20,000 vinyl LPs 193: Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music

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Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music
vinyl LP front cover detail
sketch by Rodolfo Dei
detail photo by Styrous®

         

Yesterday was the birthday of the Polish composer, Roman Ryterband who was born in Łódź, Poland on 2 August, 1914, to a well to do family of lawyers and musicians. By the age of 12, he was composing music and was encouraged by Alexander Glazunov to pursue a musical career; he performed as a pianist in Łódź and Warsaw during the mid-1930s.           

Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music

vinyl LP front cover
sketch by Rodolfo Dei

photo by Styrous®

Touring Western Europe on the eve of World War II, Ryterband was able to board the last train to Switzerland, where he took refuge and worked as a manual laborer alongside other wartime foreigners interned on Swiss territory until the mid-1950s. Except for his sister and her son, his entire family perished in the Holocaust.         

He completed his PhD studies of musicology at the University of Berne, indulging his passion for studying different languages and cultures, and conducting an extensive research of Slavic, Swiss, Italian, Brazilian, Indian, and Negro folk music traditions. They inspired Ryterband to write a number of works utilizing various native idioms as well as author and deliver numerous lectures and articles on indigenous music traditions throughout his life. 

Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music

vinyl LP back cover

photo by Styrous®

 

His music represents a cross-pollination of early twentieth century modernists like Debussy and Britten with folk elements present in the works of Bartok, Copland, or Kodaly. Although his career as a composer began with a few short piano works and some popular songs in Poland in the late 1930s, Ryterband came into his own during the World War II years spent in Switzerland. There he completed several large-scale solo piano cycles (24 Variations on a Folk Song, Suite Polonaise, and Three Preludes) and a number of solo and chamber works for harp (Two Images, Sonata for Harp and Two Flutes, Sonata breve and Trois Ballades Hébraïques), as well as many vocal works, choral cantatas and compositions for saxophone and piano.        

Trois Ballades Hébraïques sheet music

Almost forty years after his death, Ryterband’s music remains largely unknown, especially in his native Poland, perhaps because he spent most of his creative life abroad.       

Although most of his catalog is represented by chamber music (often in interesting combinations of instruments), Ryterband also penned a few large-scale orchestral works, including Jubilate Deo for soloists, orchestra, organ and men’s and boys’ choirs (1949), symphonic poems Vida Heroica (1953) and Russian Rhapsody (1962), as well as orchestral ballet music Tableaux of Laguna (1976) and Heracles and the Argonauts (1978).

Heracles and the Argonauts 

Folk and religious music add further diversity to Roman Ryterband’s opus with such entries as Three Hebrew Songs for voice and piano (1938), Song of the Slavonic Plains for violin and piano (1944), Rhapsodia helvetica for trombone and piano (1948), and several songs based on Negro spirituals (The Gospel’s Mah Religion, Yo’ Serbant, So Sing—So Play, Trusty Jim), as well as a number of psalm settings (Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem, Raise Your Heads, O Gates) and settings of traditional texts and poetry in Hebrew, Polish, French and German.      

Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music

vinyl LP back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

 

    
The winner of several awards, including the First Prize at ISCM Chicago in 1961 for Piece sans titre for two flutes, Ryterband also received the Kosciuszko Foundation 1977 Award and a grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities for a work celebrating American Bicentennial celebrations in 1976.            
        
            

   

Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music

vinyl LP label, side 1

photo by Styrous®

   Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music

vinyl LP label, side 2

photo by Styrous®

 

      
Tracklist:

Side 1: 23:16

Sonata Breve for vionlin & harp - 10:02
1 - Allegro agitato 3:03
2 - Adagio pastorale, poi passionato - 3:20
      Vivo e scherzoso - Adagio - 3:39
    Elemér Glanz - Violin, Eva Kauffungen - Harp

3 - Pièce sans Titre for Two Flutes alone - 3:56
    Alexander Magnin, Geoges Guéneux - flutes

    Deux Sonnets for Contralto, Flute & Harp - 9:18
4 - Eroica - 4:43
5 - La Perle 4:45
    Lyn Vernon - Mezzo-Soprano, Alexandre Magnin - Flute, Eva Kauffungen - Harp

Side 2: 20:11

Trois Ballades Hébraïques for Violin & Piano - 11:56
1 - Le Rêveur - 4:19
2 - La Maître Joyeus - 2:35
3 - Berceuse - 5:02
    Elemér Glanz - Violin, Boris Mersson - Piano

    Suite Polonaise for Piano (Three excerpts) - 8:55
4 - Drobny - 3:07
5 - Krakowiak - 2:35
6 - Oberek 3:13
    Boris Mersson - Piano   
    
Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music
Label: Orion Sound, ORS 74167 Stereo
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album
Country: US



      
  
Viewfinder links:           
           
Béla Bartók       
Benjamin Britten      
Claude Debussy         
Alexander Glazunov        
  
Net links:           

Polish Music Center ~ Roman Ryterband     
UCR ~ Talents Revealed in Composer's Concert         
      
YouTube links:           
      
Roman Ryterband ~            
          3 Ballades hébraïques: No. 1. Le Reveur   
          3 Ballades hébraïques: No. 2. Le Maitre Joyeux      
          3 Ballades hébraïques: No. 3. Berceuse                   
          Le Maître Joyeux for violin & harp  
          Sonata breve: I. Allegro agitato       
          Sonata breve: II. Adagio Pastorale - Poi Passionato      
    

      
  
    

      
Styrous® ~ Saturday, August 3, 2019            

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Gunther Schuller articles/mentions

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Gunther Alexander Schuller (November 22, 1925 – June 21, 2015) was an American composer, conductor, horn player, author, historian and jazz musician.        

 

Viewfinder links:    

Gunther Schuller & Third Stream jazz     

 
   

Gunther Schuller 

photographer unknown

mentions:    

Béla Bartók    

Miles Davis       

Eric Dolphy    

Roy Eldridge ~ "Little Jazz" & tritones   

George Gershwin     

Woody Herman       

Paul Klee ~ Dada & Senecio       

Teo Macero         

Charles Mingus          

Maurice Ravel    

Camille Saint-Saëns

    

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Music Notes Articles

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Béla Bartók articles/mentions

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Hector Berlioz ~ The King of Thule       

Blood, Sweat & Tears        

Like "Picasso at the Lapin Agile"        

Roman Ryterband ~ Chamber Music          

Gunther Schuller & Third Stream jazz        

          

             

    

         

       

       
Béla Bartók -1927      
photographer unknown        

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 Music Notes 

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Gunther Schuller & Third Stream jazz

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Third Stream jazz is a term coined in 1957 by composer Gunther Schuller to describe a musical genre that is a synthesis of classical music and jazz.   

After World War II in Europe and the United States there was a period of artistic experimentalism. Like the period in France after the Franco-Prussian War (Impressionism) and in the late 19th century, the pre/post World War I period of (Expressionism), the post World War I period of Modernism was no different with composers trying to 'write music for the sake of music' and not attaching it to a social meaning or meant for a social cause (see Darmstadt School).      

Gunther Schuller 

 photographer unknown 

Schuller insisted that "by definition there is no such thing as 'Third Stream Jazz'".       

He noted that while purists on both sides of Third Stream objected to tainting their favorite music with the other, more strenuous objections were typically made by jazz musicians who felt such efforts were "an assault on their traditions." Schuller wrote that "by designating the music as a 'separate, Third Stream,' the other two mainstreams could go about their way unaffected by the attempts at fusion." Because Third Stream draws on classical as much as jazz, it is generally required that composers and performers be proficient in both genres.      

Critics argued that Third Stream—by drawing on two very different styles—dilutes the power of each in combining them. Others reject such notions, and consider Third Stream an interesting musical development.      

In 1981, Schuller offered a list of "What Third Stream is not": 

• It is not jazz with strings.
• It is not jazz played on 'classical' instruments.
• It is not classical music played by jazz players.
• It is not inserting a bit of Ravel or Schoenberg between be-bop changes—nor the reverse.
• It is not jazz in fugal form.
• It is not a fugue played by jazz players.
• It is not designed to do away with jazz or classical music; it is just another option amongst many for today’s creative musicians.

Schuller suggested that a similar fusion was made by Béla Bartók, who earned great acclaim after incorporating elements of Hungarian folk music into his music, which had earlier been heavily influenced by Claude Debussy and Richard Strauss.      

Béla Bartók

photographer unknown

   

Attempts to integrate jazz and classical music began in the early 1900s almost as soon as the former became recognised as a distinct style of music. Some ragtime music drew upon classical music, and symphonic pieces such as Rhapsody In Blue (1924) (link below), by George Gershwin, blended jazz and symphonic music. The piece La création du monde by French composer Darius Milhaud includes jazz-inspired elements, including a jazz fugue. Igor Stravinsky drew upon jazz for several compositions, such as Ragtime, Piano-Rag-Music and the Ebony Concerto (the last composed for jazz clarinetist Woody Herman and his orchestra in 1945) (link below). Other notable composers who utilized jazz elements in at least a few compositions include Maurice Ravel, Bohuslav Martinů, Paul Hindemith, William Grant Still, George Antheil, Aaron Copland, Ernst Krenek, Kurt Weill, Dmitri Shostakovich, Morton Gould, and Leonard Bernstein. Though few of these examples can be strictly classified as Third Stream as they do not involve improvisation, they do demonstrate that there was widespread mutual interest and appreciation between the jazz and classical traditions.  
     

