Henry Brandt has volunteered the following précis of the “elements ... incorporated into the musical vocabulary of Angels and Devils: 1. Harmony. Chords up to eleven notes, including polychords and tone-clusters as well as the normal harmonic vocabulary. 2. Counterpoint. Up to ten independent voices. A double fugue forms the development section of the sonata- structured first movement. The second movement has several sections in eight-part counterpoint climaxed with a dissonant fugato shortly before the end. 3. Style. While predominantly serious, the music has many jazz, circus, and bird-vocabulary aspects, especially in the second and third movements. 4. Sonorities. The specialties of the flute — double-tonguing, triple-tonguing, flutter-tonguing, rhythmed vibrato, multiple trills and runs, and various composites of these elements — are found in a variety of registers. Simple unisons of alto flutes, of low C flutes and of piccolos also are used.”
Irving Fine's keyboard suite Music for Piano was composed at the MacDowell colony in Peterborough, New Hampshire, in mid-1947. It was intended as a tribute to Nadia Boulanger, who had been one of Fine's distinguished teachers, on her sixtieth birthday. In all there are four movements. Two of them, the Variations and the Waltz-Gavotte, are excerpted herewith. A later stay at Peterboro, in 1952, resulted in Mutability — a cycle of five songs and an epilogue. The lyrics are by Irene Orgel, the young English poet who was a fellow MacDowell colonist that summer. The work had been commissioned by the Creative Concerts Guild. In conception it is essentially Romantic, although Nos. 1 and 3 use a relatively free modern chromaticism, No. 5 a rather stylized diatonic classicism, and No. 6 a twelve-tone technique comfortably within a clearly defined tonality. It is not irrelevant to add that the songs were written with contralto Eunice Alberts expressly in mind.
[Adapted from original LP liner notes by James Lyons]
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. Liner notes are accessible via the link above.
Music of Henry Brant & Irving Fine
| MP3/320 | $7.99 | |
| FLAC | $7.99 | |
| WAV | $7.99 | |
| CD-R | $7.99 |
Track Listing
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Angels And Devils: I.
Henry Brant
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Angels And Devils: II.
Henry Brant
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Angels And Devils: III.
Henry Brant
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Music for Piano: Variations
Irving Fine
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Music for Piano: Waltz-Gavotte
Irving Fine
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Mutability: I. I Have Heard The Hoof Beats of Happiness
Irving Fine
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Mutability: II. My Father
Irving Fine
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Mutability: III The Weed
Irving Fine
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Mutability: IV. Peregrine
Irving Fine
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Mutability: V. Jubilation
Irving Fine
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Mutability: VI. Now God Be Thanked for Mutability
Irving Fine
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