Music
1 – Bye-bye
for mixed sextet (2010)
Ravel Virtual Studios
2 – Del Diario de un Papagayo (From the Diary of a Parrot)
The St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Dennis Russel Davies, conductor
3 – Pennies from Heaven
Gary Smart, piano improvisation
4 – Movement 4 (Shortening Bread)
from String Quartet (2006)
Ritz Chamber Players
5 – Ondine (1915) Claude Debussy
Gary Smart, piano (live performance, Jacksonville, FL)
6 – Bright Eyed Fancy for piano trio (2008)
The Florida Trio
7 – For Bix (Singing the Blues)
Gary Smart, piano improvisation
8 – Wabi Sabi
for eight instruments (2005)
Ravel Virtual Studios
9 – Piano Variations (1930)
Aaron Copland
Gary Smart, piano (live performance, Kyoto, Japan)
11 – You Stepped Out of a Dream
Gary Smart, piano improvisation
12 – It’s Only a Paper Moon
Gary Smart, multiple pianos
13 – Song of the Holy Ground
for piano quintet
The Chamisa Chamber Players
14 – Jammin’ at the Cathedral
Electronic music
Notes on the recordings:
1 – Bye-bye for mixed sextet of instruments was written specifically for the 2010 Finale Composers’ Competition. It was finished in August 2010. It is a kind of abstract toccata which relies on rhythmic gestures as a primary unifying device. The piece is Ivesian in its overall American character and in it’s use of materials from diverse musical genres (vaudeville, ragtime, waltz, early jazz, swing, etc.) Only five minutes in length, this piece is written to serve as a brilliant, eccentric showpiece encore. Fans of the “Great American songbook” will recognize this music to be a free fantasy on the old sing-a-long favorite – “Bye Bye Blackbird” (1926). To me, this virtual performance by Ravel Virtual Studios (Boston) is remarkable, both technically and musically.
2 – “Del Diario de un Papagayo”, or (From the Diary of a Parrot) was commissioned by the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra for premiere at the Alaska Festival of Music in 1973. I was at the time the Ford Foundation Composer in Residence for the city of Anchorage. This was my first real job after graduating from Indiana University and spending a year studying in Germany. The three years in Alaska were a wonderful apprenticeship. It was a chance to experiment and experiment I did! This divertimento for small orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russel Davies, features (in quadraphonic sound) my new yellow-naped Amazon parrot, Pablo. The instrumental soloists and the orchestra set a surreal Mexican scene and my bird - on recording - sings, laughs, cries, even converses and (seemingly) interacts with the musicians. For a while the work was performed here and there, including performances in Great Britain. But it has not been performed for many years now. I’m not even sure where the original tape is. Sadly, Pablo bird passed a few years ago. When I recently came across this spirited performance on cassette, I decided to digitize it and put it on my site as an homage to my old avian friend. Pablo was one of a kind, as is evident on the recording. He was as exuberant a fellow as I have ever known.
3 – I enjoy reinventing given material. This improvisation on the thirties’ tune “Pennies from Heaven” is Indian in character. The tune statement and the following variants are all played over a constant drone.
4 – The fourth movement of my String Quartet is a fiery perpetual motion setting of the folk tune “Shortening Bread”. In this live recording, the Ritz Chamber Players (Jacksonville, FL) give a rollicking performance.
5 – “Ondine”, a prelude from Debussy’s twenty-four Preludes for piano solo (1915), is one of Debussy’s most beautiful shorter pieces. “Ondine” was a watersprite in Scandinavian folklore. She was beautiful, mysterious and dangerous. Rippling with water effects, Debussy’s wonderfully elegant music evokes this seductive creature.