The  work of Duke Ellington  has often been recognized as being among the early efforts to blend the elements associated with both genres. His music has been described as sharing characteristics with that of classical composers such as Delius, Debussy, and Ravel, particularly in impressionistic mood pieces such as Mood Indigo (link below), Dusk, and Reflections in D, as well as in more extended composed works such as Creole Rhapsody, Reminiscing in Tempo and The Tattooed Bride. These tendencies were also shared by his frequent co-composer Billy Strayhorn.     

Duke Ellington

KFG Radio Studio - November 3, 1954
photographer unknown 

The Afro-British composer Reginald Foresythe was one of the first musicians to combine the two genres from the early 1930s onwards. Branding his style "The New Music", his compositions, such as Garden of Weed, Serenade for a Wealthy Widow and the Bach-influenced Dodging A Divorcee were received well by critics but poorly by the British public, who were baffled by its radical style. However, Foresythe's music found a warmer welcome in America, particularly among black musicians, resulting in collaborations with Duke Ellington, Earl Hines and Benny Goodman.   

Reginald Foresythe

photographer unknown

Pianist Art Tatum drew upon elements of classical technique and recorded jazz versions of short pieces by European composers such as Antonín Dvořák (link below), Jules Massenet, and Anton Rubinstein.       

Art Tatum

photographer unknown

Another important jazz-classical fusion was Interlude in B-flat by Artie Shaw recorded in 1935 with the most unusual ensemble of a string quartet, a jazz rhythm section, and Shaw on clarinet and saxophone (link below).      

Artie Shaw

Michael Ochs Archives/Stringer/Getty Images  

Much of the Charles Mingus oeuvre before and after the coining of the term "Third Stream" parallels Schuller's idea. Indeed, the title of Mingus' two-part album Jazzical Moods (1955), a blend of "jazz" and "classical," may have helped to inspire Schuller; the two men were also friends. The immense final work, Epitaph, by Mingus was edited and premiered at Lincoln Center in 1989 by Schuller.  

Charles Mingus - 1960 

photographer unknown

 

Despite the early examples noted above, critic Scott Yanow writes, "it was not until the mid-to-late '50s that more serious experiments began to take place. Schuller, J. J. Johnson, John Lewis and Bill Russo were some of the more significant composers attempting to bridge the gap between jazz and classical music."           

A great example of this is the John Lewis composition for the 1961 production for the San Francisco Ballet, Original Sin, which I will never forget seeing for both the music and the dancing. Produced under the direction of Lew Christensen, it featured Adam and Eve in flesh-tone body tights with a brilliant lighting design that made them appear nude. Of course, 10 years later, dancers actually DID dance nude in ballet. Somehow, the earlier incarnation seemed more stimulating; funny how that works.  

John Lewis ~ Original Sin 

vinyl LP front cover 

photo by Styrous®

 

Yanow also suggests that the impact of Third Stream music was blunted by the rise of free jazz in the late 1950s, which overtook Third Stream as the leading development in jazz. Schuller was heavily involved with the Columbia Records LPs Music For Brass (1957) and Modern Jazz Concert (1958), later re-issued to become what is known as the recording Birth Of The Third Stream (now as CD). The recording greatly helped to push the concept and legitimacy of the style and approach to this music.   

Jazz composer and producer Teo Macero, who went on to produce Miles Davis and Dave Brubeck, was influenced by the Third Stream movement. Other notable examples of the style include Lewis's Modern Jazz Quartet and solo efforts, Teddy Charles, Don Ellis, Gil Evans, Bill Russo, George Russell, Brubeck and his brother, Howard Brubeck, Jacques Loussier and his Play Bach Trio, Jimmy Giuffre, Toshiko Akiyoshi, David Amram, Ran Blake, David Baker, and Bob Graettinger. Lewis was instrumental in arranging for Atlantic Records to record Schuller's Jazz Abstractions in 1960 featuring Jim Hall, Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy and Bill Evans. Many free jazz composers and performers, such as Cecil Taylor, Anthony Braxton, Yitzhak Yedid, the band Oregon, and Sun Ra, were also influenced by the Third Stream school.    

Fred Tompkins, has forged a style which seems to enjoy the benefits of fully notated composition, while also capturing the strong, propulsive essence of jazz. His early works were often accompanied by the drumming of Elvin Jones and then by other drummers from New York or St. Louis.   

