Margaret Brouwer - Works: Chamber Music



	A LITTLE RENAISSANCE MUSIC, 1996 (8 min.) Movements Rondeau Squared Five Part Canon Violin, oboe, clarinet, cello, double bass (Other treble and bass instruments may be substituted) Premiere: 8/17/96 Bennington Chamber Music Conference and Composers' Forum, Bennington College, Bennington, VT Rondeau Squared follows the rondeau form of the 13th century French Trouvères which, simply put, exploited the alternation between chorus and soloist and had two thematic ideas. My contemporary version is elaborated so that each section of the large rondeau form is, in itself, a small rondeau form. Five Part Canon is a five-voice strict canon, with two voices in augmentation, which evolves through tonal and non-tonal harmonies. It culminates in a stretto before the final coda. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. AUROLUCENT ECHOES, 1985 (11 min.) Solo Harp; Echo Harp, 2 Percussion, Violin, Viola, Cello Premiere: 2/25/86 Indiana University, Bloomington, IN My idea in writing Aurolucent Echoes was to create shining sounds. In musical terms one might say ringing or resonate sounds, but in my mind many parts of this work shine and glisten. The instruments were chosen for the ringing sounds they could produce, and the harmonic language utilizes intervals, predominantly a system of superimposed thirds, that resonate well because of their relationships to one another in the overtone series. Proportional (non-metered) notation is employed, imitating the feeling of the spontaneity of nature. Individual sounds occur seemingly with no exact ordering, like tiny candles floating on a dark river, each flickering brightly occasionally as the breeze touches it. The overall design follows the cyclical order of nature - an arch form which returns full circle to where it began, even though mutations of the original interval plan create a different viewpoint at the end. While searching for an appropriate title, I thought of the word aurora which in Classical Mythology means dawn but which also refers to an electrical atmospheric phenomenon consisting of luminous meteoric streamers, bands, curtains, and arcs of light in the night sky. "Aurora" seems to fit this work perfectly. There are sounds that create the visual image of the early morning light glistening on the mist, and also the colorful sounds of luminous lights in the night sky which begin as tiny distant sparks, but, as they come closer, explode into flashing fireworks-like streamers and arcs of light going in every direction. Instrument echoing instrument and especially the echo harp echoing the solo harp is a strong structural feature. The harps are placed so that sounds echo from one side of the stage to the other creating the aural effect of streamers and arcs of light in the night sky. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available: 1988 On Opus One LP (SD132) CELEBRATION, 1998 (7:30 min.) Movements: The Colonade Evening by the Chapel Festival of Memories Brass Quintet Commission: Washington and Lee University for the 250th Anniversary Premiere: 9/9/98* Washington and Lee U, 250th Anniversary Convocation, Institute Brass Quintet The first movement is a fanfare and celebratory in nature employing occasional Renaissance characteristics. “Evening by the Chapel” is reminiscent of old hymns and chants (but in an almost improvisatory style) that might have drifted from the chapel windows on a summer’s evening. “Festival of memories”, a fast moving maze in perpetual motion hides motives of the school’s fight song and alma mater. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. CHAMBER CONCERTO, 1993 (11 min.) Movements: Prelude Vivace Ritmico Solo clarinet, Percussion, Piano Premiere: 2/6/94 Daniel Silver, Clar., Women Composers Orchestra Chamber Concert, Baltimore, MD In the Prelude, the solo clarinet floats above or below, or winds around and through orchestral sonorities that are sometimes warm, singing and sparkling, and sometimes languid, hazy clouds of sound. An ascending motif begins in the clarinet and occurs frequently throughout, drifting upward at the final cadence. The peace and tranquillity of the Prelude changes drastically when all caution lets loose in the light-hearted, exuberant and quite raucous Vivace Ritmico. Elements of jazz and the mood of a lively party combine with repetitive rhythmic patterns, changing meters, playful exchanges and comic sounds. *See also: Clarinet Concerto, Prelude and Vivace, and Clarinet with piano reduction.* Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. CLARINET QUINTET, 2005 (20 min.) See Quintet for Clarinet in A and String Quartet CROSSWINDS, 1995 (12 min.) Movements: Blue Ridges, Dappled Sunlight, Mountain Waltz Dusk Oldtime Fiddles: High, Low, Lower String quartet Commission:* Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse Premiere: 4/11/95 Chester String Quartet, Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse, NY, NY When I was a resident of Virginia, its traditional folk music, sometimes called oldtime music, piqued my interest in using oldtime music as the germ material for this string quartet. Without using actual folk tunes, the music grows from my basic impressions of and fascination with their flavor. Using as a springboard typical string playing techniques, characteristic pentatonic scales, spontaneous rhythms, etc., these motifs are transformed into my own personal expression. Crosswinds was commissioned by New York's Sylvia and Danny Kaye Playhouse and premiered by the Chester String Quartet. One day, while