22nd Annual Composers' Conference at Bennington College, Vermont (Summer, 1967)

as her that you think we ought to explain something about what the bennington composers conference is i really like says we're going to be hearing the music of some eight selected composers from last year's conference and i think my vision was in the background i think it's a good idea in the bennington composers conference as we both know started some twenty odd years ago inspiration of the founders and every summer in august the middle two weeks of all this great composers conference has met over last twenty odd years and the established kind of fascinating two week period were younger composers or professional composers and that he is would get together for two intensive weeks of music making

the kind of intriguing and exciting experience for both the composes both level of composers certainly one of the things that is fascinating about bennington is that there's been a constant changing of composers in residence source that composers over the over the years we were there last summer we'll be there again this summer to continue the over to lebanon we should also mention that the faculty is made up of a very excellent professional instrumentalists that are engaged in several houses one of course is and playing piano contemporary music that is brought up by that the composers who were there and also in a coaching another

part of the conference which is that instrumentalists so and the tour bus my professional will come up the study with some of these are very excellent job performers are already are faculty for the center for the people and just and senate next fall apart of course it's him and charlie mitchell paulo kramer is not but it certainly i have a great group of musicians who are totally involved with his two week period in experimenting and working with the composer isn't in their in their pieces in that chamber works it was an extraordinary experience to see the kind of rapport that existed between the musician and the composer's this past summer yeah so i think that that may

have fun but because of the particular way that you and i decided to unveil the situation dan composers in residence along and where we decide to actually do it bring the performer and a composer togethers much as possible rather than palm to allow them to exist in a sense begin in a separate air but legal cancer and a lot of it's possible we might try to do to recount that gould davis such a thing as a typical day in the way we proceeded from morning into the into the wee hours of the night you might be caught on and so it was a forty eight hour days the offer two week period writer and their vote on i still remember that did it in spite of the year a tremendous amount of

hard work involved or that there was involvement on the part of both the composer and performer and an excitement that came out of the performance or some of which of course were going to hear today is to level both the composition and the the way the performers were able to work them up quite extraordinary and short space of time that they have the cause of the as you know some of the words have great complexity to it and a very challenging in need direction that many of them pose is ongoing and this of course was so exciting to both of us to see an election that many of the young composers are are involved in these days that's i think an accessible as a noise because of a manager for you that this was a very educating to me to do the embassy worked really amounted to a cross section

of younger composers in general younger that there we were on you know many different parts of the country and see what was there as the directions were saying the year in nineteen sixty seven well in a sense we're responsible for because i can recall the days that we spent in your home reviewing oh sixty seven beyond applications of each composing submitting anywhere from three to half a dozen scores from all over the country from canada from los angeles from texas just a cross section of all of the land and how we can move on a decision of reaching for all the wine and disproved level of compositional style or hopeful hopefully in under the highest professional caliber two are we we felt in fact that this kind of cross section would lead to a stimulating social among the composers as well

as for us and and that says write a joke as another part of the way we're around the conference as for the young composers thought was to have meetings couple times a week where we sat around and talked with the composer's about all directions and music and performing problems the course they'll still have to get them and discuss the brunt of publishing at really pregnant practical problems for composers that age to be thinking about for the future and it turned out as i recall to have great to flow of fire discussion what the vote was time and time again the confrontation between calls or was great

rich ross reality on the part of the young composes and of course i think we should put quotes on on the phrase young that i don't think we should give the wrong impression of these composers many of them were in the nineteen thirties many of the men have a very good positions in colleges and universities others are somewhat younger and just out of college but i don't think that this entered into our decision as to what we were looking for a level just general rage low chuckle was i think not quite our generation that but that you actually write that certainly all so young money involved and the one common denominator we found among all the composers the one great frustration is at this moment in their