Fred Tompkins

photographer unknown

Examples of recordings that synthesize composed and improvised music are the albums Miles Ahead, Porgy and Bess and Sketches of Spain by Miles Davis and Gil Evans; European Windows and the film soundtrack Music from Odds Against Tomorrow by John Lewis; Extension by Clare Fischer (as well as the orchestral portions of the Cal Tjader West Side Story and Cal Tjader Plays Harold Arlen, both arranged by Fischer), Focus and Stan Getz Plays Music from the Soundtrack of Mickey One by Getz and Eddie Sauter; Perceptions by Dizzy Gillespie and J. J. Johnson; Alegría by Wayne Shorter; Scorched by Mark-Anthony Turnage and John Scofield; Wide Angles by Michael Brecker, and Myth of the Cave by Yitzhak Yedid. These albums feature a soloist improvising in a jazz style over a complex composed background. The music of American classical composer Charles Ives has been utilized in this way in the 2014 release Mists: Charles Ives for Jazz Orchestra.       

Composer Krzysztof Penderecki experimented with compositionally guided free jazz improvisation in his Actions for Free Jazz Orchestra. Hans Werner Henze also brought free jazz into his compositions—-notably, in Der langwierige Weg in die Wohnung der Natascha Ungeheuer—-though some may consider his use of jazz to be more incorporated texture than synthesis.

Krzysztof Penderecki

photographer unknown

Presently, the contemporary Ukrainian composer-pianist Nikolai Kapustin writes fully notated music in a jazz idiom that fuses the Russian piano tradition with the virtuosic styles of Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and others.

Nikolai Kapustin

photographer unknown

         
       
Viewfinder links:              
                 
Leonard Bernstein          
Eric Dolphy        
Antonín Dvořák      
Duke Ellington       
George Gershwin              
Dizzy Gillespie        
Benny Goodman            
Stan Kenton ~ City of Glass & Third Stream jazz         
Teo Macero        

Art Tatum            
Cal Tjader       
Kurt Weill          
     
Net links:              
                 
Gunther Schuller:           
The World According to Gunther Schuller           
Multiple Streams          

       

YouTube links:              
                 
Béla Bartók ~ Hungarian Folk Melodies for Violin          
Duke Ellington ~ Mood Indigo
Reginald Foresythe ~ Garden of Weed       
George Gershwin ~ Rhapsody In Blue   
John Lewis ~ Original Sin:
         Creation Of The World And Creation Of Adam        
Charles Mingus ~ Jazzical Moods (various selections)    
Camille Saint-Saëns ~ Danse Macabre       
Artie Shaw ~ Interlude in B-flat             
        
 Igor Stravinsky ~ Ebony Concerto (with Benny Goodman)    
Art Tatum ~ Humoresque by Dvorak        
with Louis Andriessen on Creativity (1 hour, 25 minutes)       

with David Amram: "O Pioneers!" (1 hour, 2 minutes)     

       
         

      

      

Styrous® ~  Friday, August 25. 2017      

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101 Reel-to-Reel Tapes 117: Tchaikovsky ~ 1812 Overture

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ Op. 49 1812 Overture (1880)
conducted by Antal Doráti

reel-to-reel tape cover

photo by Styrous®

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I started the Vinyl LP series because I have a collection of over 20,000 vinyl record albums I am selling; each blog entry is about an album from my collection. The 101 Reel-to-Reel Tapes series is an extension of that collection. Inquire for information here.   

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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, aka Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was born on this day, May 7, 1840, in Vyatka Governorate (present-day Udmurtia) in the Russian Empire, into a family with a long line of military service.     

the 1812 Overture

The Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture, written in 1880, was my first experience in classical music. The first version of the Overture I purchased was the 1953 Arthur Fiedler (more on him in a future article) vinyl LP monophonic recording.      

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ Op. 49 1812 Overture (1880)
conducted by Arthur Fiedler

vinyl LP mono recording cover

photo by Styrous®

This reel-to-reel tape recording by Antal Doráti was purchased later in 1959. In the US, stereo magnetic tape recording was demonstrated on standard 1/4-inch tape for the first time in 1952, using two sets of recording and playback heads, upside-down and offset from one another. I remember being in awe at the lack of pops, snaps and crackles and did not mind the faint tape hiss.  

