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LITURGICAL SUITE (2004) Op. 69

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Opus number: 69

Title: Liturgical Suite

Commissioned: Carson Cooman and Richard Bunbury

Dedication: to Carson Cooman and Richard Bunbury

Instrumentation: solo organ

Date written: June 2004

Length: ca. 20 minutes

Premiere performance: March 6, 2005, St. Theresa of Avila Parish

Important subsequent performances:

Program notes: My “Liturgical Suite” for Organ, Op. 69 was completed in June of 2004 and was commissioned by and dedicated to two organists: Carson Cooman and Richard Bunbury. The work is in seven movements and is designed to be both a recital piece and a functional part of a church service.

The movements are: Processional, Fugue, Toccata, “Wayfaring Stranger,” Gigue, Pastorale, and Postlude. The whole work is a kind of arch form which frames the central variations on the religious folk song “I am a poor wayfaring stranger.” Some of these movements contain repeats that allow them to be extended as the occasion requires. In addition, each piece contains general registration recommendations that were graciously suggested by the commissioning organists.

Reviews: (performances) (recordings)

Excerpt: Litugical Suite (Coming soon!)

PIANO ETUDES (Book 1)  (2010) Op. 109

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Opus number: op. 109

Title: Piano Etudes (Book 1)

  1. Veloce
  2. Doloroso, con rubato
  3. Scherzando
  4. Vivace
  5. Andante cantabile
  6. Risoluto
  7. Agitato
  8. Andante con moto
  9. Semplice
  10. Allegro con fuoco
  11. Allegro
  12. Decisivo

Written for: Angel Ramon Rivera

Date written: 2010

Length: 25 minutes

Premiere Performance: NEC’s Contemporary Festival, Today’s Youth Plays Today’s Music, January, 2011, Students of A. Ramon Rivera.

Subsequent performances: May 19, 2011, Jonathan Bass in Brown Hall at New England Conservatory, Boston, Piano Etudes nos. 8, 10, 11, & 12

Program notes: Piano Etudes, Op. 109, are twelve etudes for piano that were first performed by Angel Ramon Rivera’s piano seminar in 2010 for NEC’s annual “Today’s Youth Plays Today’s Music.” Later in 2010 pianist Jonathan Bass played the four of the etudes on a recital in NEC’s Brown Hall.

THE BLACK CAT (1987) Op.28

Piano Score $25.00
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Cello + Narrator part $10.00
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Opus number: 28

Title: The Black Cat

Instrumentation: narrator, cello, piano (text by Edgar Allan Poe)

Date written: 1987, Viriginia Center for the Creative Arts

Length: twenty-one minutes

Commissioner and dedicatee: Eric Bartlett

Premiere performance:  Eric Bartlett, cellist, Wu Han, pianist, Larry Bell, narrator, April 1988, 92nd St. YMHA, New York City

Important subsequent performances: Eric Bartlett, cellist, Wu Han, pianist, Larry Bell, narrator, Longy School, Boston, 1988; Andrés Díaz, cellist, Michael Dewart, pianist, Steven McConnell, narrator, March 5, 1991, Boston Conservatory; Harry Clark, cellist, Sanda Schuldmann, pianist, Robert J. Lurtsema, narrator, Chamber Music Plus, Hartford, Conn., October 27, 1991; Eric Bartlett, cellist, Larry Bell, pianist, Robert J. Lurtsema, narrator, April 10, 1998, Boston Conservatory

Recordings: Eric Bartlett, cellist, Larry Bell, pianist, Robert J. Lurtsema, narrator, North/South Recordings #1018; tapes of two performances at The Boston Conservatory library, McConnell, Díaz, Dewart, and Lurtsema, Barteltt, Bell.

Program notes: “The Black Cat” harkens back to the monodrama made popular in the nineteenth century by Franz Liszt’s melodramas such as Der Traurige Monch. Richard Strauss’s later monodrama Enoch Arden, recorded by Claude Reins and Glenn Gould, helped inspire my ghost-story setting of Edgar Allan Poe’s familiar tale of murder and madness.

I augment the monodrama’s typical narrator-and-piano instrumentation to include a cello. The cello represents the cat; the piano portrays the man telling the story and also sets the climate for the individual scenes. The cello has its own leitmotifs, for example, the tri-tone glissando that mimics a “meow” similar to the effect found in Ravel’s animal opera. The music is based on the opening melody in G-sharp minor (frequently necessitating the F double-sharp scull-and-crossbones on the page). Although the narrator’s part is not notated musically, I carefully connected the words with the accompanying music. Poe’s characteristic blend of the horrible and the ordinary is not without moments of humor–after all, a grown man is driven crazy by an innocent small animal!