6 – On the first page of the score of this trio for violin, cello and piano I quote the English poet Thomas Gray : “Hark, his hands the lyre explore! Bright Eyed Fancy, hov’ring o’er…”. This quote is taken from Gray’s “The Progress of Poesy” (1754), which the celebrated Christian mystic and poet-artist William Blake (1757-1827) illustrated some thirty years later. My Bright Eyed Fancy was inspired both by Mr. Gray’s words and Mr. Blake’s watercolor. Blake’s picture depicts an angelic muse hovering over a working musician, who strums his lyre while the muse sitting above on a rainbow pours forth a cornucopia of musical ideas. I hoped to evoke with this music some of the strange truth that Blake proclaimed. It is often exuberant, even ecstatic, but is also at times profoundly solemn, sometimes quite simple and lyrical. My choice of musical materials is not unusual, though perhaps the way I mix materials is. I make some use of jazz gestures and style, but I also have made free use of folk music modal melody and Anglican hymnody as well as other more abstract textures. As would seem appropriate I let “form follow fancy” in this work. The opening is bright and enthusiastic, full of light. A second section presents a solemn, sustained chorale. A third florid ensemble section with shades of modal jazz improvisation closes the exposition. After these three ideas are developed, the solo cello presents a melody labeled “Song of the Angel”. Following more free development, the solo piano restates the “Song”. The last section of the work opens with the solo cello stating a motive (A-B-D-C#) over which I have written the syllables “Al-le-lu-ia”. This motive dominates the last part of the work. The climax of the work is simple, almost minimalistic in its ecstatic repetitions. Over grandiose piano flourishes the “Song” rings out. The piece closes playfully, with no great show of emotion. The angel simply disappears with no fanfare. The visitation is over. As any artist knows, the muse is shrouded in mystery.
7 – Since I was a kid I have loved “stride piano style”, the original two fisted jazz piano style. This improvisation is a kind of homage to Bix Biederbecke, the jazz cornet master, who also was a wonderful jazz pianist. “Singing the Blues” was one of his favorites.
8 – Wabi Sabi is a fantasy for eight instruments: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, violin, viola, cello and bass. The title, a Japanese phrase, refers to a love and nostalgia for ancient times, for old things - antiques - things which evoke feelings of purity, nobility, hard won wisdom, an essential spirituality, true worth. A tea ceremony in a Kyoto garden is “wabi sabi”. The piece was formed intuitively as a kind of drama, perhaps a Japanese folk tale. The expansion of “time perception”, the savoring of sound colors and the evocation of mood is central to the aesthetic of this music. I’m very pleased with this wonderful virtual performance by Ravel Virtual Studios (Boston). Perhaps this is ballet music?
9 – Aaron Copland’s Piano Variations (1930) is a masterwork of twentieth century piano music. It is new music - simple, direct and free of the excesses of late romanticism. Here the piano is treated as a percussion instrument. This is American music, jazzy, confident, diverse, powerful. For me the ringing coda is full of celebration and joy.
10 – “Yo yo” is one of five Electronic Preludes that I composed, directly on synthesizer, in 1995. The meaning of the title is quite apparent as one listens to the piece. This “work” is actually more an improvisation, as I simply layered up improvised lines, listening and playing along with previous material…until it seemed finished. This seems very much like the way many painters work, doesn’t it?
11 – This dreamy improvisation stresses the Lydian mode and sweeping neo-romantic gestures. I have always loved this Nacio Herb Brown classic. Maybe we all just stepped out of a dream.
12 – This overdubbed recording features three pianos. The repeated notes are actually “muted” piano tones. This optimistic tune from the depression era tells a great truth. Really. It’s only a paper moon.
13 – This piece won the Robb Musical Trust 2009 Composer’s Competition. The challenge was to compose a chamber work utilizing given ethnomusical materials. “Song of the Holy Ground” for piano and string quartet was written in reaction to an Apache chant recorded in 1953. The original recording, sung by a young girl, is clear, delicate and charming at first hearing. The text itself is unknown to me, beyond the fact that this is a song of consecration, a blessing. But the music of the chant is enchanting, with its uniquely expressive melodic shapes and its asymmetrical rhythms. In approaching this material I first made a detailed transcription of the chant and became fascinated with the intricacy of the motivic and rhythmic repetition which creates a simple, but unified musical format . My composition is a fantasy, an abstracted music that at times 1) spins out a music which freely develops small pitch or rhythmic motives taken from the original chant and at times 2) directly “sets” a statement of the chant – as with the solo violin statement at the very closing of the work. My quintet is not to be taken in any way as a decorated version of the original chant, nor is it in any sense an attempt to improve upon it. First of all “Song of the Holy Ground” is an act of artistic homage.
14 – “Jammin’ at the Cathedral” is another of the five Electronic Preludes. The title refers to the use of the mighty cathedral organ here, used in a rhythmically driving quasi big band jazz context. Slightly irreverent fun.