It wasn't until November of 1957, when the Audio Fidelity Records label released the first mass-produced stereophonic disc, that the only stereo recordings were on reel-to-reel audio tape.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ Op. 49 1812 Overture (1880)
conducted by Antal Doráti

reel-to-reel tape back cover

photo by Styrous®

Dorati was the first conductor to make a recording of Tchaikovsky's "1812" Overture (featuring the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra) with real cannons, brass band, and church bells, first in mono in 1954 and then in stereo in 1958. I remember I was 19, studying music in college when I discovered this recording. The fact that it utilized a REAL cannon, bronze bells and chimes was more than this 19-year-old boy could resist! The incredibly rousing finale is a sonic spectacle! WOW!    

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ Op. 49 1812 Overture (1880)
conducted by Antal Doráti

 bronze cannon, Douay, France
reel-to-reel tape cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

The 1812 festival overture in E♭ major, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture, is an overture written in 1880 to commemorate Russia's defence of its motherland against Napoleon's invading Grande Armée in 1812.  The opening is based on the first mode of the Kievan chant.
  

 scene depicting the French retreat from Russia in 1812, 

painting by Illarion Pryanishnikov (1874)

The overture debuted in Moscow on 20 August 1882, conducted by Ippolit Al'tani under a tent near the then unfinished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, which also memorialized the 1812 defense of Russia. The overture was conducted by Tchaikovsky himself in 1891 at the dedication of Carnegie Hall. The overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire, ringing chimes, and brass fanfare finale. It has also become a common accompaniment to fireworks displays. The 1812 Overture became Tchaikovsky's most popular work.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ Op. 49 1812 Overture (1880)
conducted by Antal Doráti

reel-to-reel tape box spine

photos by Styrous®

There is a very beautiful recording of the Overture conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy with full choral by the St.Petersburg Chamber Choir, the Leningrad Military Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra (link on YouTube below).   

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ Op. 49 1812 Overture (1880)
conducted by Antal Doráti

reel-to-reel tape back cover detail

detail photo by Styrous®

The  Doráti 1954 Mercury Records recording (this one) with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, was partially recorded at West Point, and used the Yale Memorial Carillon in New Haven, Connecticut, and a Napoleonic French single muzzleloading cannon shot dubbed in 16 times as written. On the first edition of the recording, one side played the Overture and the other side featured a narrative by Deems Taylor about how the cannon and bell effects were accomplished. The narrative is actually very interesting (links to Overture & ).   

Both the mono and stereo "1812" versions sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc by the RIAA. 

  

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ Op. 49 1812 Overture (1880)
conducted by Antal Doráti

reel-to-reel tape

photo by Styrous®

Antal Doráti, KBE, was born on April 9, 1906, in in Budapest, Hungary. He studied at the Franz Liszt Academy with Zoltán Kodály and Leo Weiner for composition and Béla Bartók for piano. He became a naturalized American citizen in 1943.         

In 1983, Queen Elizabeth II made Doráti an honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE). This entitled him to use the post-nominal letters KBE. By convention honorary knights do generally not use the "Sir" unless they subsequently acquire UK citizenship.     

His recording of Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, received the coveted French award Grand Prix du Disque.    

Doráti died on November 13, 1988.    

 

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ~ Op. 49 1812 Overture (1880)
conducted by Antal Doráti

reel-to-reel tape label

photo by Styrous®

Track listing: 

side one - 1812 Overture - 14:50

side two - narration by Deems Taylor (Commentary) - 12:02

Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra, University Of Minnesota Brass Band, Tchaikovsky* ‎– 1812 Festival Overture Op. 49 
Label: Mercury ‎–  MCS 5-54  

Series: Mercury Living Presence –
Format: Reel to Reel Tape, 7-1/2 IPS, Stereo
Country: US
Released: 1958
Genre: Classical
Style: Romantic


Credits:

A1     –Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra With University Of Minnesota Brass Band     1812 Festival Overture, Op. 49

    Composed By – Tchaikovsky*

   
A2     –Deems Taylor     Spoken Commentary (Beginning)    
B1     –Deems Taylor     Spoken Commentary -     


    Composed By – Tchaikovsky*

Companies, etc.

    Recorded At – Northrop Memorial Auditorium

Credits:  

    Conductor – Antal Dorati (tracks: A1)
    Directed By – Gale Sperry (tracks: A1)

Notes:

Also featured on A1:
Bronze Cannon, Duay, France (1775) Courtesy U. S. Military Academy, West Point, N. Y.
Bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon, The Riverside Church

The Tchaikovsky ~ 1812 Overture 
            Reel-to-Reel Tape is for sale on Discogs    

Net links:            

        

1812 Instrumentation           

Doráti Recordings
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky                    
              
1812 Overture on YouTube:        

                  

Antal Doráti version        

Vladimir Ashkenazy version 
Deems Taylor (narrative)               

                  

                 

Styrous® ~ Saturday, May 7, 2016

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