careers they have yet to make it in the other the way a hard hearts makes it in his confession one of the constant once were when we would get together and have sessions late into the night at once what we got away from compositional procedures and how to light for various combinations we when we talked about it bread and butter of composition this frustration and had a breakout moment somehow involve a career this was i think the main one common denominator the bound all of them together with us is that also i just would like to say something about the different directions that i was able to notice and the

scores that we get that it seemed like there was quite a wide range all esthetic direction in the group as i saw it and the people were trial an experimental techniques and and of course their words there were some who were working and we're basically not experimental technique that so i think in the problems is is that we have there were there are new musical instincts that are at i think that they are interesting to me was that when you think of our be on guard that term you know you think a new associate primarily by the same with some of the larger centers in this country at the west coast

practical wisdom in the us army and then here we're people not necessarily from those areas that are good very good coverage different places in the country and young composers and then using that term again but it sounds actually younger ones were into these techniques even then i thought of a fresh way necessarily a year an intellectual eyes constantly write i thought the reviews some of the techniques to intuitively there's no question that the overall feeling that i got is that there was a breaking away from what as doctrinaire there is a reaction against the surging for know that they have this quality of change and we feel everywhere says phelps is much among these composes this to me is of course

very challenging much of what they were involved in thinking was so highly experimental even for them to and yet they were they were extremely articulate in the area that they were going into one of the great things i think again about bank and was it that this provided a sounding board or was crying out for the opportunity to fail well this was an opportunity to fail as well succeed without the stigma of anything else but work in progress attached to the way to compose was going in many instances i can think that the very fact of the music which was in the composer's gone put down on paper at this moment translated to la nave actual performing problems the great deal to clarify here in the minds of the composers how to perceive the direction of a one to go is to make

them using viable and yet there were some really good and they're going to have control and part of this experimental idea and then i listen to a couple of peace today with that when it turned this country was read and discuss whether common they can while i was served leading up to to the thought that oh this is mrs quite impressive to me are that arm i can without going in a generation porcelain see this amount of thick knee with the composer of the users ages were not be the what seemed to be fur for normal that's my impression argue there isn't there's a definite increase soon be indicated

by this music and then technical control center and jeremy's kelly yes i think that if anything we own the future of the american composer's demonstrate about what we saw last summer's very encouraging very helpful to me companies they've all the craftsmanship and it was quite extraordinary in many instances but in many years might be a good idea to let's listen to some music says about time the first issue isn't and then will be the cinema or violin and piano and three movements by crime and pepe the performers are max polakoff violin and see the connell family in

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oh geez mr wayne they are it's b that was the sonata for violin and piano in three movements by common pepe and max polakoff with the violinist visited cairo was the guest as i listened to the work again i couldn't help thinking about

where was before which is i wish i was feel and how to describe the scene it's in a converted big old barn carried on quite live acoustical show if you will and the community descends upon these concerts and has a little balcony which goes around the entire frame of the carriage house and the kids generally convergent all around the room and dangle their feet over the railing and you may have heard one or two little squeaks and during the performance but that kind of presents a charming intensely wonderful way to listen the contemporary music though we were narrow anyway but that the sonata obviously you can you can fail and

in the place where the more you're here if one were to look at say the mainstream music is coming through your pain tradition they use of ostinato use it thematic developments the use of driving rhythmic propose show proportion these are all elements that his involvement this time column i've heard i was trapped in hear it again by the year in the improv as a tory affect some of the writing even though it is in most cases it in the last moment that there's not improvising all strictly conceived the atm the the attempt to capture the effect of

improvisation you know why is one which appeals to me and it's that good sort of it is odd say generally the romantic families that word approach to and in music where they're in where you get a definite is doing with an emotional level which has intensified and i think very musical way this quality of improvised tory there is built into the piece it actually uses the word robot over and over again their yes kind of stress and strange entities that have been floated cut goes on many levels throughout throughout the work and this helps get this improvisational qualities that kind of

