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CD125 Daniel Pinkham: Piano Music

Daniel Pinkham: Piano Music

Sally Pinkas & Evan Hirsch
Pianists

Notes by the composer
69'09" total playing time

CD125 $15.95

CONTENTS
HOLLAND WALTZES (1982) for two pianos	WEATHER REPORTS (1999) Duet Book for Young Pianists
1. I Jovial	16. I Starry skies and gibbous moon
2. II Langorous	17. II The fog will lift by noon
3. III Fleeting	18. III Little wind, but by dusk the snow will be deep
PRELUDES (1995-96) for piano solo	19. IV Thunderheads will build in the west
4. I Agitato	20. V At dawn a gentle breeze will spring up
5. II Tranquillo e dulce	21. VI Steady rainfall
6. III Lento e lasso	22. VII Occasional sudden gusts
7. IV Scherzo	SHARDS (2000) Six Short Pieces for piano solo
8. V Cantabile e legato ma mon troppo flessible	23. I Allegro
9. VI Andante dolente ma sereno	24. II Con moto
10. VII Pesante e mesto	25. III Sereno
11. VIII Allegretto	26. IV Presto
12. IX Leggiero	27. V Allegretto
13. X Aria serena	28. VI Romanza
14. XI Allegretto ballando	QUARRIES (1999) for piano four-hands
15. XII Con motto	29. I Prelude
	30. II Variations
	31. III Interlude
	32. IV Finale

Listen:

No. III. “Fleeting” from Holland Waltzes

The Composer Comments

In 1950 I composed Concertino in A for Piano and Small Orchestra, which the late Paul Doguereau premiered in May of that year in Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. With the exception of a few trifles, for years I wrote nothing for piano except accompaniments for numerous songs and Holland Waltzes.

Holland Waltzes was commissoned by the two-piano team of Conway and Ashbrenner for inclusion in the 1982 Holland (Michigan) March Festival. They premiered the work on March 12 at Hope College. Each of the three waltzes is in a radically different tempo and affect. The opening waltz is warm, sunny and tuneful. (Do we hear Brahms?) The second waltz, extremely slow and langorous, is veiled and smoky. The third, by contrast, is saucy, driven, and brilliantly virtuoistic.

In 1995 I received a substantial commission from the Board of Trustees of the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to honor Victor Rosenbaum on his tenth year as Director of the school. For this I produced Preludes for Piano which Sally Pinkas premiered on September 8 of that year. I subsequently composed six additional preludes and dedicated them to Sally. She performed the world premiere of the now dozen pieces on January 30, 1997 at the Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire. There is an enormous range of intensities and structures in this set. The Preludes range from extremely simple to the complexities of a granitic ricercare in the finale.

Early in the spring of 1999, Sally and her husband Evan Hirsch talked about producing a CD of my piano works. As a result of our discussion, three large sets of pieces emerged over the subsequent months. Quarries, for piano four-hands, was the first and was premiered by Sally and Evan at the Abbazia di S. Lucia, Rocca di Cambio, Italy on August 11, 1999. The work is for technically gifted performers. The four sections are markd Prelude, Variations, Interlude, and Finale. The theme of the variations is based on a psalm setting, "Hear O Shepherd of Israel" that I had earlier composed for tenor, double-bass and organ. The concluding movement is a brilliant fugue.

On their return home, Sally and Evan found Weather Reports, a duet book for young pianists. They presented the world premiere of October 20, 1999 at the Longy School. The work comprises seven brief movements evoking various weather conditions.

In January 2000, I composed Shards, six short pieces for piano solo. They are inscribed "For Evan Hirsch." The opening movement, "Allegro," is terse and in C minor. The piano writing suggests early Beethoven. The second meovement, a fugue, is marked "Con moto." It was only recently that I noticed the first four notes of the subject were the pitches B-flat, A, C, and B-natural, which is, of course, the celebrated B-A-C-H motive. The third movement is marked "Sereno" and is quietly confident. The fourth, marked "Presto" is a fleeting scherzo. The fifth is marked "Allegretto." Its harmonic language reflects my enthusiasm for the Nocturnes of Gabriel Fauré. The final movement, "Romanza," comprises several contrasting materials. It opens with a long-breathed melody harmonized with large chords. This material is then developed in contrapuntal style. The impressionistic section that follows has nebuolous and vague sonorities produced by the blurring of the pedal. Clarity returns, as does the choral writing with which the movement began. The work concludes powerfully.

--Daniel Pinkham

The Artists

Since its 1992 debut, the Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo has presented one- and two-piano recitals to enthusiastic audiences throughtout the USA. Sally Pinkas and Evan Hirsch, each an active soloist, bring to their collaboration virtuosity, enthusiasm, and striking warmth (they are married). Dedicated to an exploration of twentieth-century music, their repertoire includes rarely-heard works such as Messiaen's Visions de'amen, Milhaud's La création du monde, and Copland's Billy the Kid. Equally at ease with the standard repertoire, the Duo's offerings range from Byrd to Mozart, Brahms, and Rachmoninoff, and include works especially arranged by Hirsch.

Hirsch-Pinkas Piano Duo In 1998, the Duo premiered George Rochberg's Circle of Fire for two pianos, commissioned for and dedicated to Pinkas and Hirsch. Premier performances of the work in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, New Hampshire and Arizona were followed by concerts in Cincinnati and in Kfar Blum Chamber Music Festival, Israel, where the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo was in residence during the summer of 1998. The work was featured in their Russian tour in 1999, and their recording of it is now available on the Gasparo label (GSCD-343).

Following an acclaimed 1995 European debut at the Officina Musicale dell'Altopiano in Abruzzo, Italy, Pinkas and Hirsch returned to Abruzzo for the second time in the summer of 1999, and premiered a new work, Quarries, written for them by Daniel Pinkham. Later that year the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo made its African debut in Lagos, Nigeria, and presented recitals at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv and Eckerd College in Florida. The 2000 season included appearances in St. Louis, Boston, and Houston.

Sally Pinkas is Associate Professor of Music at Dartmouth College, an Artist-in-Residence at the College's Hopkins Center and an Artist-teacher at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She holds performance degrees from Indiana University and the New England Conservatory of Music, and a Ph.D in Composition and Theory from Brandeis University. Since her 1983 London debut she has concertized widely in the USA, Europe, and Israel, both as soloist and as part of the Hirsch-Pinkas Duo. Pinkas' discopgraphy includes works by Debussy, Schulhoff, and Christian Wolff on the Centaur, Northeastern, and Mode labels. Most recently, two discs featuring the solo piano works of George Rochberg were released on the Gasparo label (GSCD-340/2).

Evan Hirsch, an active recitalist and chamber player throughout the northeastern USA, holds degrees from SUNY, Purchase, and the New England Conservatory of Music. In addition to teaching piano and chamber music at Brandeis University, he has been on the Adult Education faculty at the New England Conservatory, and in the spring of 1999 was a Visiting Professor at Dartmouth College. A dedicated champion of new music, Hirsch has performed with numerous contemporary ensembles, and has recorded for New Albion and Gasparo Records.