American Romantics

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2023-24

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Photo: Dayton Contemporary Dance Company

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Department of Music and Theatre University at Albany presents:

A MERICAN R OMANTICS Two Centuries of American Piano Music

Max Lifchitz , p i a n o

Concert made possible in part with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts administered by North/South Consonance, Inc.

Tuesday, January 30, 2024 at 7pm

Recital Hall UAlbany Performing Arts Center

Program JAMES HEWITT

Yankee Doodle with Variations (1807)

HAROLD SCHIFFMAN

Three Études (2010)

I. Maestoso II. Andante III. Vivace

ALLAN CROSSMAN

Dances of Wind and Shade (1972)

AKIN EUBA

Scenes from Traditional Life (1970)

I. Swaying II. Shimmering III. Restless/Flashing IV. Breeze V. Mutable I. Andante II. Vivace III. Allegretto

ROBERT FLEISHER

Minims for Max (2023)

JOHN McGINN

Three Preludes (2015)

MAX LIFCHITZ

Wedding Cake Tango (2023)

I. Silhouette II. What’s in a Name?

III. Forward and Back IV. Sessions with Roger V. A is for Anton VI. North South Consonance VII. Maxed Out I. Tendrils II. Mischievous III. Gently Swaying

GEORGE GERSWHIN

Rhapsody in Blue (1924)

Meet the Performer THE AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE referred to Max Lifchitz as “one of America’s finest exponents of contemporary piano music” and THE NEW YORK TIMES praised him for his "clean, measured and sensitive performances.” A graduate of The Juilliard School and Harvard University, Mr. Lifchitz was awarded first prize in the 1976 International Gaudeamus Competition for Performers of 20th Century Music held in Holland. As a composer, Mr. Lifchitz has received fellowships from, among others, the ASCAP, Ford, and Guggenheim Foundations; the Individual Artists Program of the NYS Council of the Arts; and from the National Endowment for the Arts. His works have been performed throughout Europe, Latin America, and the US. Lifchitz was invited to join the teaching staff of the University at Albany in 1986.

Program Notes

Compiled & edited by Max Lifchitz

Today’s program features piano music penned by American composers spanning two centuries. Brief observations about each one of the composers and their music follow: James Hewitt (1770–1827) was an American conductor, composer, and music publisher. Born in Dartmoor, England, he settled in New York City in 1792. Especially influential in the nascent musical life of the US during the 19th century, Hewitt conducted theater orchestras while composing and arranging music for local ballad operas and musical events throughout the East Coast. He also published pedagogical books and sold musical instruments and publications in his "musical repository." His 1807 composition Yankee Doodle with Nine Variations celebrates the country’s independence while being inspired by American folklore.

Harold Schiffman (b. 1928; Greensboro, NC) has been described by the international press as “a versatile composer whose talent is apparent in whatever idiom he chooses to express his very musical personality” as well as “a most distinguished composer whose well-crafted and communicative music repays repeated hearings.” Schiffman’s composition mentors included Roger Sessions and Ernst von Dohnányi. He taught composition at Florida State University from 1959 until 1983 while directing that institution’s New Music Festival. As the title implies, Schiffman’s Three Études are brief musical compositions designed to be more than mere exercises to improve the technique or demonstrate the skill of the player. The pieces were written to memorialize pianist and musicologist Jane Perry-Camp, the composer’s late wife.

Allan Crossman (b. NYC, 1942) has had the great pleasure to write for soloists and ensembles worldwide, including many commissions and awards. Currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, Crossman lived in Montreal for many years while on the Concordia University faculty. His Dances of Wind and Shade were written while spending summers in a particularly windy part of New England. The composer states that he "… was fascinated by certain trees blowing in the sunny early-winter breeze - the top leaves, fully exposed to the sun, were swaying gently while the leaves in the shady recesses shimmered agitatedly. The music was inspired by the expressive quality of this motion, and the five brief pieces have this imagery somewhere behind them."

Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Olatunji Akin Euba (1935-2020) trained as pianist and composer at London’s Trinity

College of Music before obtaining a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study ethnomusicology the University of California, Los Angeles. Between 1993 and 2011 he served as the Andrew W. Mellon Professor at the University of Pittsburgh while holding symposia of music in Africa and the Diaspora throughout the US, Europe, Africa, and China. Euba’s style is a synthesis of African traditional material (often from his own ethnic group, the Yoruba people) and contemporary classical music. The three movements that comprise the Scenes from Traditional Life are based on a twelve-tone row whose notes are systematically assigned to a series of pre-determined rhythmic phrases. The resultant melodic patterns are employed in a linear manner with varying metrical and horizontal juxtapositions that result in unequal densities and occasional polyphonic textures.