carries throughout the work i think that that is also involved in trying to communicate to a large audience directly he wants his audience to be involved with the piece on the spot there is intellectual ization of no doubt about in the manipulation of thematic device but he's involved in trying to reach an audience right from the beginning and this is also part of his profile of this war iii from india where the person to pose very warm person gets be involved in the government brought in and excited about some discussions with directions yeah i i think that this is a very a interesting kind of personally itching for a composer and it was rare about the work also has that was not extend it was concise a measure many

times the composer working in the city and it's all overblown kind of wanders and he's reaching for a climax upon climax common certainly was very astute in the end bringing driving home his point and what was its over seven minutes it was a very successful and succinct wear the sweater vest the next piece that we listened to is a piece by george todd voice and a group of chambers tunes called the returned and the conductor in this piece is battling tb and the soloist is antonio did you choose

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hours it's b that was the return by georgetown the soloist was antonio move on the conduct roots or from

digging i promise to be a very sensitive delicate peace again quite short don't know what is the point this as a as an overall description of the kind of the textures the come ons very chamber sure jimmy light and texture an iphone mahmoud says that interest me about is in amman of intensity that comes on he's even though the textures are extremely light only through why forty year as you do i felt the intensity was and this i think it's a rather challenging thing for a composer to attempt to pull

off and that is to pass in a short space of time without having you feel any kind of identity really early the composer or what he is saying all the words or the protagonist in this case being the soloist to respond emotionally to what it what becomes a very intense moment midway through the piece before tapers off this is a terribly difficult work through for an audience too captured first hearing and thats the sort of thing which if one he has over prove taunt years again and again and knows the direction of the pieces going and knows what is in store for you that then it becomes that much more successful than new orleans the anthem even the layman you point it's very difficult to be caught up into the world of composers and

without being prepared for it in such a short space of time and this i think is at a very challenging thing that george taught presented a hint in the work and i think that again the fact that it's brief and many of the works were going to be and the many works were performed and studied and worked again had this is not a generality and we can walk we can find in any of that examples to the contrary but rubbery for concise where you didn't dwell interminably on the move forward economically in with dispatch i found this to be very positive sign among many others yes it's a lawyer and no reference to georgetown space near the terms they've been asked to do with brody is use very often describing certain kind of intense sharp these

incredible struggle with the dancing and all the internet and it wasn't and so adam ewing into to get to athens refresh your would not would not reject the faculty the lines and so historically in that whole area is his idol isn't the us citizen at the time the vagrants post a room type of approach you're very very patient and to that extent you know and certain characters equality while listening to adjust our thinking how this piece would come off of that had been sung in german translation well i think perhaps so

we should move on to the next piece which is the day before a much larger group of instruments surveyed violent and thirteen instrument very rigid moral and they're in this please max polakoff of this source violent and they're from the ganges the conductor today

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racist views ha ha ha we just heard the serenade for a while and thirteen instrument by richard mauro with max bought off while an ad from geeky the conductor and i'd like to mention the instrumentalists who participated oh they will call craig the flu mountain cabin oboe allen boosting clarinet maurice parchman bassoon thomas listen the trumpet held at richmond friend shawn j sherman trombone george grossman they'll joel krosnick cho david walton bass robert noa piano and warns mackenzie to cornell

percussion the composer has made a statement about the work which i'd like to read serenade was written as a vehicle for the violin with a rather free sounding orchestral accompaniment there are number of sections in a controlled kind of improvisation in both the orchestra and so violent that work as a no meter and is written in a quasi proportional notation the composer's tried to involve a performer who has for centuries sat in his seat beating his feet to the music the violin itself is at times treated on was traditionally especially in the final condenser mic strip style if there is any does not and composers might create any aesthetic problems this work is a kind of small concerto unravel loose framework so says tomorrow i'll nine it was

