Christian Wolff WER 60063

For Piano I was written for David Tudor with a view t o his vir- mont, is a n orchestral piece in ten parts, ea& different in some Merce Cunningham Dance company and the Sonic Arts Union. H e
tuosity, and first performed by him in February, 1952 in New distinct way. These include specific notations on staves; notations has designed electronic music equipment for E X P O 70 in Osaka
York. The structure is made of sixteen segments of varying lengths indicating only durations, often depending on other sounds a player and was one of the directors of the O N C E festival. [He performs
and densities (number of notes in a given length), whose sequence, hears; and various verbal directions both explicit and suggestive. widely with John Cage and David Tudor.]
superposition and recurrence are determined by chance. The choice Various numbers of performers (no upward limit) can play, using John Nash has performed in new music concerts in the U. S. and
of notes (out of a total of nine), durations (total 13) and ampli- any means of making sounds. Any number of the ten parts can be England and has been a member of the Scratcfi Orrhestra of
tudes (9), and their disposition within a segment were made by the played simultaneously or overlapped. London.
composer. Only segments of zero density, i. e. silence, left no The performance on this recording consists of versions of parts I1 Frederic Rzewski has performed and recorded extensively through-
choice. ('chords'), V ('wheels'), VI ('melody and accompaniment'), VIII out Europe. H e has given first performances of piano works of
These limitations allowed a special freedom to the composing: the ('100 bits') and IX ('quicksand'), played in succession. Instruments Bussotti, Kagel, Pousseur, Lucier and Stockhausen. Active also as
restrictions once made, the range of choices, though still immense, used include violin (Nash), viola, melodion, whistles (Behrman), a composer, he is a founder of M. E. V. Musica Elettronica Viva)
became particularly clear. The question of what to do next for horn, harmonica (Mumma), piano, percussion (Rzewski), bando- and has worked particularly in group improvisation.
how long, depending so much on idiosyncratic feeling, was settled neon, organ (Tudor), bass gultar, flute (Wolff). David Tudor has been devoted to performing contemporary music,
in advance. The larger continuity of the piece formed itself, and The piece offers a various, somewhat unruly, if not sticky, quanti- both instrumental and electronic, since 1948. H e has played count-
its expressive content fell in with it. ty of material, whose character is, however, still intended to allow less new works, many written e s p e q l l y for him, in concerts
For Pianist (1959) is an attempt to involve a single player in situ- clear articulations and transparency, both a festive, busy feeling throughout the world. More recently y has turned particularly
ations like those of pieces (such as Summer, Duo for pianiits 11) and a more quiet one. to the performance and making of "live" electronic music, includ-
in which several players rely on what they hear from one another, O n the present recording the unruly aspect is partially reflected by ing in his work Bandoneon! and in his contributions a t EXPO 70
unpredictably, for cues. The pianist, for example, is to make a the absence of a pure studio sound. Incidental noises -players' both audio and visual material.
sound "as softly as possible." A t the moment of playing he will movements, shifting of instruments, preparations for playing -are Christian Wolff (born 1934, Nice, France, living in the U. S.
make it just that way, or more loudly, or the sound will be inau- not avoided but allowed to mix with the various noises which are since 1941) began composing in 1949, met John Cage, David Tudor
dible. Whichever results will determine alternate paths he must part of the performed music. and Morton Feldmann in 1950-1, and by association with them
directly follow. The piece is made up of ten pages of such paths or This recording is dedicated to its engineers, David Behrman and his musical activity took form and was given free scope. H e has
continuities, sometimes bifurcating, overlapping, and drawing the Gordon Murnma. composed for piano(s), various chamber groups, magnetic tape,
pianist into labyrinthian complications. The continuities are se- All selections are B. M. I. and published by C. F. Peters, New York unspecified numbers of players and sound sources, and, with Bur-
quences of time lenghts, fractions of a second to half a minute, & Frankfurt. docks, orchestra. [He has been especially interested in allowing
within which numbers of sounds are given with varying degrees The recordings were made August, 1971 a t Dartmouth College, performers flexibility and ranges of freedom at the actual time
of specification, e. g. giving for a single sound only its amplitude, Hanover, New Hampshire. of a piece's playing, and has in this connection devised various
or for several a choice of two or five pitches. The player, when he David Behrman is a composer, performer of new music and mem- new notations.] H e has written on new music in Die Reihe, Col-
is free to do so, makes the final specifications, tending in the larger ber of the Sonic Arts Union, a group of composer-performers of lage, V H 101, and Audience. Together with the performers on
spaces of time to vary his choices a t every performance. An inter- live electronic music who have toured extensively in the past this record, as well as Cornelius Cardew, John Tilbury, Kurt
change between the score's fixed determinations and the player's several years in the U. S. and Europe. Schwertsik and Alvin Lucier, he has performed in and organized
use of its free spaces and loopholes, between his dependence on [He has produced recordings for Columbia records and the concerts of new music. Between 1963 and 1970 he taught Classics
suddenly arising necessities and his freedom to choose just as he "Music of our Time" series on Odyssey records, and has been tech- a t Harvard. Currently he is teaching Classics and Music a t Dart-
plays underlies the music. nical director and artistic advisor for the Intermedia Institute in mouth College in New Hampshire.
Burdocks, written in the summers of 1970 and 1971, first played New York.] Christian W o l f f
August, 1971, by the performers on this record, a t Royalton, Ver- Gordon Mumma is a composer and performing musician with the
MUSIC BY CHRISTIAN WOLFF

