me that I might be able to do something similar with the piano.

Virtually all my recent music has been composed of four, five or six simultaneous tempo layers. If those ensemble and orchestral pieces are multi-dimensional sculptures, then Among Red Mountains is more like a drawing. In this piece, the challenge I set for myself was to suggest five independent tempo planes, within the limitations of two hands and what pianist Vicki Ray calls "the Big Black Box."

For three decades I've admired the piano music of Peter Garland. At last I have a piece I hope is worthy of its dedication to him. The title is the translation of the Gwich'in Athabascan name for a place in the Brooks Range, north of Arctic Village."

Steve Reich's Vermont Counterpoint is a solo scored for flute, piccolo, and alto flute, with pre-recorded parts for these same instruments. The work is constructed using one of Reich's trademark innovations: the gradual creation of "found patterns," or new figures created by the overlapping of the original theme. Pre-recording different layers creates the possibility of a solo work being quite complex, and reminiscent of Reich's early ensemble works for many players; Vermont Counterpoint has as many as 11 layers.

James Matheson is an increasingly well-known young composer who has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship among other accolades, and whose work has been performed by several major orchestras in the United States and abroad. Pound is in three movements, played without pause, totaling approximately 12 minutes.

Much of the writing in the work is meant to suggest the illusion of two pianos, accomplished through the use of two simultaneous layers of music. The work opens with a simple pulse which begins with one note and builds to massive chords, with a second simultaneous layer which is both more complex and melodic. By separating these two layers registrally, the movement becomes virtuosic not because it of its notiness, but because of the difficulty posed by the wide leaps across the keyboard required of the performer.

The Force of Its Spirit is composed in dedication to Henry Cowell (1887-1965), the visionary composer who helped redefine the possibilities for the piano as well as open our ears to all the world's music. The title is derived from the Cowell quote which appears elsewhere in this program. I originally scored The Force of Its Spirit for solo piano, but subsequently revised it for an ensemble which echoes the piano's colors.

Molly Thompson is a rapidly emerging New York composer. She composed The Great Hush for Margaret Lancaster in part as a response to the events of September 11th. Thompson sampled Lancaster's flute playing and made a CD of pre-recorded flute sounds which accompany the live flute.

Alan Hovhaness was a prolific composer who saw music as a vehicle for bringing together the mystical and mundane, Occidental and Oriental, and ancient and modern, and who had a profound commitment to the spiritual possibility of music. Nocturne is an early Hovhaness work but very typical of his style, with wide pentatonic scales and a languid, luminous atmosphere.

Lou Harrison composed The Perilous Chapel as a ballet for Jean Erdman. The work pits the forces of anarchy against the power, and ultimate triumph, of the divine, and forms an arch which begins and ends with serenity. The ballet has six movements, but as a concert work it sounds as three movements, with movements 1-2 and 3-5 played without pause. The barbaric dance of the third movement portrays the forces of evil, which climax in the fifth movement, a representation of chaos. The last movement stands alone and is described by Harrison as "a dance on the floor of heaven."

— John Kennedy, Artistic Director, Santa Fe New Music