really interesting pieces to watch in rehearsal for me the in use of it calls a proportional allocation for instance which version yeah cause a lot of confusion with the performers all rodent very soon adjusted himself as i recall this was an stood marjorie much what there was was to do within the b evans giving them that there's been a lot more freedom than they thought they had and the group of north was placed somewhere near the beginning that said the dotted line with the downbeat and they were in the middle somewhere before the next beat him down or your movie and accordingly unknown

unknown very short time why i thought that the finance temple west of the piece so itself quite a lot of performers know they began to get a very interesting interesting kind of ensemble were set up between each other losers use it were a composer solve the situation of getting on the launch of sound which would be absolutely impossible for a composer to write out specifically in this for each day in the freedom that he you know terry that became very possible for the winds to before most complex kind of sound and with a certain amount of intuition and sense across her or do you can't win here is improvisation and then the half i control the time to get

out of a performer at an articulation of a feeling that there weren't come out quite the same way or fallen not have been written now specifically if they can manage passion for performer consequence they understood it's something individual inflation which created on the roof of the law's effect on my my reaction go to the location of the law on their side of that long sustained piano chord at one point near the end of the piece would've made a good ending marijuana is now understand that you know somebody richard visited made during the winter brought the

edited scored and he's deleted some four minutes from the work which now runs all of that a good deal shorter in fact he didn't remove from the un and from the convention and he felt as a result of the performance he did not expect to work to last as long as it lasted remember in china this was a great surprise to him he felt that the work we would've gone on and i think part of the problem is that the violin certainly in the way he composed for it is a romantic instrument and it stretches and the concerns is all very free yes that was the sound continues and it almost fights against though although the composer says that there is no static problem i don't know that you can feel the same way about it today as he did before we actually first heard the work and perhaps he doesn't know but there is that ah boom of dealing with the violin as a protagonist and work of this kind where the instrumental ensemble is

certainly anti romantic in every in every in every way and let him what they planned how they play in the manner in which they play and against that juxtapose against that we have this soaring lyrical predominantly lyrical line of the violin undulating in an album around the above us complex an argument that goes with it now i find it puzzling with the same time i wonder as a composer is happy with this so with the sound i don't know if it's i wonder if you do if his latest work which apps is a continuation of the direction that he's going might not strike a different quality of sound are going on down here the issues say beyond the technique of the resilient portion of new orleans one of the experiment techniques to come on the post labor

group of european composers once again did not hear are really is a self conscious and going what's causing in music which would make it derived from any particular leaders go on longer school that was wanting me to in richmond where i think the me perfectly right the notation is what is so up to date with the quality of the job the sound only what literally came the direction of the composer for the flow of the music or was i think very very readable in here a born communicator will instantly again about a romantic while you know i really don't

in in terms of texture and this is truly inventive in many places but they either basic sounds were or were not higher shelves in general all have been tensions tend to be quieter and easy on the ear two virtuoso climaxes the texture was a very delicate texture very own some do and certain enrichment which was a management quality and the next work of the woodwind quintet by david saperstein it's in three movement allegro and our show fargo the final allegro and it's performed by the culprit of the flu well charles

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liz you just heard the wind quintet by david saperstein performers recall kramer fruit nolan kaplan vogel charles russo clarinet maurice hochman the soon albert richmond french horn and this is a peace suddenly the youngest call it was kind of startling nineteen sixty two or three through seventeen or eighteen years and you know i think it's quite

impressive jordan technique it struck me was that the villagers enjoyed the work anita lo bees and b plots in the elbow didn't seem to bother her worst gone on season one and more those things they normally have generated forms of course it is you know the movie's based on this and they have been living here or not if i did not know certainly the last movement that i did not know that this was a variant of the original twelve tone row

would never dreamed that the work out a twelve tone orientation to it it is so more propelled him ostinato seven it's using the twelve tone row and away that belies schoenberg says the principles of throat sound system but and and composes online and the response to it while imminent sense when i knew what i hear is a technique might call from being used but that the vertical sounds i'm really i'm sorry very repetitious and homilies were heard of the very cool sound very harsh and on that they're they own they tend to be in general early dylan for what is possible and working with the problem to me

