Notes from Nonesuch Records N-78012: At the time of writing this text I am completing the second of the two works in Part I of a series of works entitled: The Double Life of Amphibians. This second work is for 10 instruments and "real time" computer generated sound and is entitled Ascent Into Air The entire series will be in three parts: Part I: Amphibians, Part II: Beasts, Part III: Angels The second part, Beasts, will be a theatre work (opera?) involving singers, musicians, electronics and an extensive choreographed lighting score. Angels, the third part, will consist of two works, the first of which I am about to start and is for the Juilliard String Quartet. Axolotl (1980) is the first of the two works in Part I of The Double Life of Amphibians. It is scored for cello and an electronic ghost score and was commissioned by Joel Krosnick who premiered it at the Library of Congress on Feb. 13,1981.An Axolotl is a Mexican salamander. It is a transparent and delicate creature with two filigree wing-like appendages, extending from either side of the body, which appear to float above it. These are its lungs for the future ascent onto land... but the axolotl never goes through the final stage of its potential development... it never reaches air... it remains forever in water. About the "ghost" score: The ghost score consists of two objects:a tape and a small package of electronics. The electronics consist of basic devices: 1. to locate the sound from left to right 2. to alter the frequency of the sound of the instrument up and/or down 100 cycles 3. to control the shape of the amplification The tape contains high frequency audio signals which are not amplified and therefore not heard by the audience but, instead, are sent directly to the electonics and act as controls for the three modifying devices. The electronics have no sound of their own; they can only act upon the sound of the instrument as it plays, hence, a "ghost" score. -Morton Subotnick Morton Subotnick is a pioneer in the field of electronic music as well as an innovator in works involving instruments and other media. Born in Los Angeles in 1933, Subotnick, now on the faculty of California Institute of the Arts, includes among his teachers Leon Kirchner and Darius Milhaud. During his years in San Francisco he co-founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center (now at Mills College) and was Music Director of Ann Halprin's Dance Company and the San Francisco Actors' Workshop. He served as Music Director of the Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre during its first season and was director of electronic music at the original Electric Circus on St. Mark's Place in New York City. Subotnick's faculty appointments include Mills College and New York University and he has been visiting professor in composition at University of Maryland, University of Pittsburgh and Yale University. Perhaps best known for his electronic works, he was the first composer to be commissioned to write an electronic composition expressly for the phonograph medium, SILVER APPLES OF THE MOON (Nonesuch H-71174, 1967) which has subsequently been choreographed by the Netherlands Ballet, Ballet Rambert of London and the Glen Tetley Dance Company. His other recordings include: THE WILD BULL (Nonesuch H-71208, 1968), SIDEWINDER (CBS, 1971) 4 BUTTERFLIES (CBS, 1974), UNTIL SPRING (CBS, 1976) and LIQUID STRATA (Town Hall Records, 1979, album title: "For Ralph Grierson") and A SKY OF CLOUDLESS SULPHUR/AFTER THE BUTTERFLY (Nonesuch N-78001,1980). Joel Krosnick, Cello A student of William d'Amato, Luigi Silva, Jens Nygaard and Klaus Adam, JOEL KROSNICK has served on the faculties of the universities of Iowa and Massachusetts and the California Arts Institute. He is a faculty member of The Juilliard School and combines a solo career with extensive tours as cellist of the Juilliard Quarter. Both as solo recitalist and as quartet member, he commands a repertoire that encompasses music from the classical as well as the contemporary genres. His contribution to the enrichment of cello literature in (he area of contemporary music has focused on such major American composers as Milton Babbitt, Elliott Carter, Met Powell, Roger Sessions, Charles Wuorinen, and Morton Subotnick. Notes from Nonesuch 78020-1: SIDE ONE (24:07) Ascent Into Air (1981) from The Double Life of Amphibians for 10 instruments and Computer Generated Sound CALARTS TWENTIETH CENTURY PLAYERS: conducted by Stephen Mosko; Ruth Dreier, Erika Duke, cellos; Theresa Tunnicliff, clarinet; James D. Rohrig, bass clarinet; Daniel L. Flags, trombone; James Paul Conner, bass trombone; Gaylord Orren Mowrey, Michael McCandless, pianos; Amy Mane Knoles, Rand Steiger, percussion; Peter Otto, Deborah Quinn, computer operators; Buchla 300 Programming Assistance: Rand Steiger; Recorded April 16,1982, at Wally Heider Studio, Los Angeles; Mixed November 4,1982, Sunset Sound Factory, Los Angeles ASCENT INTO AIR and A FLUTTERING OF WINGS are the first and third parts of a larger work entitled THE DOUBLE LIFE OF AMPHIBIANS. The entire work is conceived as a staged tone poem.. .a music drama in three parts (Amphibians, Beasts, Angels). The title acts as a metaphor which is used to provide a model for the structure of the work as well as suggesting the nature of the musical materials. Briefly, the metaphor suggests that the "doubleness" of the amphibians, needing its past-present environment (the water) while reaching for a new present-future world (the air), is our "doubleness"...the