admiring the work of American impressionist painter, John H. Twachtman, I was struck by the idea of using a background of short daubs of sound in the first movement, Blue Ridges, Dappled Sunlight, Mountain Waltz, similar to the tiny daubs of color which cover his paintings. Through this background, the "picture" of a melancholy waltz (fashioned in the "oldtime" style) could emerge just as the images emerge from the dots in the painting. The beautiful Shenandoah valley landscape became the background - the woods with sunlight streaking through the trees on hundreds of leaves covering the ground, the layered meadows, all surrounded by blue ridges - overlaid with a melancholy mood. As the waltz ends, the obscuring wash of tiny dots of sound continues, now with motives from the waltz. Through this a gradual transformation occurs. The slow movement, Dusk, portrays my reaction to the beauty of the landscape at dusk. The last movement – Oldtime Fiddles: High, Low, Lower, - attempts to capture the flavor and fun of old time fast music, presenting it in various forms of variation, while transforming the ideas into my own style of expression. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available On CRI, 1999 – CD#821 “Crosswinds” DANCING ON HOT COALS, 1998 (3 min.) Solo Piano Commission: Carl Fischer Inc. Music Publisher Company Dancing On Hot Coals is a perpetual motion of medium difficulty. The staccato notes, which exchange constantly from hand to hand, and the frequent alteration of rhythm and meter conjure up images of a toe dancer pretending to dance on hot coals, hopping and pirouetting nimbly and quickly. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. DECLARATION, 2005 (20 min) Movements Thorn (poem by Ann Woodward) …all men and women are… (from the Declaration of Independence) Thousands of Feet Below You (poem by Alice Walker) Whom do you call angel now? (poem by David Adams) Soprano or mezzo-soprano, violin, piano Premiere: 11/16/05 Lucy Shelton, soprano, New Music Festival, Cleveland Institute of Music Declaration is a set of songs addressing violence and war. The first and third songs look at the inhumanity of war in different ways. Ann Woodward points out in the poem of the first song, Thorn that one can watch the tragic details of a war on TV as if it were a story and not a representation of real people being killed. The poem of the third song, Thousands of Feet Below You by Alice Walker portrays the terror of an innocent young victim running from a bomb. In the first song, the theme of the basic commonality of all human beings threads through Woodward’s poem, Thorn. The second song, …all men and women…, continues this theme with an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence about the equality of all. The fourth song, Whom do you call angel now? is a song of mourning. It was taken from a set of poems by David Adams called September Songs which he wrote after September 11. Thorn and Whom do you call anger now? were originally intended to be folk songs. In the end, I decided to make them an integral part of this song cycle. In fact, these two songs were written first. However setting these works as art songs proved to be a real struggle. After trying a plethora of possibilities, I decided the strongest presentation would be to leave the accompaniment simple, even stark at times. The 21st century is a time of plurality in musical styles. The past periods of music are available for composers to draw upon, including the atonal period which lasted for the entire twentieth century (and is still going on). I am exploring this rich referential diversity in my music. Whereas the first and fourth songs are tonal and quasi folksong-like, the fury of Alice Walker’s poem, Thousands of Feet Below You called for strict twelve-tone treatment. DEMETER PRELUDE, 1997 (8 min.) String Quartet Commission: Reston Prelude Festival for the Audubon String Quartet Premiere: 6/20/97 Audubon String Quartet, Reston Prelude Festival Demeter Prelude was commissioned for the Audubon String Quartet by the Reston Prelude Festival. The young Greek goddess, Persephone is picking flowers in the field when suddenly the earth opens and Hades charges forth in a black chariot pulled by black horses. He abducts Persephone to the Underworld. Demeter discovers that her daughter, Persephone, is missing but does not know where she is. She goes in search of her daughter experiencing magical adventures on her quest. Eventually, learning what has happened, she is enraged and demands that Zeus order Hades to release Persephone. When Zeus does not do as she asks, Demeter realizes that she can use her own power, refusing to fulfill her function as goddess of living things, so that nothing can grow or be born. The world begins to die. Zeus then orders Hades to release Persephone. Demeter Prelude is about this part of the famous myth. It portrays the spirit of Demeter's many adventures during her search for Persephone, her personality and character, as seen by the composer, and her confrontation with Zeus and Hades. