Betty Oliphant Theatre - 404 Jarvis St.

Vinko Globokar guest composer
New Music Concerts Ensemble
Robert Aitken flute and direction

Elliott Carter (USA 1908) – Trije glasbeniki

     for flute, harp and bass clarinet (2011)

(Canadian premiere, performed on the
occasion of Elliott Carter’s 103rd birthday)

Vinko Globokar (France 1934)
Fluide for brass and percussion (1967)

Globokar – Eppure si Muove
for trombone and ensemble (2003)

Globokar - Cri des Alpes
for solo alphorn

Globokar – Discours VII
for brass quintet (1987)

Globokar – Eisenberg
for 16 instrumentalists (1990)

Elliott Carter (USA 1908)      Trije glasbenicki (2011)

Twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize, first composer to receive the United States National Medal of Arts, one of the few composers ever awarded Germany's Ernst Von Siemens Music Prize, and in 1988 made “Commandeur dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the Government of France, Elliott Carter is internationally recognized as one of the leading American voices of the classical music tradition. He recently received the Prince Pierre Foundation Music Award and is one of only a handful of living composers elected to the Classical Music Hall of Fame. Carter was recognized by the Pulitzer Prize Committee for the first time in 1960 for his groundbreaking String Quartet No. 2. Igor Stravinsky hailed Carter’s Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano, and two chamber orchestras (1961) and Piano Concerto (1967), as “masterpieces.”

Of his creative output exceeding 130 works, Carter composed more than 40 pieces in the past decade alone. This astonishing late-career creative burst has resulted in a number of brief solo and chamber works, as well as major essays such as Asko Concerto (2000) for Holland’s ASKO Ensemble. Some chamber works include What Are Years (2009), Nine by Five (2009), and Two Thoughts About the Piano (2005-06), now widely toured by Pierre-Laurent Aimard. Carter continues to show his mastery in larger forms as well, with major contributions such as the opera What Next? (1998), Boston Concerto (2002), Three Illusions for Orchestra (2004), called by the Boston Globe “surprising, inevitable, and vividly orchestrated,” Flute Concerto (2008) and a piano concerto, Interventions (2008), which premiered on Carter's 100th birthday concert at Carnegie Hall with James Levine, Daniel Barenboim, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (December 11, 2008).

— July 2011, Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes.

Trije glasbeniki (Three musicians) was composed as a gift to the Slovenian musicians that have organized a large festival of my music in November, 2011 in Ljubljana. It is a piece for Harp, Flute and Bass Clarinet, and is dedicated to the three musicians (Erica Goodman, harp; Robert Aitken, flute; Virgil Blackwell, bass clarinet) who will present the World Premiere at this festival.

— Elliott Carter, March 17, 2011

Vinko Globokar was born in Anderny, France. In 1947 he moved to Yugoslavia, where he played jazz trombone until 1955, at which point he relocated to Paris in order to study at the Conservatoire de Paris. At the Conservatoire, he studied composition with René Leibowitz (a noted student of Arnold Schoenberg) and trombone with Andre Lafosse. In 1965, he moved to Berlin and began composition lessons with Luciano Berio, whose Sequenza V he later performed. In the later 1960s he worked with Karlheinz Stockhausen on some of his compositions from the cycle Aus den sieben Tagen, and co-founded the free improvisation group New Phonic Art. From 1967 to 1976 he taught composition at the Musikhochschule in Cologne. In 1974, he joined IRCAM as the director of instrumental and vocal research, a post which he occupied until 1980.  After leaving IRCAM, he conducted a number of high profile orchestral groups, including the Warsaw Philharmonic, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Westdeutscher Symphonie, and the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, among others. From 1980 until 2000, he directed 20th century music performance at Scuola di Musica di Fiesole near Florence. Globokar’s music is notable for its spontaneity, energy, and innovative use of unorthodox instrumental and compositional techniques. His timbral palette is extremely diverse, and his pieces employ an often astounding array of extended techniques.

To listen to an NMC sponsored profile of Vinko Globokar in conversation with Paul Steenhuisen please visit  http://tinyurl.com/74xlqmw

Vinko Globokar      Fluide (1967)

I have always been very attracted to the many similarities which exist between wind instruments and the human voice. The fact that they both use the breath as a tone generator make them more “human” than other instruments. Between them there is an extraordinary potential for transformations of timbre and, with the help of mutes, the reproduction of nearly every shade of vowel sounds in gradations from tone to noise and back again. In this case it is possible to develop a whole catalog of progressive transformations beginning with the simple continuous noise of blowing into the instrument and progressing towards its “normal” tonal quality. Fluide is a realm through which the nine wind instruments travel. They move gradually from the region of noise to their normal tone, adapt themselves to the percussion players, approach the zone of the human voice, and attempt to divide themselves and form a multi-voiced ensemble.

— Vinko Globokar

Globokar   Eppure si Muove (2003)

Traditionally the “Concerto” involves the interaction of three elements: the soloist, the orchestra and the conductor. The soloist is considered more important than the orchestra which is relegated to an accompanying or subordinate role. The dialogue between these two is not a direct one as the conductor intervenes in this relationship. Normally the soloist only comes to the final rehearsal after the orchestra, with the help of the conductor, has learned the work. In Eppure si Muove I turn this tradition on its head, as the soloist also takes over the role of the conductor, performing directly with the musicians, conducting while playing or playing while conducting. For once the composer is to blame for putting the conductor out of work! — V.G.

Globokar      Discours VII (1987)

Discours VII is part of a series of works exploring the similarities between spoken language and instrumental music, all based on the central idea of how to apply and transfer the elements and even the rules of the “spoken” and the “played” and vice versa. The preceding works (Discours II to VI) explore amongst other things the phonetic aspect (the analogy between vowels and consonants and the sounds or noises produced by five trombonists), the influence of poetic text on the inventiveness of five oboists, the different ways to approach a discourse between three clarinetists (explanatory, imperative, interrogative…) or the analogy between a theatrical act and a musical one, applied to a string quartet, etc…. in the same way that Discours VII attacks the problems posed by spatialisation of sound, the mobility of the sound sources and the different degrees of communication between five people. The tuba is static, a point of reference and utters speeches filled with meaning. On the other hand, the four other members of the ensemble develop and comment on these discourses, although from time to time they pay no attention to them. Finally, the dispersed members reunite into a quintet and break into a rondo finale. — V.G.

Globokar         Cri des Alpes (1986)

A heavy metal rock concert with the crowd howling with enthusiasm; A policeman who hates Arabs; An old woman who has lost her dog; A group of Japanese tourists who appear and are astonished at these goings on. — V.G.

Globokar Eisenberg (1990)

The score of the work is a formal skeleton, an open book for an abstract collection of instrumental timbres. The 16 musicians are divided into 4 groups, and are given the choice to choose instruments from the following catagories: archaic instruments (Tibetan trumpet, tromba marina, alphorns etc.); melodic instruments (trumpet, saxophone, violin…), polyphonic instruments (accordion, synthetizer, guitar...); and percussive instruments. To supplement the graphic notation of the score the musicians are provided with a catalogue of words to stimulate their imagination and guide their performance (cascades, wind, crumbling, mooing, growl, drunk, misty, etc…) Eisenberg (Iron Mountain) was the name of a 16th century steel smelting town in Slovenia, later called Seisenberg and known today as Zuzemberk. It was in this village that I composed this work which is divided into eight sections with the following descriptive titles: Lava; Block; Screw; Blade; Machine; Fusion; Electricity; Explosion. — V.G.