Liner Notes
Cat. No. NWCR874
Release Date: 2007-01-01
Robert Helps, piano
Robert Helps recorded this collection in 1966 (during, he remembers, a transit strike that had New York City walking if not staggering).
The music came from a published anthology of the same name, an American collection compiled under the auspices of the Abby Whiteside Foundation by Joseph Prostakoff, a student of the late Abby Whiteside. "They knew practically every composer in the country," Helps remembers, "and asked many of them for pieces for the collection. Some said they were too busy, but all of them at least sent their good wishes."
Think of the state of music in Americain New York in particular in 1966. Lincoln Center was brand new, and with it the concept of a centralized performing arts center in every major city, not merely as concert halls and opera houses but also as a creative force governing (and even funding) the works of new composers and the emergence of new performers. For better or for worse, government was getting into the act, through the creation of the National Endowment. Music had its stars Beverly Sills, Leonard Bernstein, Glenn Gould and it also had its new languages. Electronic music, exotic scales and instruments from Asia and Africa, multi-media "happenings" that involved the interaction of sight and sound, abstract expressionism and chance music these all combined to project the notion that everything we'd heard in music up until then was merely the base of the mountain.
From the evidence of this collection, however, even the "base of the mountain" was a lively place. Take this hour long sampling of the work of twenty-one greatly eminent Americans, music whose dates range from 1946 (George Perle's Six Preludes) to 1964 (Josef Alexander's Incantation) as a document of an era, a time of ending and beginning. (For an update, there is CRI's recent release Solo Flights, another American piano anthology that brings us up to 1997.) The variety is remarkable; there was not then, and there is not now, any single definition of "American music" that covered the territory. The metaphor of the "melting pot," which authors had used for decades to describe the "new Americans" drawn to this country since it was new from a worldwide diversity of origins, applies to its music as well.
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.
Robert Helps recorded this collection in 1966 (during, he remembers, a transit strike that had New York City walking if not staggering).
The music came from a published anthology of the same name, an American collection compiled under the auspices of the Abby Whiteside Foundation by Joseph Prostakoff, a student of the late Abby Whiteside. "They knew practically every composer in the country," Helps remembers, "and asked many of them for pieces for the collection. Some said they were too busy, but all of them at least sent their good wishes."
Think of the state of music in Americain New York in particular in 1966. Lincoln Center was brand new, and with it the concept of a centralized performing arts center in every major city, not merely as concert halls and opera houses but also as a creative force governing (and even funding) the works of new composers and the emergence of new performers. For better or for worse, government was getting into the act, through the creation of the National Endowment. Music had its stars Beverly Sills, Leonard Bernstein, Glenn Gould and it also had its new languages. Electronic music, exotic scales and instruments from Asia and Africa, multi-media "happenings" that involved the interaction of sight and sound, abstract expressionism and chance music these all combined to project the notion that everything we'd heard in music up until then was merely the base of the mountain.
From the evidence of this collection, however, even the "base of the mountain" was a lively place. Take this hour long sampling of the work of twenty-one greatly eminent Americans, music whose dates range from 1946 (George Perle's Six Preludes) to 1964 (Josef Alexander's Incantation) as a document of an era, a time of ending and beginning. (For an update, there is CRI's recent release Solo Flights, another American piano anthology that brings us up to 1997.) The variety is remarkable; there was not then, and there is not now, any single definition of "American music" that covered the territory. The metaphor of the "melting pot," which authors had used for decades to describe the "new Americans" drawn to this country since it was new from a worldwide diversity of origins, applies to its music as well.
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.
New Music for the Piano
| MP3/320 | $9.99 | |
| FLAC | $9.99 | |
| WAV | $9.99 | |
| CD-R | $9.99 |
A *.pdf of the notes may be accessed here free of charge.
Track Listing
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Fanfares
Ingolf Dahl
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Buy
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Two Preludes
Kent Kennan
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Buy
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Capriccio
Samuel Adler
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Buy
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Polarities No. 1
Hall Overton
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Buy
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Partitions
Milton Babbitt
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Buy
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Piano Suite No. 3
Miriam Gideon
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Buy
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Syncopations
Sol Berkowitz
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Buy
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Humoreske Op. 49
Ben Weber
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Buy
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Nocturnal Interlude
Paul A. Pisk
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Buy
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Etude
Mel Powell
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Buy
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Rag-Blues-Rag
Morton Gould
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Buy
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Allegro on a Pakistan Lute Tune, Op. 104, No. 6
Alan Hovhaness
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Buy
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Six Preludes, Op. 20B
George Perle
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Buy
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Sonata, Op. 53, No. 3
Norman Cazden
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Buy
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Two Bagatelles
Joseph Prostakoff
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Buy
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Prelude for a Pensive Pupil
Peggy Glanville-Hicks
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Buy
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Pig Town Fling
Ernst Bacon
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Buy
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Image
Robert Helps
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Buy
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Six Bagatelles
Mark Brunswick
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Buy
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Two Bagatelles -
Earl Kim
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Buy
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Incantation
Josef Alexander
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Buy
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