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. DIARY OF AN ALIEN, 1994 (15 min.) Movements: A Call For Action Drifting No Rotary Phone Somewhere the bells… Movements can also be performed separately or in any combination. Solo Flute Premiere: Sonoklect Festival, Lexington, VA, 1/28/94 Diary of an Alien is a collection of thoughts, impressions and reactions in musical form. The performer can choose which movements to perform, like leafing through a diary and choosing the excerpts to read. The many meanings of the word, "alien" convey an ambiguity that is intriguing. This could be the diary of an alien from society, from another world, from another planet, the diary of someone who is alienated from modern day life . . . A Call For Action is assertive and non-reflective, portraying the title in musical language. Drifting through space, through thoughts, through time, through . . .. Drifting experiments with multiphonics (humming into the flute while playing) and playing the head joint of the flute. No Rotary Phone is a satirical musical monologue in which the performer portrays two people, a person making a telephone call and an answering electronic voice. Beginning with "dialed" touch-tone phone number pitches, the movement goes through a typical phone mail routine. The composer could not resist taking the opportunity to poke fun at public radio stations' incessant airing of Pachelbel's Canon when the caller is connected to a radio station while "on hold." The caller tries, earnestly at first, to listen to the Pachelbel, but becomes bored and distracted as well as increasingly frustrated by the imposed demands of this so practical and yet so dehumanizing one-way conversation. Somewhere the bells.... While standing on a mountain side, bells are heard echoing from far away in another valley, like a memory from another time, another place, another life . . . Electronic echo alters the sound of the flute, overlapping pitches to form chords. *See also: No Rotary Phone 1995 from Diary of an Alien arranged for solo clarinet.* Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Reverb equipment available for rent: $ 60.00 plus shipping, handling and insurance. Contact [email protected]. Recording available. Crosswinds, CRI CD 821 DREAM DRIFTS, 1983 (12 min.) Movements: drifting into the formless sleep world fleeting dreams and images within the unknown universe of sleep a longer dream sinking deeper into delta waves Viola (with tape delay) and Piano (with Percussion) Commission: Ellen Rose, Dallas Symphony Premiere: 4/2/83* Dallas Chamber Orchestra Series, Dallas, Texas Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. FLING, 2006 (5 min.) String Quartet Fling is a short, lively piece for string quartet that is fun to play, and uses techniques specific to string instruments. It works well when played by an electric or amplified string quartet, but works equally well when played by a traditional quartet. Fling flirts with trip-hop and jazz rhythms, and melodies abound. LAMENT, 2002 (18 min.) Movements: Prelude Unfinished Song Lament Searching - Revolving Violin, clarinet, bassoon, percussion Commission: Rocky River Chamber Music Society for the Cohen Family Premiere: 4/29/02 Franklin Cohen, clarinet, Lynnette Cohen, bassoon, Diane Cohen, violin, Alex Cohen, percussion, Rocky River Chamber Music series. This work was begun in early October 2001, three weeks after September 11. I found that there was no way for me to compose without attempting to express in some way the numbness, anguish, bewilderment, and the beginning vague assimilation of a national life that is changed, however impossible it was to do that. Going from the first to the fourth movement through different states of before and after, the Prelude represents a premonition of worse things to come caused by continual low-level violence. In the second movement a simple song, like an uncomplicated life, is begun. But it is stopped abruptly and will never be continued or finished. Movement three is a lament and reaction to the violent attack. Like a conversation amongst people discussing the act of violence, each shares his/her experiences, thoughts and anguish. There are lulls where no one can speak, or everyone is lost in thought, then sharing of thoughts and grief continue. The fourth movement is a continual maze of searching for answers, revolving with the questions (and answers) of why, wishing for life as it was before,and searching for life as it will be now. *See also: Arrangement for clarinet, violin, cello, percussion.* Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale. LAMENT, 2002 (18 min.) Movements: Prelude Unfinished Song Lament Searching - Revolving Violin, clarinet, cello, percussion Commission: Rocky River Chamber Music Society for the Cohen Family This work was begun in early October 2001, three weeks after September 11. I found that there was no way for me to compose without attempting to express in some way the numbness, anguish, bewilderment, and the beginning vague assimilation of a national life that is changed, however impossible it was to do that. Going from the first to the fourth movement through different states of before and after, the Prelude represents a premonition of worse things to come caused by continual low-level violence. In the second movement a simple song, like an uncomplicated life, is begun. But it is stopped abruptly and will never be continued or finished. Movement three is a lament and reaction to the violent attack. Like a conversation amongst people discussing the act of violence, each shares his/her experiences, thoughts and anguish. There are lulls where no one can speak, or everyone is lost in thought, then sharing of thoughts and grief continue. The fourth movement is a continual maze of searching for answers,revolving with the questions (and answers) of why, wishing for life as it was before,and searching for life as it will be now. *See also: Arrangement for clarinet, violin, bassoon, percussion.* Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. LIGHT, 2001 (16 min.) Movements: The Fiery Power Nederlandse Light Atoms Soprano, harpsichord, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion Commission:* Cleveland Museum of Art Premiere: 6/6/01 Tapestry: Chamber Music of Margaret Brouwer, Cleveland Museum of Art,Cleveland, OH This work was written for harpsichordist Jeannette Sorrell, soprano Sandra Simon and The Cleveland Museum of Art honoring their acquisition of a German style harpsichord (after Michael Mietke) built by Bruce Kennedy of Amsterdam. In writing for these outstanding early music performers from Apollo’s Fire, and for the harpsichord, it was the perfect opportunity to draw inspiration from earlier centuries. My intent was to create a collage within my own music of texts and music from the twelfth to the mid-twentieth century. The twelfth century nun, Hildegard von Bingen, was an important religious figure whose mystical visions of God are filled with glowing and unique imagery. A few sentences from one of these visions are used as the text in the first movement. The English translation from Latin (by Robert Carver) is used with permission of the Crossroads Publishing Co. In Nederlandse Licht, I have quoted briefly from two musical works that come from my own Dutch heritage, one secular and one religious. Since the overlay and mixing of the secular and the religious is so prominent in Dutch history, this combination seems right. I have picked the chanson, L’autre d’antan, by Netherlands composer Johannes Ockeghem (ca.1425 – 1497), and De XXVII Psalm, God is mijn licht, mijn heil, wien zou ik vreezen? The latter is taken from a Dutch part-book format of the Psalms (Het Boek nevens de Gezangen bij de Hervormde Kerk van Nederland, 1773), which has been handed down in my family. Even though both quoted works were originally vocal, this movement features the harpsichord and does not use voice. The final movement, Atoms, mixes historical recitative style with my own contemporary musical language. The vocal text is a statement that physicist Richard Feynman made in a 1961 lecture to undergraduates at Caltech, as found in James Gleick’s book, Genius. The light, sun, water, and stars of Hildegard and Psalm 27 seem in some mystical way to combine very well with the 20th century understanding of atoms. Light (text): 1. The Fiery Power I, the highest and fiery power, have kindled every living spark. I flame above the beauty of the fields; I shine in the waters; in the sun, the moon, and the stars, I burn. And by means of the airy wind, I stir everything into quickness with a certain invisible life which sustains all. And so I, the fiery power, lie hidden in these things and they blaze from me. All these things live in their own essence and are without death, since I am Life. – Hildegard von Bingen 2. Nederlandse Licht Musical Quotes: Het Boek nevens de Gezangen bij de Hervormde Kerk van Nederland, 1773 L’autre d’antan by Johannes Ockeghem (ca.1425-1497) 3. Atoms Atoms. All things are made of atoms, little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. – Richard Feynman Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. MANDALA, 2001 (16 min.) Movements: Journey Sand Mandala 2 (2nd doubling alt.fl and picc),1, EH, 1,1; 2,1,1,0; 1 perc;strings: 2,1,1,1 Commission: Cleveland Chamber Symphony Premiere: 9/24/01 Cleveland Chamber Symphony, Jeffrey Pollock, guest conductor, Drinko Hall, Cleveland, OH Mandala was commissioned by the Cleveland Chamber Symphony. It was written during my residency at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire. While I was there, Tibetan monks spent ten days in the adjoining town of Peterborough creating an intricate sand painting of a mandala. After about a week, they destroyed the mandala in a ceremony of explanation, chanting and horn blowing. At some point, I realized that the experience of the mandala was interwoven into the fabric of this piece. The music is very much constructed in circles that spiral inward. In addition, because some musicians are positioned in the auditorium, the music travels in circles around the performance space. Like the short-lived sand mandalas, a given performance of this work will never again be heard in exactly the same way because some sections allow musicians rhythmic freedom and choice. It could, in fact, be argued that all music is like a sand painting. Every measure of music is aurally created at the time that it is played. But that measure is then instantly destroyed as the music passes on to the next measure, only still existing in the memory of the listener and the performer. Each subsequent performance is subtly different from the last and equally temporal. Along with the mandala experience, I was furthering my study of musical works that come from my own Dutch heritage. There is a Dutch song book of the Psalms in part-book format, Het Boek nevens de gezangen by the Hervormde Kerk van Nederland from 1773, which has been handed down in my family. I was struck by the melody of the 91st Psalm tune. My grandfather, who was a Dutch Reformed minister, always read the 91st psalm before a journey, calling it the traveler’s psalm. This work is a mystical journey of sorts, traveling into the circles of a mandala. The trombone states the 91st psalm in its entirety at the beginning of the first movement Journey. Throughout the remainder of the movement the tune is always present in some form, sometimes in entire phrases, sometimes in fragments that float in a circle of colors and ornaments. The movement ends with a sudden rhapsodic flourish in the flute answered quietly by the clarinet, vibraphone