A native New Yorker, Robert Fleisher (b. 1953) attended New York City’s famed High school of Music and Art before earning degrees in composition from the University of Colorado and the University of Illinois. Recently retired from his teaching position at Northern Illinois University, Fleisher has been awarded grants from the Illinois Arts Council, the National Foundation for Jewish Culture, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Ruttenberg Arts Foundation. The press has described his music as “eloquent, lovely and emotional, astoundingly attractive, ingenious and fascinating while possessing a rich, tactile texture.” Written especially for this evening’s performance, Fleisher’s Minims for Max echo timehonored compositional practices, translating Max’s full name into music. Each of the seven pieces comprising the collection is based on works by this evening’s performer a+nd/or historical figures such as Max Reger, Roger Sessions, Arnold Schoenberg, and Anton Webern.

John McGinn (b. 1964 in Sacramento, CA) received an undergraduate music degree from Harvard University and a doctorate in composition from Stanford University. Currently an Associate Professor at Austin College in Sherman TX, McGinn is active as pianist and composer. His own works have received several honors and been performed at colleges and festivals worldwide. An avid devotee of improvisation, McGinn has long been fascinated by “the question of what may be gained – or lost – from the application of rigorous compositional techniques (judgment, development, revision, and so on) to the bright, unpredictable flames of spontaneous creation.” In the preface to his work, McGinn writes: “Three Preludes written in 2015, are part of a growing collection of piano pieces based on free improvisations captured and transcribed with the help of MIDI software. My approach is to select especially appealing or fascinating passages and then respond to them just as I would to any compositional materials – analyzing, developing, connecting them with other passages (perhaps also improvised), honing transitions and so on.

Either way, my goal for the Preludes is that such distinctions will ultimately fall away, leaving a music that feels at once fresh and “immediate” yet also carefully structured.”

Specially written for this concert, Lifchitz’s Wedding Cake Tango belongs to a collection of piano études for the left hand alone. In the manner of the Baroque Chaconne, the work is based on the chord progression that underlies the ever-popular Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel (16531706). This progression became popular after it was used as background music for the Mary Tyler Moore film Ordinary People in the early 1980s. Just as in Pachelbel’s work, the piece is built around 4 bar phrases that paraphrase (endlessly!) the simple harmonic progression heard at the opening evoking a sense of unstoppable motion.

George Gershwin (b. Brooklyn, NY, 1898; d. Hollywood, 1937) first showed an interest in music when in 1910 his father bought an upright piano. He studied piano and composition with Edward Kilenyi, Rubin Goldmark, Henry Cowell, and Joseph Schillinger. He left high school at the age of 15 to work as a song plugger for a popular music publisher. He soon began to compose songs and in 1919 wrote the score for the musical comedy La La Lucille. Also interested in writing concert music, Gershwin composed for string quartet, orchestra and the acclaimed opera Porgy and Bess (1934-35). Gershwin’s style for both his popular and serious works is essentially the same. Strongly influenced by the music of the so-called Jazz Age, his large-scale compositions are seen as extensions of his popular songs.

They are built around catchy tunes, employ evocative harmonies, and often use oom-pah accompaniments.

The instant success accorded to the Rhapsody in Blue catapulted Gershwin to the forefront of American musical life. The work was hurriedly written in response to a commission from conductor Paul Whiteman and his jazz band. Gershwin himself played the piano part for the first performance of the work that took place on February 12, 1924, at New York City’s fashionable Aeolian Hall.

Obviously based on jazz idioms popular during the 1920’s, Gershwin’s loosely structured Rhapsody is widely regarded as one of the clearest landmarks in a path that leads to the development of a truly American musical language, devoid of European influence and formalism.

Next Performance by this Artist Is Spring Right? - Wednesday, March 27 at 7pm Max Lifchitz introduces his recent composition Is Spring Right? for the left hand alone. The program also features works depicting natural phenomena -- light, water, rocks -- written by composers from around the world.

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Created and produced by the University Art Museum, NYS Writers Institute and UAlbany Performing Arts Center in collaboration with WAMC Northeast Public Radio, this popular series features leading figures from a variety of artistic disciplines in conversation about their creative inspirations, their craft and their careers. “Roundtable” host Joe Donahue conducts live on-stage interviews followed by a Q&A with the audience.

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Dayton Contemporary Dance Co October 20 Passion Fruit Dance Co November 4

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Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Co December 2 Photo: Dayton Contemporary Dance Company

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