is that it seems to me that that i've heard that in some cases so far and it was a male characteristic i care when they come there is a common condition and brassy it does indicate something about what we have discussed earlier about the euro group of american composers from various parts of the country that are hearing things in certain way and then i don't want to make it in beyond that if a concern right and it's not that they're not concerned with lyrical sound of the sound of the precise and they certainly are very very seriously involved with the progressive sounds as as it occurs at that particular moment you

need the works about a loosely defined format are still very much involved and the precise sound of the moment and it's the sounds that they are involved in making i think over an ornate even in the works were we were still to hear the sounds are our own with one or two exceptions specially when will the shock value is not their unpleasant sense agreeable sounds bland might be a harsh word but it may be justified sounds that don't have a new well is examine the sounds that don't cut you down stringent that allowing new kind of stringency can get from using road techniques imperative that this very vertical results until

what is needed to have abandoned them this is the result on another thing that this work as well as the other words what we heard and we will be hearing is that that seems the most part to be yeah a moving away from a comfortable and when you're writing voices against each other of any kind of extended extended length there that they're not involved in this any longer most of us are just they're moving away from that is that the general petraeus write most of your own perhaps of that would be at the verb all i think we could move on to the next phase which is sonata for cello and piano bar a common word in two parts andante allegro

the performers are joel krosnick on cello in the pecan p l o r atlanta whoa

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are in june hannon in a row you are

what you just heard the sonata for cello

and piano by common more reforms would you'll cause the cello mcconnell right now are the composer has provided a statement about the work which in addition to read on in part it says the saudis and two parts the first thing on donkey and functioning form way to present the trio which has developed an extreme pitch tension during the second movement the first moments of listlessness and polish are in marked contrast to the jagged an overstatement of the second movement which may be considered a parody of romanticism is that laster remarkable to you and if it does because without the statement from the composers attention and i would love for one know that it was intended to be a parody of it and i would've thought it was the

continuation of them in a post romantic style the composer expressing himself in the city might in one instant think of that as anything less than serious but that in itself is that an amazing thing that the composer was conscious of what he was doing of overstating them and by doing that harding an aesthetic but it at the same time he would be voting for it serves as a result i think here again we have a word that is its brevity makes it all the more welcome because he states his case moves on at the same time one of the qualities kong would be used to me is one of the ones to linger and loves to caress his material enough to stay with it for a while and then this move with him ever so gently before going on syria as it's hardly

uncommon ability to create mood and a vote a sense of space and time this is i think something that i actually look forward to in the works that it's going now open to new more i agree on it is the person oh well i have known him for some time i find that his music in one sense it works is a person going into very warm but very even know that was so you're talking about qualities which i'm known as a person and i also see indian music that is no reading art i should make a remark know about the second movement of his work particularly that mean you're known earlier work that is there's a very

big piano sonata and which was one of the first works of hers where you really broke out and really became a composer i am in a very eyes eons tumultuous and too much of everything but very exciting kind of peace you can grasp the two of them had that turned it it seems that after having worked this coffee's out that he has then began to work towards control of this part of churchill and so then i hear him in the development of that kind of control but having cut down tremendously romo is a regional approach and that

also grant monies that remark parody of romanticism and will they be built and we did well i think that the notion that the party room and we used the word they are not parents romanticism a number of times and looking for the direction of many these composers seemed to be going without themselves perhaps knowing it or are willing to admit it we see being away from the music now some six or so months feel as smaller strongly than other and we felt at the time that this girl reaction against romanticism which in american musical a number of years seems to be in many ways with many of the young composers coming to an end and we're seeing lots more of a response to the desire to