and trumpet. The second movement, Sand Mandala, begins without pause and continues the mandala-like circling. The psalm tune is frequently present, although often in a fleeting and usually contemporary context. The music circles, pummeling forward through whispering, agitation, moments of mayhem, long tones in the brass like the droning of the monks (overlaid with the stability of insistent rhythms and repetitions), and a section of hazy, clouded remembrances of the psalm tune ( overlaid with a tolling that passes around the circle of the brass). In this movement, the musicians whisper various texts. Most of the words will intentionally not be heard well enough to be understood by the audience, but the musicians interpret the quality and meaning of the words in the manner that they play the music. The composer believes that the whispers contribute in a mystical way to the mandala. The whispers are quotes from various newspapers, books and magazines and are about the pollution of the earth, the stresses of the 21st century life, the mystical visions of God, and the amazing wonder and capabilities of the human animal. The quotes symbolize circling through (as the Random House Dictionary describes mandala) the effort to reunify the self. *See also: arrangement for chamber orchestra.* Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material See Review: The Plain Dealermailto:[email protected] . "NO ROTARY PHONE”, 1995 (4.5 min.) Solo Clarinet No Rotary Phone is a satirical musical monologue in which the performer plays two parts, a person making a telephone call and an answering electronic voice. Beginning with "dialed" touch-tone phone number pitches, the movement goes through a typical phone mail routine. The composer could not resist taking the opportunity to poke fun at public radio stations' incessant airing of Pachelbel's Canon when the caller is connected to a radio station while "on hold." The caller tries, earnestly at first, to listen to the Pachelbel, but becomes bored and distracted as well as increasingly frustrated by the imposed demands of this so practical and yet so dehumanizing one-way conversation. *See also: Diary of an Alien arranged for solo flute.* Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. PRELUDE AND VIVACE FOR CLARINET AND CHAMBER ENSEMBLE, 1996 (11 min.) Movements: Prelude Vivace Ritmico Clarinet solo, 1,1,1,1; 1,1,1,0; 2 perc.; strings 2,1,1,1 Premiere: 4/11/96 New Music Ensemble, Duquesne University, David Stock, Conductor, Pittsburgh, PA Prelude and Vivace is a chamber version of the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, which was composed in 1994 for Richard Stoltzman. In the Prelude, the solo clarinet floats above or below, or winds around and through orchestral sonorities that are sometimes warm, singing and sparkling, and sometimes languid, hazy clouds of sound. An ascending motif begins in the clarinet and occurs frequently throughout, drifting upward at the final cadence. The peace and tranquility of the Prelude changes drastically when all caution lets loose in the light-hearted, exuberant and quite raucous Vivace Ritmico. Elements of jazz and the mood of a lively party combine with repetitive rhythmic patterns, changing meters, playful exchanges and comic sounds. A traditional cadenza for the clarinet culminates with a short exchange between the clarinet and a siren in the percussion section before the movement rushes forward to the conclusion. *See also: Arrangements for Clarinet and Orchestra, Clarinet, piano and percussion, and Clarinet with piano reduction* Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available on CRI, 1999 - CD #821 "Crosswinds". QUINTET FOR CLARINET IN A AND STRING QUARTET, 2005 (20 MIN.) Movements: * Allegro * My white tears broken in the seas * Scherzo * Moderato, Vivace Clarinet, 2 violins, viola, cello Commission: Daniel Silver and the University of Colorado/Boulder Premiere: 11/30/05 Cavani Quartet and Daniel Silver, clarinet; Cleveland Institute of Music Chamber Music Festival; Cleveland, OH Quintet was commissioned by Daniel Silver and the University of Colorado for clarinet in A, in the great tradition of the quintets for the same ensemble by Mozart and Brahms. What a pleasure it has been to write for such good friends and outstanding musicians as Dan Silver and the members of the Cavani String Quartet. Each of them knows me and knows my music. I know them, love their beautiful playing, and know how dedicated they are to finding the musical expression in a new work. Dan premiered my Chmber Concerto, has performed my Clarinet Concerto with the Roanoke Symphony and recorded Prelude and Vivace on CRI. The Cavani has toured with both my string quartets playing them numerous times and making them their own. Mari Sato was the violinist in the preview of my Declaration last summer. This sort of collaboration does not happen often and I am extremely grateful for it. It is such a pleasure to make music with and for them. They all believe strongly in the creative process, and have been very open to my experimenting in this piece and exploring new vistas, even to the point of my discarding a finished movement they had already learned and asking them to learn a newly written one instead! If the world is going to survive, it is essential that we learn to live together, respecting each other's cultures and valuing our differences. What a rich world that would be! I wanted to create a substantial work that would reflect this rich and complex image, with music that is abounding in different cultural