            The Black Cat (1987) was commissioned by and is dedicated to cellist Eric Bartlett, who, along with the composer, is a cat lover.

Reviews: [performance] “In reviving an outmoded and melodramatic 19th-century form, the composer assiduously avoided sticking tongue in cheek, writing into the music a  torrent of kitschy effects that Liszt himself might have appreciated. A rising tri-tone glissando on the  cello simulated the cat’s meow, for example, and the pianist (Wu Han) played tremolos and arpeggios to indicate the narrator’s increasing distress.” –Michael Kimmelman, The New York Times (May 1, 1988)

[recording] “Could the melodrama be coming back?  . . . Larry Bell’s The Black Cat sets Edgar Allan Poe’s famous tale of a man driven to insanity by the presence of first his own black cat, which he kills, and its replacement. The latter disrupts his already perilous hold on sanity, and, after driving him to murder his wife, manages to reveal the presence of the corpse to the authorities. The narrator tell[s] his tale while awaiting hanging for the murder. Bell gives the character of the cat to the cello, making much use of the instrument’s capacity for a variety of other-worldly effects, while the piano portrays the narrator as well as setting the scene. It is a very effective work. Perhaps the highest compliment that one can pay is that the music adds to the power and effectiveness of Robert J. Lurtsema’s narration (Lurtsema is the voice of WGBH Boston and is thus familiar to all fans of public televsion.)

“. . . The performances center around Eric Bartlett, a member of the New York Philharmonic and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The recorded sound is very good. This is a fine release.” –John Story, Fanfare May/June 1999

“Larry Bell, who holds the doctorate from Juilliard, has won a long list of prizes and grants, and teaches at the New England Conservatory. This disc offers four compositions which differ widely in mood and performing forces. The Black Cat, a monodrama, is an adaptation of a horror story by Edgar Allan Poe. A narrator relates the tale, ‘the cello represents the cat; the piano portrays the man telling the story and also sets the climate for the individual scenes’ in which ‘a grown man is driven crazy by an innocent small animal’ (liner notes) . . .

“The music once again combines traditional and modern sounds–an intriguing and satisfying union. The performances are first-rate (Bartlett is Acting Associate Principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic). It is exciting to find new and rewarding literature for cello!” –Jocelyn Mackey, Pan Pipes Fall 1999

The last work is a melodrama for narrator, cello and piano based on Poe’s taleThe Black Cat which the composer quite efficiently adapted from the original, leaving out many of the asides and thus tightening the narration. The cello represents the cat whose ‘meow’ is aptly stylised by a glissando, whereas the piano represents the narrator and sets the scene of the various episodes of the story. A superbly written and highly entertaining piece well worth a hearing. -Hubert Culot, MusicWeb.uk (Jan. 2003)

MAHLER IN BLUE LIGHT (1996) Op.43     

$25.00 score, sax and cello parts, $5.00 each
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clarinet part, $5.00
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Opus number: 43

Title: Mahler in Blue Light

Instrumentation: alto saxophone, cello, piano; also arranged for clarinet, cello, and piano

Date written: June 1996, Boston

Length: twenty-two minutes

Commissioner: World-Wide Concurrent Commissions and Premieres

Premiere performances: Ken Radnofsky, saxophone, Pamela Frame, cello, and Larry Bell, piano, December 8, 1996, Jordan Hall, Boston. Members of the World-Wide Commissions and Premieres, thrity-five commissioning ensembles

Clarinet version: North/South Consonance, Richard Goldsmith, clarinet, Jonas Tauber, cello, Max Lifchitz, pianist. May 23, 1999, Christ and St. Stephen’s Church, New York

Important subsequent performances: March 13, 1997, Ken Radnofsky, saxophone, Pamela Frame, cello, and Larry Bell, piano, World-Wide Web Live broadcast sponsored by BBN, WGBH-FM, the National Schools Network, and New England Conservatory; Ken Radnofsky, saxophone, Pamela Frame, cello, and Larry Bell, piano; Valencia, Spain, September 30, 1998 International Saxophone Congress; January 6, 2002, Ken Radnofsky, saxophone, Eric Bartlett, cello, and Larry Bell, piano, New England Conservatory; January 17, 2002, Ken Radnofsky, saxophone, Eric Bartlett, cello, and Larry Bell, piano, Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.