past-present and present-future... that beast-spirit and angel-spirit in us all. Part I, ASCENT INTO AIR and part II, THE LAST DREAM OF THE BEAST (unfinished at the time of writing these notes), deal with the duality implied in the metaphor, while part III, A FLUTTERING OF WINGS, acts as a resolution to the metaphoric dilemma. Part I: AMPHIBIANS (ASCENT INTO AIR) is for two cellos, clarinet, bass clarinet, trombone, bass trombone, two pianos, two percussion players and computer generated sounds (controlled by the intensity of the cellists' performance). The work starts as a dark and intense musical environment without articulation of rhythmic or melodic material (section D. This is followed by more dance-like materials which are more rhythmically and melodically articulated (section 2). The third section is a playful interchange between the pianos, percussion and computer sounds which flows into the fourth section which is more visceral and forceful... even violent...and, in turn, leads into the fifth and final section. The last section bears some resemblance to the opening, but transforms into an ethereal, floating chorale-like material. The musicians are dramatically lit throughout Part I and a back drop gradually evolves... engulfing the musicians in a landscape of an imaginary, mythic people. The music-narrative moves from a water based unarticulated environment to a more articulated land based environment (the 'ascent into air'). Part II: BEASTS (THE LAST DREAM OF THE BEAST) will be a theatrical work... an electronic media drama in which both music and images will be visceral, clearly articulated, forceful and at times violent. THE BEAST (a creature caught between man and beast) believes a poetic theory that if one dies while dreaming, that dream becomes infinite. He fantasizes a beautiful 'beast woman' who, blind and armless, falls in love with him. The ending aria is their final love moment in which he dies in his sleep. Her ending lullaby acknowledges both the death and the eternal dream. The cast will consist of a chorus of coupled singers, singing into each others' mouths, and a female soloist (Joan La Barbara). The actions of the characters will be captured and transformed and continually replayed so that by the end of the drama these frozen moments of struggle will mingle with the emergence of a new landscape while the final aria unfolds. The ending lullaby of the aria overlaps the opening of part III. The music narrative here is the beast-man struggle... i.e.... the evolving of the spirit and ecstasy Part III: ANGELS (A FLUTTERING OF WINGS) is for string quartet and an electronic ghost score and is in four parts played without pause: A FLUTTERING OF WINGS DANCE: one angel dancing two angels dancing three angels dancing HALO SONG OF THE ANGEL The opening is fast music of continuous 16th notes. The fluttering is created by the ghost which gently weaves the amplified quartet sound through the proscenium space. The dance is also quick and continuous, but the ghost here acts as pulsating support to the rhythm and tempo of the dance. In the third section, the music pauses for the first time. Here individual plucked notes and chords are altered by frequency changes produced by the electronics which help to create a halo like sound. The music of this section continually develops, both the old material of the work and the new material which is particular to this section. This continual evolution as well as the lullaby from THE LAST DREAM OF THE BEAST, which has been heard throughout the quartet, slowly subsides only after the "song" begins. This ending song, "the song of the angel" (a final articulation and fulfillment of the implications of the chorale at the end of part I), hovers quietly while the landscape gradually evolves into its final ecstatic form. 'Ascent Into Air" was composed in Berlin and Paris during 1980 and 1981. It was commissioned for IRCAM by Madam Pierre Schlumberger, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and was first performed by the Ensemble InterContemporain, Peter Eotvos, conductor, on January 18-21,1982. A FLUTTERING OF WINGS was composed in Berlin in 1981 and was written for the Juilliard String Quartet with the aid of a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Juilliard School of Music. Notes on the electronics used in each of the works: For the first performance of ASCENT INTO AIR the 4C computer music system developed at IRCAM was used. The programming was assisted by Stanley Haines. On this recording some of the original sounds from the 4C are utilized on tape while the electronic part is predominantly performed on the Buchla 300 system. The most recent version uses the Buchla 400 system throughout. The electronic ghost score is a silent digital control system which activates an amplifier, frequency shifter, and location device. The ghost electronics were designed by Donald Buchla and constructed by John Payne to my specifications and were made possible by a Creative Arts Grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and a grant from the Judith Thomas Stark Foundation. MORTON SUBOTNICK, one of the acknowledged pioneers in the field of electronic music, is an innovator in works involving instruments and other media. Born in Los Angeles in 1933, Subotnick studied under Leon Kirchner and Darius Milhaud. During his earlier years in San Francisco, he co-founded the San Francisco Tape Music Center (now at Mills College) and was Music Director of Ann Halprins' Dance Company and the San Francisco Actor's