Yehudi Wyner: Serenade/Ralph Shapey: Evocation
Liner Notes   Cat. No. NWCRL141     Release Date: 2012-06-18

Julius Baker, flute; Ralph Froelich, horn; Robert Nagel, trumpet;
Keith Brown, trombone; Harry Zaratzian, viola; Charles McCracken, cello; Yehudi Wyner, piano; Matthew Raimondi, violin; Paul Price, percussion; Werner Torkanowsky, conductor

"The Serenade was written in 1958 in response to a commission by the Friends of Music at Yale University and was first performed on Alumni Day, February, 1959. The title page bears a dedication to James Hoffman, the young American painter who was mortally ill at the time and soon to die. The dedication was intended as a gesture of devotion to a friend, a noble individual and eloquent artist. The titles Serenade and Nocturne I and II refer to qualities of the night and reflect the darkness of his passing.

"Serenade is a lyric, poetic work, remarkable in no way for its structural devices. No preconceived schemes were used, no preliminary formal plans imposed; the piece grew in an almost improvisatory way, formal decisions being reached in the writing, imposing themselves retroactively as it were, then affecting further progress. (This is a common procedure in my music in which the direction and significance of timings reveal themselves slowly and in the process, not before, and order is a consequence, not an antecedent, of the work.) The choice of instruments was likewise not hit upon at once but responded to the demands of the material. At least one movement was sketched before the full complement of players was fixed."  - Yehudi Wyner

About his work Evocation, Ralph Shapey says: "In my music, the initial space-time image generates through expansions of itself all textures and a structural totality. Through permutations of this image I continue, rather than destroy, its state of being. I work with the concept of 'it is' instead of the traditional 'it becomes.' The expansion of the image is achieved through diminutions of itself. Thus its structure is never dissolved. Instead, the changed focusing of the image preordains changed proportions, i.e., dissolutions of organic sound-units (which are each a part of the image), reestablishing themselves as modified reflections of the original unit, pulling, twisting, distorting, adding and subtracting from that unit; setting up new hierarchies of sound which carry the potential of new imagery. At all times, the 'it is' remains a pre-fixed, concrete image.

"Within a work the initial image will explode into its own various states of being, juxtaposed against itself in ever new focuses. These new states become the new proportions. By extending, contracting, verticalizing, inverting, redeploying, refocusing of the material, the same state of being and its varied phases can move on diverse time and space differentials.
"

This title, originally issued on the CRI label, is now available as a burn-on-demand CD (CD-R) or download in MP3/320, FLAC or WAV formats. CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print booklet or jewel case included. Full liner notes are accessible via the link above.

Various Artists

Yehudi Wyner: Serenade/Ralph Shapey: Evocation

MP3/320 $7.99
FLAC $7.99
WAV $7.99
CD-R $7.99
CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print material or jewel case included.
A *.pdf of the notes may be accessed here free of charge.
   Liner Notes



Track Listing

Serenade: Nocturne I
Yehudi Wyner
Buy
Serenade: Toccata
Yehudi Wyner
Buy
Serenade: Capriccio-Aria
Yehudi Wyner
Buy
Serenade: Nocturne II
Yehudi Wyner
Buy
Evocation: I. Recitative - with intense majesty
Ralph Shapey
Buy
Evocation: II. with humor
Ralph Shapey
Buy
Evocation: III. with tenderness-with intense majesty-cadenza
Ralph Shapey
Buy