LINES
Nathan Rubin and Thomas Halpin, violins; Nancy
Ellis, viola; Judiyaba, cello Photo by Richard Corum

LINES, for string quartet or possibly other and larger combinations of illustration of the principle of applying a revolutionary political orientation
string instruments, was commissioned by Hans Otte for North German to immediate and practical problems, indicating that these can only be
Radio (Bremen) and written early in 1972. The composition began with understood and dealt with within such a political framework.
the desire to find new string sonorities and with a formal notion related to The music is in four parts. In the first, one chord or single note drawn
the actual lines of the (four) individual strings of each instrument and the out of a chord accompanies each syllable of the text. The text is sung
lines described as a sound passes from one of the (four) instruments to freely (no pitches are specified), and the rhythm is free but tends to be
another. Retuning the four instruments' individual strings - so that shaped by the movement of the words of the text. The text is musically
sixteen different pitches become available on their open strings - formalized by allowing optional repetitions of segments of it. The chords
underscores the line of each string. The players are spaced far apart in come in sequences of sixteen which make a kind of harmonic pro-
performance to help show the lines of sound between them. gression (though a full sequence may not often occur). In the second
The score first specifies exactly the connections of these lines (say, and third parts, single llne keyboard figures are intended to have a
from viola to first violin to cello) but their speed of movement (and certain propulsive feeling and accompany freelycombined percussion phrases
aspects of articulation, dynamics, etc.) is determined by the players in (the drum and cymbals were practical in combination with kevboard and
the course of playing. Thus, for example, viola lets her sound go when here partly suggested by their appearance in China during mass as-
she wishes, at which point the violin must pick it up immediately, holds it semblies and marches). The addition of singing and percussion playing
as desired, lets it go for the ce:lo to pick up, and so forth. Next the to the pianist's tasks is to extend one player's sound resources and to
players individually draw their material freely from more distinctly combine his professional competence with non-professional capacities
characterized bits of music (which are repeatable, as is all the material in - which we all have - in using one's voice and making percussive
the score). Here coordination is free or circumstantial (for example, hold sounds. The fourth part of the piece requires only the use of the piano,
a sound until the next sound you hear, whoever produces it). The mate- and comes as something of a release.
rial now also includes provision for retuning the strings to their usual CHRISTIAN WOLFF (b. 1934, Nice, France) has lived in the United
pitches. Finally (it should be said that this recording does not use one of States since 1941. He started composing in 1949 and a couple of years
the eight pages of material), the score takes the form of prose instruc- later met John Cage, Morton Feldman, David Tudor and Earle Brown
tions, requiring continuous sound from the players, to be changed in and through association with them found the initial direction of his musi-
response to changes, whenever these happen to occur, in the playing of cal activity. He has also been helped immeasurably, at various times, by
another. The specific character of an individual player's sound, texture, work with (among others) David Behrman, Frederic Rzewski, Kurt
melodic continuity, etc., are now entirely her or his choice. The music as Schwertsik, Gordon Mumma, Alvin Lucier, John Tilbury, Garrett List, Jon
a whole, then, is a collaboration between the composer's score and the Gibson, Cornelius Cardew; the groups AMM and Musica Elettronica
players' playing, and the latter becomes increasingly directed by the Viva; and Merce Cunningham and his dance company.
players' own decisions and feelings - the forming of which may have Wolff acquired a PhD in Comparative Literature from Haward in 1963
been assisted by the score to begin with. and taught there, in the Classics department, between 1962-1970.
Since 1971 he has been teaching at Dartmouth College in the depart-
ments of Classics, Comparative Literature and Music. He was
composer-lecturer at the Internationale Ferienkurse, Darmstadt, in 1972
ACCOMPANIMENTS and 1974, and Com~oser-in-residencein Berlin under the visitina artists
Frederic Rzewski, piano program of the DAAD, 1974. In 1975 he won the Music Award 6om the
National InstituteIAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters that made this
recording possible.
ACCOMPANIMENTS, for pianist who is also required to sing or chant Among his recent compositions are: CHANGING THE SYSTEM
and play percussion with his feet (drum with pedal and high hat), was (chamber music with text 1972-3), EXERCISES (any number of instru-
written for Frederic Rzewski in the late summer of 1972. This piece ments, 1973-4), STRING QUARTET EXERCISES OUT OF SONGS
marks a break from what preceded, due partly to a growing impatience (1974-6), WOBBLY MUSIC (chorus with instruments, 1975-6).
with what seemed to me the overly introverted feeling in much of my
earlier music, with a sense of contradiction between the situation of its FREDERIC RZEWSKI is a pianist and composer known both in the
players - social, cooperative as well as calling on great individual alert- U.S. and abroad for his work in widely varying areas of experimental
ness -and the way the resulting music seemed to affect its audience- music. As a pianist, he has performed and recorded works by Carter,
as something remote, abstract and "pure." At the same time my interest Cage, Braxton, Stockhausen, Boulez and others. He is a co-founder of
in social and political questions had intensified and taken a more specific MEV (Musica Elettronica Viva), a member of the Musicians Action
direction, and so I decided to attempt to make a more explicit connection Collective in New York City, and is affiliated with the Creative Music
between it and my music. Foundation of Woodstock, N.Y.
ACCOMPANIMENTS began that attempt, including a political text and This recording of LINES was made while the composer was in resi-
using musical material of a more direct character. The text is from Jan dence at Mills College under a grant which also supported a recording
Myrdal and Gun Kessle's book China: The Revolution Continued. It is project. NATHAN RUBIN, member of the music faculty and distin-
part of an account of a veterinarian and a midwife, in their own words, of guished for his performances of contemporary music, organized and
their experiences in a village in the area of Yenan during and after the coordinated the performance; the other players are known in the Bay
Cultural Revolution. It was chosen both for its concreteness and for its area for their work with new music.
Text from CHINA: THE REVOLUTIONCONTINUED