Workshop. Later, while in New York City, he was Music Director of the Lincoln Center Repertory Theatre during its first season, director of electronic music at the original Electric Circus on St. Mark's' Place, and Artist-in-Residence at the New York University School of the Arts. On the faculty of the California Institute of the Arts, Subotnick's other faculty appointments have included Mills College and, as visiting professor in composition, the University of Maryland, University of Pittsburgh and Yale University. He tours extensively as a lecturer and composer/performer. Well-known for his electronic works, Subotnick was the first composer to be commissioned to write an electronic composition expressly for the phonograph medium, SILVER APPLES OF THE MOON (1967).This now classic work and THE WILD BULL have been choreographed by leading dance companies throughout the world and remain in permanent repertory. Included among Subotnick's numerous grants and awards are three from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim fellowship, Meet the Composer and ASCAP awards, two Rockefeller Foundation grants to develop the "ghost" electronics, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Composer Award, the Brandeis Creative Arts Award in Music, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst Künstler Programm award (DAAD) as composer-in-residence in West Berlin. THE CALARTS TWENTIETH CENTURY PLAYERS The CalArts Twentieth Century Players, conducted by composer Stephen Mosko, was founded in 1977 by Morton Subotnick at the School of Music of California Institute of the Arts. The ensemble consists primarily of graduate students and was created to give these students ample opportunity to perform the music of the 20th Century on a highly professional level. In addition, it serves the CalArts composition students as an immediately available instrument with which to check their ideas and works within the performing reality. The ensemble has quickly reached an outstanding level of performance and repertoire which has made it an important body in the new music scene of Southern California. In addition to appearances at the CalArts Contemporary Music Festival, the ensemble has also performed at the Schoenberg Institute, Los Angeles, the Ojai Festival, the Chicago Contemporary Music Concert series and the 1982 Holland Festival in Amsterdam. The Twentieth Century Players has recorded Mr. Subotnick's 'After the Butterfly" on Nonesuch. JUILLIARD STRING QUARTET In the three decades since it was founded, the Juilliard Quartet has set a standard of excellence for an entire generation, won acknowledgement as without peer among the ranking string quartets of the world, and been acclaimed in more than forty countries as indeed "the first family of chamber music" The Juilliard Quartet continues as Quartet-in-Residence of the Juilliard School (where its members have trained a number of the most successful up-and-coming chamber music groups) and since 1962 has also been Quartet-in-Residence at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. (where it gives an annual series of concerts on the priceless Stradivarius instruments willed to the people of the United States by Mrs. Gertrude Clarke Whittall). The ensemble has to date played more than 4,000 sold-out concerts in every corner of the globe; its world tours have included all the music capitals and major music festivals. In addition to its coast-to-coast American tours which include visits to a multitude of college and university campuses, the Quartet returns to Europe annually for extensive tours and frequently visits the Orient. In 1961 it was the first American string quartet to visit the Soviet Union, to which it returned for another triumphant tour in 1965. While its vast repertoire covers the full gamut of string quartet literature, the Juilliard Quartet is especially noted for its complete cycles of the Beethoven and Bartók Quartets. It has also premiered more than forty works by contemporary American composers. Mastered by Michele Stone, KM Records. Notes from Nonesuch 78029: MORTON SUBOTNICK: THE LAST DREAM OF THE BEAST (1978, Revised 1982 & 1984) The Last Dream of the Beast, composed for Joan LaBarbara, is a concert version of an "aria" from the music drama THE DOUBLE LIFE OF AMPHIBIANS (composed by Morton Subotnick, directed by Le Breuer with sets by Irving Petlin). In the aria, a beast man imagines a beautiful, blind woman who falls in love with him. He fantasizes that if one dies while dreaming, the dream becomes infinite and so, he arranges his death while dreaming his last and most beautiful encounter with his fantasy woman. The solo version of The Last Dream of the Beast, for amplified soprano and an electronic "ghost" score, was premiered at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., February 1979. It was revised and rescored for electronic tape and 6 celli in addition to the amplified voice and "ghost" score, and premiered at the Monday Evening Concerts in Los Angeles 6 December 1982. It was reworked again for premiere in the staged version of THE DOUBLE LIFE OF AMPHIBIANS for the Olympics Arts Festival in Los Angeles 20 June 1984 and this Nonesuch recording represents that version of the work for amplified soprano, 2 celli, live electronic sounds and an electronic "ghost" score. Recorded February 10, 1984, Capitol Records, Los Angeles Conductor: Stephen L. Mosko Performers: Erika Duke, cello; Dane Little, cello; Morton Subotnick, Buchla 400 Electronic Musical Instrument and "ghost" electronics