Vladimir Ussachevsky & Otto Luening, "Concerted Piece"
-- LINER NOTES --
Collaboration in musical composition is much rarer than, say, novel writing and even picture painting. But Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky have been collaborating with eminent success ever since they discovered the possibilities of composition for tape recorders. CONCERTED PIECE is the third and one of the most attractive results of this collaboration, as its frequent public performances attest. CRI is proud of the unusually beautiiul sound of this recording. A Luening-Ussachevsky compositional collaboration starts with a conference. Having agreed that they want to write a piece, they then decide how long it is 'to last, and then what type of effect or quality they wish it to have (it would be fascinating to eavesdrop on this part of the conference). The rest is simply deciding how to divide up the labor. Later conferences help to eliminate unsuccessful efforts and to carpenter the sections together.
CONCERTED PIECE was composed in 1960 on commission by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, and premiered by them that year. The music bears some resemblance to a movement from a classical concerto, with the tape recorder in the role of soloist or concertino. The first part, composed by Mr. Luening, ends with the cadenza for taped sounds alone. It is somewhat more homogenous than the second, composed by Mr. Ussachevsky, which makes considerable use of an antiphonal interplay between the orchestra and tape.
OTTO LUENING had a long and distinguished musical career before he undertook composition on electronic tape. Of his more than 200 compositions, 15 make use of the tape medium; his SYNTHESIS is on CRI 215. In addition to his teaching activities at Columbia University, he is a director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.
VLADlMlR USSACHEVSKY is Professor of Music at Columbia University and-Chairman of the Electronic Music Center. A public presentation of his first tape experiments In May, 1952, was the first performance of what became known as tape music-an indigenous American development. Besides a number of compositions for tape, he has produced two extensive film scores, one for "No Exit", a screen adaptation of Jean Paul Sartre's famous play, and another for a forty-five minute zbstract movie "Line of Apogee", by Lloyd Williams. In 1967 and 1968 he was invited by the Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, N. J. to investigate possibilities of sound synthesis on computers.
Collaboration in musical composition is much rarer than, say, novel writing and even picture painting. But Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky have been collaborating with eminent success ever since they discovered the possibilities of composition for tape recorders. CONCERTED PIECE is the third and one of the most attractive results of this collaboration, as its frequent public performances attest. CRI is proud of the unusually beautiiul sound of this recording. A Luening-Ussachevsky compositional collaboration starts with a conference. Having agreed that they want to write a piece, they then decide how long it is 'to last, and then what type of effect or quality they wish it to have (it would be fascinating to eavesdrop on this part of the conference). The rest is simply deciding how to divide up the labor. Later conferences help to eliminate unsuccessful efforts and to carpenter the sections together.
CONCERTED PIECE was composed in 1960 on commission by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic, and premiered by them that year. The music bears some resemblance to a movement from a classical concerto, with the tape recorder in the role of soloist or concertino. The first part, composed by Mr. Luening, ends with the cadenza for taped sounds alone. It is somewhat more homogenous than the second, composed by Mr. Ussachevsky, which makes considerable use of an antiphonal interplay between the orchestra and tape.
OTTO LUENING had a long and distinguished musical career before he undertook composition on electronic tape. Of his more than 200 compositions, 15 make use of the tape medium; his SYNTHESIS is on CRI 215. In addition to his teaching activities at Columbia University, he is a director of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.
VLADlMlR USSACHEVSKY is Professor of Music at Columbia University and-Chairman of the Electronic Music Center. A public presentation of his first tape experiments In May, 1952, was the first performance of what became known as tape music-an indigenous American development. Besides a number of compositions for tape, he has produced two extensive film scores, one for "No Exit", a screen adaptation of Jean Paul Sartre's famous play, and another for a forty-five minute zbstract movie "Line of Apogee", by Lloyd Williams. In 1967 and 1968 he was invited by the Bell Telephone Laboratories at Murray Hill, N. J. to investigate possibilities of sound synthesis on computers.
Labels: Avant Garde Project, jodru, Otto Luening, Vladimir Ussachevsky
posted by jodru at 10:50
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