My mother is very old now. I asked for leave of absence to go and see
her. In such cases we're always granted leave. Obviously. There are
some who call looking after sick animals dirty work. But Chairman Mao
has taught us not to be afraid of filth and excrement. And that's right.
Chairman Mao has pointed out how necessary it is to develop stock-
breeding. And that's why we are getting ourselves more and more ani-
mals, and why I'm studying all the time.
We've been successful in our work. Now the new-born babies don't
die any more. Formerly sixty per cent of all new-born infants died. The
old way of giving birth to children was unhygienic. Dangerous, both for
mother and child. To begin with it was necessary to spread a great deal
of information. But now there are no more problems over childbirth. Now
the women understand why hygiene is important. Today I deliver all the
women in the village.
Formerly many women were always pregnant. Most now understand
that this is bad. But we must go on spreading information. There used to
be some men who spoke against contraceptives. It was easier to con-
vince the women. But now even none of the men are against them. Now
everyone says they agree. But some families are thoughtless. And of
course there are accidents too. Other things are more problematic.
There are so many bad old customs which must be combatted. There
are those who aren't careful enough about their food. Not everyone
looks after their latrines properly. Dry earth must be used for covering
them. There must be no flies. We have got quite a long way with our
hygienic work, but not the whole way. That is why unremitting prop-
aganda is needed against the bad old habits. Not to look after latrines
properly, that's one such bad habit. Hygiene is a political question. The
old bad habits are deep-rooted, but we're fighting them all the time, and
things are getting better every year that goes by. This work we do during
study meetings. To study and apply Mao Tse-Tung Thought is a good
method.

Text from CHINA: THE REVOLUTION CONTINUED, by Jan Myrdal and Gun Kessle, translated
by Paul Britten Austin. @ 1970 by Random House. Inc. Reprintedby permissionof the publisher.

Every year the National InstitutelAmericanAcademy of Arts and Letters

singles out four composers for awards for distinguished achievement.
Christian Wolff was a 1975 winner, and this recording is part of his
award.
Produced by Carter Harman
Art direction: Judith Lerner
Cover photo by Dong Kingman, Jr.
Lines recorded by Maggi Payne at Mills College, March 1973
Accompaniments recorded by Frank Laico, March 15, 1976
LINES - C.F. Peters (BMI) - 22'45"
ACCOMPANIMENTS - C.F. Peters (BMI) 21'10" -
LC#: 76-750454
@ 19 7b Composers Recordings. Inc.
THIS IS A COMPOSER-SUPERVISED RECORDING