Princeton Chamber Singers; Arthur Bloom clarinet; Fred Mills, trumpet; Raymond Beckenstein, saxophone; James Thompson, trombone; David Walter, bass; Max Neuhaus, percussion; Thomas Hilbish, conductor

Philadelphia String Quartet - Veda Reynolds and Irwin Eisenberg violins; Alan Iglitzin viola; Charles Brennand cello; Janice Harsanyi sopranoIn Salvatore Martirano's O, O, O, O, That Shakespeherian Rag we are confronted with a vivid scenario of music and words. The musical material, dodecaphonic in concept, never loses the mark of the personality behind it, while the scoring cunningly provides an index of structural collaboration and corroboration. There is no needless effort made to cross reference the Elizabethan idiom. Making the assumption that these specific texts are well known (Elson’s Shakespeare in Music testifies that none of them are alien to setting), the composer believes it would be banal and tasteless to superficially mirror their regular metrical structures. Nevertheless there is at all times a definite connection with the form of the poem. For example, in Spring, the length in time of each line is the same proportionally as in the poem. However the length or duration of those syllables which seem to express the essence of the poem are exaggerated in either longer or shorter measure within each line and in different places in different lines.

Concerning his String Quartet No. 2, George Rochberg has provided the following commentary:

Originally I planned to call the work something like “Fantasias and Arabesques for String Quartet” because the two terms, “fantasia” and “arabesque”, describe best the main gestural characteristics of the music. They also suggest, in a general way, the free (but never arbitrary) manner in which the structural pattern, moving between the two, evolves, resulting in the final shape of the music.

The work as a whole is in two large parts: first, purely instrumental; second, vocal-instrumental with two ariosi for the soprano separated by a “quasi cadenza” for the string quartet. This “quasi cadenza” emerges from the end of the first arioso and leads directly into the second arioso. The text is drawn from the opening and closing stanzas of Rainer Maria Rilke’s 9th Duino Elegy in an English version translated by Harry Behn.

 

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.