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William
STALNAKER (b.1921)
1. Preludes and Postludes for Small Orchestra, Book I
Prelude 1 [1:06] Prelude 2 [0:48] Prelude 3 [0:57] Prelude
4 [0:52] Postlude [1:26]
2. First String Quartet [7:28]
3. Second String Quartet (1992?) [9:56]
4. Re Lear: Scenes and Songs for Clarinet and Strings (c.2000)
Edmund [2:18] Fool [2:34] Lear [2:49] Edgar/Tom [2:11] Cordelia [2:30]
5. Re Lear: Scenes and Songs for Clarinet and Strings,
Three Movements transcribed for Solo Cello (2002)
Edmund [3:42] Lear [4:11] Cordelia [3:56]
6. String Symphony (1998) [8:40]
7. Preludes and Postludes for Small Orchestra, Book II:
Prelude 5 [2:37] Prelude 6 [0:46] Prelude 7 [1:03] Prelude 8 [0:40] Postlude
2 [1:25]
Seattle Symphony Orchestra/Gerard
Schwarz (1,4,7); Providence String Quartet (2,3); Richard Stoltzman (clarinet,
4); Sara Stalnaker (cello), Noah Brody (actor)
(5); Czech Radio Symphony Orchestra/Vladimir Valek (6)
rec. Seattle, WA, September 2006 (1,7); Providence, RI, 2007 (2,3); Seattle,
WA, April, 2002 (4); Providence, RI, 2007 (5); April 1999 (6) MMC RECORDINGS
MMC2166 [62:28]
Prior
to receiving this CD I had never heard any of William Stalnaker’s
music, though I had met the name before (see below). He seems
to have made no previous appearance on the pages of MusicWeb
International, so some biographical information (courtesy
of the booklet notes to this CD and a little internet research)
may not go amiss. Stalnaker’s early musical experience was
in the world of dance band music, as a player and an arranger.
After service in World War II he turned his attention towards ‘classical’ music,
studying composition with Walter Piston and Roger Sessions.
He also undertook musicological studies, and wrote a Princeton
Ph.D on early Italian opera – it is in that context that
I have occasionally met his name as a book reviewer and the
like. A player and teacher of the French Horn, Stalnaker
has been both an orchestral musician and an academic, spending
some years as Head of the Music Department at Portland State
university in Oregon until his retirement. Busy as a teacher,
player and composer, the roll call of Stalnaker’s contributions
to musical life is considerable – not least as co-founder
(with violinist Sergio Luca) of the summer festival, Chamber
Music Northwest.
Stalnaker’s
own contribution to the CD booklet makes a general point
about the works recorded here: “In style they adhere to my
persistent belief that the Schönbergian revolution and its
techniques need not limit the true essence of musical experience:
beautiful, expressive sound. A term appropriate to my music,
I believe, is ‘atonal chromaticism.’ It is not strictly ‘12-tone’ music,
although tone rows are often used in the formation of melodies.
The listener will answer questions of expression and beauty”.
For
this listener, at least, such questions can definitely be
answered in the affirmative, as it were: there is much here
that is expressive and, indeed, beautiful. There is a consistent
sense of subtly varied symmetry and balance to Stalnaker’s
writing – a balance actually also in evidence in the way
that he has put the whole CD together. It begins and ends
with four orchestral preludes and an orchestral prelude;
the first set are followed by the First String Quartet, the
second set preceded by the String Symphony, that String Symphony
being a transcription of the Second String Quartet; at the
centre of the CD are two versions of Re Lear, one
for clarinet and strings, one for solo cello (and actor).
The whole might, thus, be represented as a1-x-b1-c1-c2-b2-a2 – a
kind of modified palindrome.
Re
Lear is an impressive central work. Written
around 2000, according to Stalnaker’s booklet notes, Re Lear reflects
Stalnaker’s
interest in Verdi and, in particular Verdi’s planned, but
unwritten operatic version of King Lear. If written
it might well, one assumes have been called Re Lear.
But Stalnaker’s title, in a kind of bilingual pun might
be understood as meaning ‘About Lear’ or ‘With Reference
to Lear’. In the original version for clarinet and strings -
played very winningly by Richard Stoltzman and the Seattle
Symphony Orchestra – we hear purely musical responses to,
music written ‘about’, five speeches from Shakespeare’s
play (necessary references and full texts are provided
in the CD booklet). The writing for clarinet often reflects
the rhythms and phrasing of the texts, without being crudely
mimetic or onomatopoeic; with orchestral writing that complements
and comments upon the dominant solo voice, these are like
(very) miniature concertos and make their own distinctive
and interesting contribution to the genre of Shakespeare
music. The versions, of three of the five pieces, made
for solo cello, are actually prefaced by Noah Brody’s delivery
of the relevant lines. I am not sure that this adds a great
deal, nor why this should be deemed necessary for the cello
versions but not for the clarinet/string orchestra originals.
The cello transcriptions have a power which makes them
well able to speak for themselves and they have a musical
interest by no means wholly dependent on their literary
sources.
The
orchestral preludes (and postludes) which open (and close)
the CD are consistently engaging miniatures, the first set
being apparently written in the 1980s (Stalnaker’s notes
are not very precise where dates are concerned!) for solo
guitar and later orchestrated; the second set came about,
we are told, “in response to a request, several years ago … from
composer and conductor Eric Funk”. Scored for small orchestra
this is music of real subtlety, seeded with possibilities
the listener is largely left to elaborate for himself/herself.
The
writing of Stalnaker’s First String Quartet also seems to
have spanned a period of “many years”, since it was begun
in the 1950s and completed in the 1990s. For all that, it
is a tautly constructed single movement piece, it was first
performed by the Moscow String Quartet in 1994. In three
more or less distinct sections, fast-slow-fast, it packs
a fair emotional range and some satisfying musical structures
in its seven and a half minutes. Though in three movements,
the Second Quartet is also pretty brief – Stalnaker is not,
it seems, a man readily given to the extended working out
of his ideas, or who sees musical virtues in length for its
own sake. This second quartet is dedicated to the memory
of the composer’s son Daniel, who died at the age of 37.
Though there are, naturally, elegiac passages in the work,
the tone is, on the whole, more expressively consolatory
than grievingly indulgent, pleasant memories and love qualifying
the sense of loss. The version for String Orchestra also
works well.
It would be wrong to make excessive claims for
this music, to proclaim Stalnaker a neglected great. But
what can, and should be, said is that on the evidence of
this CD he is a composer whose work deserves a wider hearing,
his music accessible but sophisticated, constantly alert
and skilfully realised.
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