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hamilton. philharmonic institute

NEW MUSIC CONCERT

GUEST COMPOSERS :

TORU TAKEMITSU and GILLES TREMBLAY

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1975. 3:00 p.m. Ewart Angus Theatre

McMaster Medical Centre

GUEST COMPOSERS

‘TORU TAKEMITSU, born in Tokyo, Japan in 1930, is a self-taught musician, having only briefly studied composition with Yasugi Kiyose. In 1951 he organized the important "Experimental Workshop" in Tokyo in collaboration with various colleagues and began to compose works which eventually established him as Japan's leading contemporary composer. In 1966, to- gether with Seiji Ozawa, he created the "Orchestral Space" festivals as a forum for international contemp- orary music, and in 1970 was creator and director of the "Space Theatre" in the Steel Pavilion of Osaka Expo-/0.

Well known to Canadians through frequent perform- ances and recordings by the Toronto Symphony during the late '60's, his more recent music has covered the spectrum of performer possibilities from solo and chamber works to film scores (Women of the Dunes, Hara-Kiri and Kwaiden). His music, which has enthralled audiences around the world, has been described as 'magical' and is a fascinating synthesis of the East and the West. This visit marks his first return to Toronto after an absence of seven years.

GILLES TREMBLAY, born in Arvida, Quebec in 1932, studied piano with Germaine Malépart and composition with Claude Champagne at the Montreal Conservatoire where he won first prize for piano in 1953. While still a student, he met Edgard Varése in New York, which had a significant and lasting influence on his music. From 1954 to 1961, he continued his education in Europe, where he studied with Olivier Messiaen, Yvonne Loriod, Andrée Vaurabourg-Honneger and Maurice Martenot - the inventor of the ondes Martenot - becoming the first Canadian specialist on that instru- ment. During this seven year period he spent time with the Groupe de Recherches Musicales de 1'ORTF in Paris, with the composer Zenakis, and took summer courses in Darmstadt with Boulez, Stockhausen and Pousseur.

Currently a professor at the Conservatoire de Musique de la Province de Québec in Montreal, the enticing music of this fascinating Canadian composer has been widely performed and acclaimed in France and Canada.

PROGRAM

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1975, 3:00 p.m.

- SACRIFICE (1962) ----- nen nnn nnn n nnn nen Toru Takemitsu

Robert Aitken - flute Richard Kolb - lute Robin Engelman- vibraphone John Wyre - crotales

STANZA II (1971) -------9--e- nnn rrr nnn Toru Takemitsu Erica Goodman - harp

ORAELLELUIANTS (1975) ----e----ee-re-H--- Gilles Tremblay Mary Morrison - soprano .Robert Aitken - flute Howard Knopf - brass clarinet Eugene Rittich - french horn

Nancicarole Monohan,

Thomas Monohan &

Joel Quarrington - double bass Robin Engelman,

John Wyre &

Russell Hartenberger- percussion

INTERMISSION

IN MOTION (1972) Film------------------ Toru Takemitsu

MUNARI BY MUNARI (1967) ---------------- Toru Takemitsu John Wyre, Robin Engelman

& Russell Hartenberger - percussion

Electronics by James Montgomery of the Canadian Electronic Ensemble

PROGRAM NOTES

SACRIFICE Toru Takemitsu

Between 1961 and 1965, Takemitsu wrote a trilogy which demonstrates his highly personal approach to , silence. The first piece is entitled Ring, and is ‘ scored for the subtleties of flute, guitar and lute.

The second, Sacrifice, was composed in 1962 for alto flute, lute, vibraphone and antique cymbals, and,

as in Ring, was intended to give the performers inter- pretative freedom through a form of controlled aleatorism. The final piece of the trilogy is entitled Varelia. |

___ Sacrifice is in two movements, called "Chant I" and "Chant 2". The composer writes: "This work is not composed for any particular religious observance, but in my imagination - or to be more precise, in the sound world of my imagining - it is dedicated to the one God. I have called the movements "Chant" because I believe that the form of my music will be intensified by the form of prayer... I want to depict stillness, and I hope that this stillness, this silence, have more life in them than the actual notes." : :

STANZA IT Toru Takemitsu

Written for harp and tape, this work was prem- iered in Paris in 1972 by Ursula Hollinger to whom it is dedicated. There are three sources of sound on the tape: bell-like sounds produced by two harps, an electronically produced drone which pervades the piece, and a third which is composed of natural sounds - bird songs and human voices. These represent the "myriad shifting sounds constantly penetrating the world of man."

ORALLELULANTS | Gilles Tremblay

Mr. Tremblay has furnished the following note on his work:

"The title Oralleluiants comes from two words: "Orants" (persons in a state of prayer) and "Alleluia". The use of "Alleluia" between "Orants" leads to the idea of trope (a medieval word for a musical insertion) that forms the work.

The text used comes from the first Alleluia of the Pentecost Mass (Psalms 103 and 30), seeming strikingly to have been conceived for our times:

Alleluia, Alleluia E mitte Spiritum tuum et creabuntur; Et renovabis faciem terrae. Alleluia.

Send Thy Spirit for a new creation; And the aspect of the world will be renewed.

This prayer (oration), turns itself towards this Breath (Spiritus), antenna toward what is Source, with the idea of becoming, eclosion, opening of, appearing, and that makes the Alleluia surge.

Two trends form the Alleluia: the first exuberant and fast, full of contrast, in a great movement (melodic, phonetic, and spatial); the second more continuous, of serenity in the exultation.

continued....

The three double bass players most of the time

use natural harmonic sounds (on open strings).

This makes possible the use of a non-tempered universe that influences and gives the colour to

a great part of the music, especially at the very end. This aspect is dedicated to the memory of Pythagoras who was the first person to make the relation between number and the harmonic progression.

Rather than an artificial division, here are the

main guide marks:

"To appear". Or a continuity - appearance with accidents and ruptures.

Alleluia of the flute. Trope-quotation. Continu- ation of the Alleluia with ecstatics.

Beginning of the bells Alleluia. Long inclusion of

a melodic development mainly by flute, voice, bass- clarinet and french horn. End of the bells Alleluia, added with pizzicati of the basses, in "moving fundamentals" and with a rapid "jubilus", concentrated in a tri-colour mosaic.

A play and games on the chinese theatre gongs, the glissandi-resonances giving the durations.

Cymbal dance (Alleluia in space) with four different musics, simultaneously.

Rupture - noise - tearing - transition.

Opposite emergence and birth of a melody of pitches and phonemes with an almost Javanese serenity (second aspect of the Alleluia) meanders into very delicate and fine intervals, born from the natural resonances, where everything is physical: durations of resonances, durations of breaths. Rooted in time, it gives paradoxically an extratemporal impression.

This work has been commissioned by the Canadian

Broadcasting Corporation.

It is dedicated to Robert Aitken, John Wyre, the

musicians of New Music Concerts and to John Roberts."

IN MOTION (film) Toru Takemitsu

This film is Takemitsu's first image work and was done in collaboration with the NHK Experimental Studio in 1972.

MUNARI BY MUNARI Toru Takemitsu

A highly spectacular piece for percussion, this work was born out of a real co-operation between the premiere in 1971 in France by Gerard Fremy and Sylvio Gualdo. It presents, in a manner, a new kind of virtuosity where the sounds (music) can be immediately perceived by the body.

Munari by Munari was inspired by the "Tnvisible"

Book", a work by the Italian painter Bruno Munari dedicated to Takemitsu in 1961.

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This concert was made possible through the generous

support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council.