influences; that is assertive, sometimes passionate, sometimes anguished. In the second movement, I drew on the musical material of a song I composed recently which is part of the cycle entitled Declaration. The poem by David Adams, which inspired this music, is as follows: An Angel's Song, by David Adams Whom do you call angel now? If I am as old as stars, If I am the speech of God Find my shadow in the apple boughs. Find my green wings in the mountains, My white tears broken in the seas. For even as you die, No stalk bends without its angel. I have heard wailing centuries. I am waiting in their silences like snow To dream the music of a single tongue- One pure leaf in a voiceless wind. Whom do you call angel now? Who will teach you how to love? RAPUNZEL, 1988 (15 min.) Soprano, Flute, Bassoon, French Horn, Trombone, Percussion, Narrator/Synthesizer Commission: Tales and Scales Premiere: 9/10/88 Shanklin Theater, University of Evansville, IN Commission: Tales and Scales for children’s performances of a musical version of the fairy tale Rapunzel, this work calls for the performers to tell the story as well as to play their instruments. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. RUINS OF RIVEAULX, 1982 (6 min.) Premiere: 11/22/82 Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas Ruins of Riveaulx is an early work by Brouwer for electronic tape with optional visuals Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. SCHerZOid, 1989 (6 min.) Solo Horn Premiere: 4/18/89 University of Idaho, Moscow, ID The request for me to write a solo horn piece provided the ideal opportunity to explore the captivating beauty of the sound world that is particular to the French horn. Within that sound world are timbres that are highly contrasting. Consequently SCHerZOid is a study in opposites. It combines the contrasting sounds that the horn does so beautifully; the familiar, singing lyricism with the heroic and the aggressive. It also explores new sounds that are sometimes shocking and grotesque. The contrasting sections of the traditional scherzo form became in this scherzo continually more separate as the piece progressed until finally it seemed that the piece had assumed a complex life of its own. Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material Recording available on Centaur Records, 1993 - CRC 2138 Works by Allan Blank and Margaret Brouwer SHATTERED GLASS, 2007 (10 min.) Flute, Cello, Percussion, Piano Premiere: 4/13/08 Cleveland State University, Drinko Hall, Cleveland OH Shattered Glass was written for and is dedicated to MOSAIC. The unique instrumentation of MOSAIC - flute, cello, percussion and piano immediately inspired interesting timbral possibilities which in many ways became the driving force of this work, along with the plan to feature the virtuosity of these musicians. The work opens with a 9-note row, which becomes an important element as well. There are two contrasting yet related sound worlds in Shattered Glass. A soft but brittle atmosphere with sharp stabs of piercing sound that sometimes builds to wild cacophonous moments is contrasted with soft, blurred, mysterious sections that still have tiny intrusions of bright, pointed stabs of sound. The brittle and blurred timbres eventually mix and overlap becoming sometimes rhythmic, sometimes raucous, and sometimes mysterious and melodic. There are solos for each instrumentalist throughout the work culminating in short, rhapsodic, cadenza-like flourishes for each. SKYRIDING, 1992 (14 min.) Movements: Riding the Easy Five Mile Sluice Jinn Song Hard Knock Jam Flute ,Violin, Cello, Piano Premiere: 5/3/92* 20th Century Consort, Christopher Kendall, cond.,Sonoklect Festival, Lexington, VA Along with the development of pitch sets in each movement of this work, a definite attention was given to the use of transparent textures, almost in the style of Mozart. In addition, the first movement, Riding The Easy Five Mile Sluice, was planned according to a formula of combining notes that was inspired by James Gleick’s book, Chaos. In the book, analysis of types of turbulence showed the predominantly predictable nature and yet sometime chaotic moments of, for instance, the motion of water through a pipe or of wind currents in a tunnel. It also stated that ... "the attracting pull of four points ... creates basins of attractions. ...But each particle does not move independently - its motion depends very much on the motion of its neighbors - and in a smooth flow, the degrees of freedom can be few". These formulae of motion through space seemed quite applicable to the sound-motion of music. Interestingly, as the music was developing, it reminded me of water flowing gently but always continuously down a mountain sluice, turning, sometimes very quickly, in new directions as the sluice turns (sometimes sharply) to skirt natural obstructions. The pitch materials, however, seemed to create an unearthly atmosphere. Thus, the movement began to sound to me like a water ride in a celestial amusement park. In this supernatural setting, the jinn (mythological spirits that influence mankind for good and evil) would sing their simple Jinn Song accompanied by flute and guitar, while the Hard Knock Jam, with its percussive hammering and persistent beat, would be music rollicking in a cabaret set. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material Recording available. Centaur Records, The Music of Allan Blank and Margaret Brouwer, 20th Century Consort 1993 - CRC 2138 SONATA FOR HORN AND PIANO, 1996 (14:30 min.) Movements: Hymn Riding to Higher Clouds Commission: Horn Consortium Commissioning Group Premiere:10/18/96 Kristin Thelander, Faculty Recital, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, At the turn of a new century, and after a century of atonality, I was eager to find paths in new harmonic directions. Sonata for Horn and Piano was representative of explorations of mine toward a personal expression in that new direction. It was also a very personal expression of searching prompted by the deaths of two loved ones within a year's time. Hymn, straightforward and melodic, expresses grief and faith. Riding to Higher Clouds deals with the complex struggle between the conflicting emotions of loss, hope, memories, and understanding. Please click HERE for salesinformation regarding performance material. Recording available On CRI, 1999 - CD #821 "Crosswinds". SONATA FOR SOLO PIANO, 1998 (9 min.) Solo piano Commission: Fortnightly Musical Club of Cleveland Premiere: 2/2/99 Kathryn Brown, Fortnightly Musical Club Annual Concert, The Cleveland Institute of Music, Cleveland, Ohio This virtuostic work utilizes one pitch cell throughout in two contrasting ways. The first is aggressive, rhythmic, driving and rumbling, while the other is lyrical, melodic and tender. It was commissioned by the Fortnightly Musical Club of Cleveland for their 25th year of commissioning new works in February 1999. See also: Under the summer tree… Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO, 1987 (11 min.) Movements: Andante Con Fuoco Violin and Piano Premiere 8/6/87 Interlochen National Music Camp Interlochen,MI Inspired by the tradition sonatas for violin and piano, both instruments in this work are equal and play soloistic roles. The piano sets the mood of distant and dreamlike motion while the violin part is song like and sustained in the Andante. Building in agitation, the movement ends by returning to the opening material heard in a new way. The second movement, Con Fuoco, is a technical tour de force for both instruments, showy and yet dark and relentless. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. TIMESPAN, 1986 (14 min.) Movements: Rondeau squared Ancient Calls Shining Metal Brass Quintet 2 trumpets (doubling Fluegelhorns), Horn, Trombone, Tuba Premiere:10/6/87* San Francisco, COMPOSER'S INC., New Albion Brass Quintet The remembrance of time spent viewing the stone circles and standing stones of Scotland and Dartmoor where I could almost hear the eerie sounds of primitive horn calls floating across the hills, and of a day at Stonehenge where a mystifyingly modern cosmological knowledge on the part of Bronze Age people seems in evidence, inspired an interest in combining the ancient and primitive with the space-age. “Rondeau Squared” follows the rondeau form of the 13th century French Trouvères which exploited basically the alternation between chorus and soloist and had two thematic ideas. My contemporary version is elaborated so that each section of the large rondeau form is, in itself, a small rondeau form. Of the three movements, “Ancient Calls” was written first. While writing it, I became interested in making a connection between the ancient and the contemporary. “Ancient Calls” reminded me of the bleak hills and ancient yet modern stone markings and sight lines found in Dartmoor and Scotland. It uses multiphonics and changing vowel sounds and recurrent permutations of aggregates involving the perfect fifth. “Shining Metal” leaves the ancient behind and is a space-age maze of rhythmic complexities presented through the utilization of three short motivic ideas. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. New Mexico brass Quintet, Crystal Records (CD 563), 1991 TOLLING THE SPIRITS, 1994 (18 min.) Movements: Polluted Landscape Lago di Como Spirits Monk’s Canon Clangor Movements can also be performed separately or in any combination. Brass Quintet 2 trumpets (doubling fluegelhorns), Horn, Trombone, Tuba Premiere:10/29/94* Chestnut Brass Company, Philadelphia, PA Tolling The Spirits was begun during a residency at the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Center on Lake Como in Italy. The time there was filled with the sounds of bells ringing and a sense of the presence of ancient spirits.Polluted Landscape portrays the ancient sleepy villages and the quiet lake (an occasional bell ringing), seemingly alive with restless spirits, as it is engulfed by an evening mist, or unfortunately sometimes by a yellowish polluted fog. This movement is played spatially with the horn, trombone and tuba at the sides and back of the hall. Lago di Como was inspired by the local bells heard ringing in the village of Bellagio and from various other villages across the lake and down the valley. In this movement, the pitch and rhythmic relationships between these various bells are explored, as well as finding ways to imitate the colors of the bells by exploiting the overtones of the brass. During the movement, the performers move to the stage. Spirits experiments with the timbral possibilities of using only air sounds. The aura of spirits permeated the mountain, the ruins of an ancient fortress on the precipice over the lake and the 17th century Villa where I lived. Perhaps inspired by this influence, or by the historical land of Renaissance music, Monks' Canon became a five-voice strict canon, with two voices in augmentation, which evolves through tonal and non-tonal harmonies. It culminates in a stretto before the final coda. With the return from the peaceful old-world setting of Bellagio to the clamorous, frenetic pace of modern day American life, Clangor appeared. Clangor is a stream of consciousness depiction of the complexities, tensions and scattered spirit of a modern-day working woman. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. TRIO, 2005 (12 min.) Movements: Joyful Moment Adagio Escaping Violin, Clarinet, Piano Commission:* The Verdehr Trio and Michigan State University Premiere: 1/22/06 The Verdehr Trio, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI Formal aspects of Trio (the movements’ forms and the use of pitches) were planned according to a formula of combining notes that was inspired by James Gleick’s book, Chaos. He writes that “the attracting pull of four points . . . creates basins of attractions. . . . But each particle does not move independently – its motion depends very much on the motion of its neighbors – and in a smooth flow, the degrees of freedom can be few.” In addition, each movement represents an emotion or state of mind. In the first movement it is joy, with bright and glowing sounds that seem sometimes to dance. The second movement maintains a mood of calmness, stillness and sadness. The third movement is all about tension and anxiety. It begins with contrasting ideas of underlying nervous tension and brilliant, brittle outbursts that are passed around between the players. A middle section of strong rhythmic emphasis changes the nervousness into a focused energy. TWO PIECES FOR VIOLA, 1989 (12.30 min.) Movements: X4-1=0 Chaconne2 Viola and Piano Commission: Ellen Rose Premiere:10/28/89 Southeastern Composer's League, Miami, FL Two Pieces for Viola represents the study of a new and an old form. In James Gleick’s book Chaos, his discussion of turbulence –the predictable elements and yet sometime chaotic moments of the motion of water through a pipe or of wind currents in a tunnel, for example – seemed upon reflection to provide inspiration for musical form. “Nature oscillates within her prescribed limits. The attracting pull of four points creates basins of attractions. But each particle does not move independently – its motion depends very much on the motion of its neighbors – and in a smooth flow, the degrees of freedom can be few…. Nearby bits remain nearby or drift apart in a smooth linear way that produces neat lines in wind-tunnel pictures: Gleick describes motion through space. Music is sound-motion through space and time. X4-1=0 is the first piece in a series of study of forms inspired by Gleick’s book. Chaonne2 is a loose version of the traditional form of variations on a chord progression. Two interwoven chord progressions, one very traditional, the other a nontraditional progression, are exploited throughout the piece. In the tradition of chaconnes, it is purposefully virtuostic in style. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available: on Centaur Records, 1993 - CRC 2138 Works by Allan Blank and Margaret Brouwer. TWO SONGS, 1990 (9 min.) Movements: Ma Mata I Sang Soprano, flute, violin, cello, tuba or trombone, percussion, piano Premiere: 5/18/90 Christine Schadeberg, Soprano, Sonoklect Festival, Lexington, VA After participating recently in a class on mythology I was inspired to study further the goddess of the period 2500-700 B.C. Anthropological studies suggest that in this time the prominent deity was a goddess who was called by various names in different parts of the world, Ma Mata, Demeter, Egg of Heaven, Queen of the Bright Night, etc. The goddess was worshipped by non-aggressive cultures who were agrarian, intuitive, and in touch with the earth and natural forces. The text for MA MATA is a result of this study. Some of the terminology in this text is an amalgamation of language gleaned from various books on the subject, while the rest is my own. I Sang is a setting of a short poem by Carl Sandburg. Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. UNDER THE SUMMER TREE…2000 (18 min.) Solo piano Commission: Fortnightly Musical Club of Cleveland (Movement 1) Premiere: 6/6/01 Leon Bates, (entire revised work)Tapestry: Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH. Premiere, 4/6/00 Kelly Horsted, (Mvts. II and III) Greenwich House Arts, New York, NY. Premiere: 10/24/99 Kathryn Brown, The Cleveland Institute of Music New Music Ensemble, Cleveland, OH (before revision). This work explores the reaction to personal loss so profoundly expressed in the poem, During " Wind and Rain" by Thomas Hardy. The first movement utilizes one pitch cell throughout in two contrasting ways. The first is aggressive, rhythmic, driving and rumbling, while the other is lyrical, melodic and tender. The second movement is reflective, distant and introverted; an expression of sadness in the style of a Siciliano. The sections are repeated in the tradition of this old dance form, and yet, even though identical pitch sets are used, the music is transformed. The third movement begins without pause, somewhat tentatively and hesitantly and then rushes furiously forward. Bursts of anger alternate with more temperate sadness. The first movement of this work was commissioned by the Fortnightly Musical Club of Cleveland for their 25th year of commissioning new works in February 1999. See also: Sonata for Solo Piano Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material. Recording available. WEDDING SONG, 2001 (3 min.) String Quartet Commission: Greg Brouwer and Michele Keller Premiere: 6/1/01 Redondo Beach, CA *See also: Arrangement for Chamber Orchestra.* Performance Materials: Please click HERE for rental and sale information regarding performance material.