Jon Appleton
The Russian Music PIANO MUSIC n CHAMBER MUSIC n CONCERTI
Jon Appleton is a composer and author born in Hollywood, California in 1939. He was educated at Reed College, the University of Oregon and Columbia University. His work includes instrumental, choral and electro-acoustic music. Appleton is best known for the latter, much of it composed for the Synclavier, a digital performance instrument he helped develop. Appleton has been awarded Guggenheim, Fulbright, National Endowment for the Arts and American-Scandinavian Foundation fellowships. He has taught at Dartmouth College, Stanford University, Keio University (Japan), University of California, Santa Cruz and each year at the Theremin Center at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. More about his life and work can be found at: http://eamusic.dartmouth.edu/~appleton/
1. 70th birthday concert, October 2008, at Rachmaninov Hall, Moscow, with Alexander Trostiansky, Julia Turkina, Vladislav Bulakhov, and Alexander Zagorinsky 2. With Julia Turkina 3. Alexander Zagorinsky and Julia Turkina 4. Alexander Zagorinsky and Julia Turkina 5. With Julia and Galina Turkina and Dmitri Pokrovsky 6. With Alexander Trostiansky
front cover photo: Jonathan Sa’adah parcmedia.ca design: Beth Adams parcmedia.ca back cover photo: Edward Alexandrovich Levin
Jon Appleton How I Became a Russian Composer
I was raised in Hollywood, California during World War II by my mother and stepfather, a Russian musician named Alexander “Sasha” Walden. Although at first I wanted to be a pianist like Vladimir Horowitz, early on I took more pleasure composing my own music. I was mostly influenced by the music of Tchaikowsky, Katchaturian, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Stravinsky: this was the music I heard at home and at concerts by the Los Angeles Philharmonic where my stepfather played double bass. When the United States and the Soviet Union ended their friendship following World War II, my parents (ardent and later blacklisted members of the Communist party), still insisted that everything in Russia was wonderful. As a small boy it was difficult for me to disagree since I loved Russian music so much. It was not until I was a student of composer Andrew Imbrie at the University of California that I was told “we don’t compose that kind of music any longer.” I was mystified. How could the Russian music I loved, as well as that of Chopin, Brahms, Ravel and others be out of fashion? When I entered graduate school I struggled to compose in a modernist tradition but these student works now seem cold and inauthentic to me. Oddly it was the then-emerging field of electronic music that was to earn me respect as a composer during the last third of the 20th century. I am still known today as a pioneer in this field in part because of my participation in the development of the first, commercial digital synthesizer, the Synclavier. I spent much of my life teaching young composers about electronic music at Dartmouth College and elsewhere including the Theremin Center at the Moscow Conservatory of Music. It was by chance that I came there in 1993 on a visit with the late Dmitri Pokrovsky. One connection led to another: Andre Smirnov, founder of the Theremin Center introduced me to his mother, the pianist Julia Turkina and his aunt, the late Galina Turkina. The sisters were Russia’s preeminent duo-piano team for fifty-six years and they asked me to compose a work for them. The Turkina Suite was a huge turning point in my life as a composer – my Russian revolution. The many instrumental and choral works I have composed since then are often performed in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia but rarely in Europe or the United States. My friends and colleagues here don’t understand how I could leave my quite-original electronic music for the retro, tonal style of my instrumental music. The answer is that they simply occupy quite different places in my musical brain. I’m still listening to and occasionally composing electronic music. I tell friends and colleagues that I’m a bipolar composer but I suspect I’m really just a Russian composer at heart.
JON APPLETON COMPACT DISK ONE PIANO MUSIC
Julia for solo piano (2001) Julia Turkina
[1] I q = 120 con fuoco 2:26 [2] II e = 80 sadly 1:01 [3] III q = 60 delicately 4:37 [4] IV e = 60 wistfully 2:17 [5] V e = 70 con molto rubatao 2:11 [6] VI q = 54 à la Scarlatti 3:01 [7] VII q = 54 à la Russe 2:55 [8] VIII q = 74 lullaby 8:10 [9] IX e = 120 toccata à la Russe 2:52
Duobatoni for two pianos (1994) Julia Turkina and Galina Turkina [10] e = 110
2:50
The Turkina Suite for two pianos (1995) Julia Turkina and Galina Turkina [11] I q = 86 [12] II q = 70 [13] III e = 140 Waltz [14] IV q = 74
2:38 3:13 2:16 4:18
The Turkina Sonata for two pianos (1998) Julia Turkina and Galina Turkina [15] I q = 72 Confidently
3:59
[17] III q = 53 Lightly
4:08
[16] II q = 80 Willfully
4:32
JON APPLETON COMPACT DISK TWO CHAMBER MUSIC
Sonata for Cello and Piano (2004) Alexander Zagorinsky, cello Julia Turkina, piano [1] [2] [3] [4]
I q = 53 Andante II e = 100 III q = 72 IV Andante – Variations on “La Comparsa” by Lecuona
4:09 3:40 2:16 6:57
Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (2007) Alexander Trostiansky, violin Julia Turkina, piano [5] I q = 50 [6] II q = 76 “Araruna” [7] III q = 58
6:43 4:55 5:54
Petite Suite for Solo Cello (2005) Alexander Zagorinsky, cello [8] Six Short Movements
10:04
Ilya (for Lydia) for Theremin, Flute, Violin, Clarinet and Cello (2005) Lydia Kavina, theremin [9] q = 50
4:34
JON APPLETON COMPACT DISK THREE CONCERTI
Concerto Grosso for violin, piano, cello and strings (2008) Alexander Trostiansky, violin Alexander Zagorinsky, cello Julia Turkina, piano “The Seasons” Chamber Orchestra Vladislav Bulakhov, Conductor
[1] I q = 130 4:09 [2] II q = 100 4:58 [3] III q = 88 8:04
Homage to Tchaikowsky
Fantasy for Cello and String Orchestra (2007) Alexander Zagorinsky, cello “The Seasons” Chamber Orchestra Vladislav Bulakhov, Conductor [4] q = 46 11:41
Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (2006) Julia Turkina, piano “The Seasons” Chamber Orchestra Vladislav Bulakhov, Conductor [5] [6] [7] [8]
I q = 45 6:23 II e = 80 3:49 III q = 75 3:45 IV q = 85 5:07
Джон Эпплтон
Русская Музыка
Музыка для фортепиано Камерная музыка Концерты