Recordings: CD by Russell Peterson, alto saxophone, Dougland Schneider, piano, Diane Tremaine, cello, “American Breath” Barking Dog Records. Recorded March 13, 1997, at WGBH-FM Boston, premiere performers; tape at New England Conservatory library of Radnofsky Jordon Hall performance

 

Program notes:

I. Fantasy and Fugue

II. Intermezzo

III. Variations on a Theme by Mahler

IV. Rondo Finale

“Mahler in Blue Light” was completed in June of 1996 for a commission by World-Wide Concurrent Premieres and Commissioning Fund, Inc. Kenneth Radnofsky, the executive director, suggested the instrumentation and facilitated dozens of simultaneous premieres on December 8, 1996.

“Mahler in Blue Light” opens in the altissimo range with the highest note of the piece, concert F. This striking gesture returns at the end of the Fantasy, just before the introduction of the fugue; in the third movement prior to the introduction of the quote; and in the last movement before the coda.

All four movements are an elaborate passacaglia (variations on a chord progression) based on a twenty-seven-bar instrumental fragment from “Der Abschied” movement of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. The only time the fragment appears in its original form here is toward the end of the third movement, called “Variations on a Theme by Mahler.” My goal was to present the quoted material in a stylistically seamless fashion, so much so that if you did not know the original beforehand, you would not recognize it as a quote here.

The “Abschied” theme used as the basis of these variations consists of a chord progression whose principal bass notes are Bb, Cb, G, Ab, and F. These same notes are also a melody (one Mahler did not write) that acts as a original cantus firmus in each of these movements. It is also my fugue subject. The compositional objective was to make something new out of something old. I thought of this piece as my own portrait of Mahler’s music seen through the saxophone’s blue color.

Review of first WGBH webcast:

Score, New England Conservatory News
Volume 11, Number 14
March 24, 1997

NEC Musicians in Cyberspace
by Evelyne Tiersky

March 13, 12:20 p.m. At WGBH 89.7 FM’s studios, the Sumner Gerstein Theater is packed. Feels like Election Night at Studio Central. A cyberspace music premiere is about to happen. NEC saxophone faculty Kenneth Radnofsky with pianist/composer Larry Thomas Bell (of NEC’s Extension Division faculty) and cellist Pamela Frame are preparing to perform live with “Classical Performances” host Richard Knisely as part of MOTET, an innovative live cyber performance initiative to teach music appreciation. Larry Bell’s Mabler in Blue Light received its world premiere at NEC’s Jordan Hall in December, and is about to be re-premiered on the Internet. Carried live on WBGH radio locally, the performance is also being broadcast live to National School Network Exchange schools and a worldwide audience on the Internet at nsn.bbn.com using Real Audio TM technology and desktop videoconferencing.

12:45 p.m. Cables everywhere, computers, telephones, photographers, a television crew, lights, action! Projected on a large screen from one of the four computer terminals, the performance, coming live from the studio across the street, unfolds in its multimedia form. Pictures in evolution, images in constant resolution, the focus shifts between the three performers. In small inset frame on the blown-up screen, Richard Kindly listens in through headphones, and concludes this special edition of “Classical Performances” by inviting listeners to tune in now on the Internet.

1:15 p.m. The performers have now re-entered real space and joined us in the theater to conduct the live online chat with students of the 20 National School Network Exchange schools. One by one, schools are now “coming in” to the virtual classroom, from Campbell Drive Florida, to the Rundle School in Massachusetts, with schools in Connecticut, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, California, D.C., Arkansas, New Jersey. One school in Germany is listening!

1:25 p.m. Close-ups on younger kids and teenagers as they approach the microphone or keyboard. Questions are pouring in, ranging from “were you pressured by your parents to study music?” to “how and why did you choose the saxophone?” More pointed questions turn to the structure of the piece and what mouthpiece to use.
Answers are immediate, instantaneously typed in (on the ichat line) or spoken through a microphone (on CuSeeMe): candid, direct, always encouraging. “At school they gave me the sax because I liked the color and it fit my buck teeth.” “We’re always looking to reach new audiences in all possible venues and mediums.”
“Perhaps this is the way we will hear live concerts in the future,” concludes Larry Bell. He hopes this enterprise will help put more emphasis on music in public schools, as “there is always the problem of whether we can afford to teach music in the schools, but people in politics and education have no trouble justifying the technology.”