communicate the desire to feel and the list the characteristics the musical characteristics of the family farm in romanticism is a lot large line these sweeping phrase we find certainly in common what was then many the other words we listen to visiting with it felt so interesting that even though he made a remark about the imperative was to something especially parliament controlled undercut the exodus out of the idea of course the next work we're going to hear is a string trio by stephen dickman performed by

joan berman and as lynch rosenbaum in

germany we were right in now mm hmm he's big

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aha you just heard a string trio by stephen dickman i would like to make a correction in the listing of performers as previously announced the violinist was next polakoff in his range of yours and p rosenfeld the cellist are who are we were discussing as the piece is being played the kind of approach that to steve in the winter when writing this piece op uses various kinds of sterilization in organizing this piece around

an f sharp and now in and in using various neural pattern has a the villages are built in confinement when he allows himself to do harm and my impression is that in general he has been successful in solving this problem working within limits at the same time agree with that construction is there is a very confining one of working within that orbit but also in doing that he is in a sense redefining in searching for a tonal centers it's it's a work that so this song dude with one particular note that of an actual that although there is no sense of key and there's really no there isn't a sense of tonality

in the established sense it isn't the searching for the tonal center is the organizing aspect of the work of this is the thing that binds the work together the sinews keep this thing and of course it's what the composer is involved and it's what gives him the ability to or to write this piece this was this is is called toy wanted to even that when my as i recall now if you do around us some of them actually just a note that have sharp itself is important i am organizing imagine nuclear deal we'll keep reiterating a single note over a period of time and then after a while you can go and on that note no becomes a center that's right and aren't

i also think that there's a certain interesting result that does come out confining itself to pre determined conditions of this kind and it certainly is a development which is characteristic nancy in one branch of experimental music art is not neutral although mr lansky for years before sir things became a sort of you know general technique was constantly setting yourself are restrictions on climate and other things to stay it becomes a puzzle for the composer to solve and for that too

following his liberation within the confines of the year the area that he's allowed himself and this place is greater demands upon composes imagination and forces them to make use of higher and higher areas of compositional techniques and dignity if one wants to make the peace meaningful because in the last analysis is going to get off the drawing board is going to be heard and it's either going to be people listening to composer astor the eventual you know where the final destination of the music i think that this particular stephen is very successful it has those elements that carries himself to an audience so they eventually won the peace finally did get performed the intellectual ization which is a very carefully worked out how to

for that moment of time withdrawn am the music speaks for itself so interesting that in their commentary is that it ends with a sense that peace is intensely romantic emotional content and leon says and i know him all agreed on that in his nature and partly what youre talking about what comes across the next piece is the city of jakarta by joseph apart and performers are j sherman trombone and see the carnal and go it's b

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for you just turn the final we're consuming program to cuddle puddles of rock performers were jane sherman trombone and see the car now panel and document it say something photos of art you the younger composers newer it attracted me on that that actually chills of otters was one of the older people there and so forth white razors of alaskans for the unknown and the mature and professional composer many works and then present those particular case i think of a direct professional profession that's gone

without using the word professional as the new york times does it has a slight did that certainly don't mean it that way so he is to me this is a piece which a crashes at a typical of the things that we heard today at this un indian thousand and more of a long line the more of a tone you certainly certainly very secure in himself was how a peace should fit together really knows what he's doing every inch along the way and if one had he is in dallas from certain affinity to bar top quotes them in the couplings in the use of the year the third day that my third the major thirty moto moto potion the kind of excitement and it's very it's so part of his technique and they're also

again somewhat removed from many of the other direction of the other composer's there are elements of the metal stravinsky in his music but he makes it into his own question about whether other works of art is that we heard this past summer certainly bear this out that moves with his own voice using certain stations of the techniques of those two composers is a time in reaching the end and you will let us remind everybody that once again god willing this august eleven through twenty four there will be another composer session at bennington the horror to myself all the residents and certainly for those of the wall or in the area near the area we welcome you to come to the concerts that are held regularly in the evening

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