Elliott Carter was born in New York in 1908 and lived to the age of 104, dying in New York in 2012. As such, he lived throughout most of the 20th century and his music refl ects many of the ideals and practices of 20th century composition, as well as the associations and infl uences with whom he came into contact. He contributed greatly to the evolution of music culture in America and composed works right up until his death. Carter held numerous academic positions in prestigious universities in the USA, his longest tenure being at the Julliard School where he taught from 1964 to 1984. Carter is known for numerous compositions for a wide range of genres that include the Cello Sonata (1947-48), String Quartets (that were known for pushing compositional boundaries) and Concerto for Orchestra (1969).

Carter came from a middle class background and his family was involved in the lace exporting business. Due to the business commitments of the family there were opportunities for Carter to travel to France as a child. As a result he became fascinated with all things French and when in Paris on these family visits he took the time to learn the language.

AE NEWSnewsletter of the Australia Ensemble @UNSW

Never Stand Still Music Performance Unit

Issue 2, 2014: April

April Events

Australia Ensemble @UNSWFree lunch hour concertTuesday April 8, 2014 1.10 - 2.00pmLeighton Hall, Scientia BuildingRabaud: Solo de concours Op.10Martinu: Madrigal sonataRavel: String QuartetFree, all welcome

Australia Ensemble @UNSWFree lunch hour workshopThursday April 10, 20141.10 - 2.00pmLeighton Hall, Scientia BuildingDr James Wierzbicki with the Australia Ensemble @UNSWElliott Carter: Wind QuintetFree, all welcome

Australia Ensemble @UNSWSubscription Concert 2, 2014Saturday Apri 12, 20148.00pmSir John Clancy Auditorium Gounod: Petite symphonieMartinu: Duo no.1Carter: Wind QuintetBeethoven: Piano Trio (Archduke) Op.97Bookings: 02 9385 4874australia.ensemble@unsw.edu.au

An American in Paris Elliott Carter and Nadia Boulanger

The Woodwind Quintet by American composer Elliott Carter is one of the featured works in the Australia Ensemble’s subscription concert this month. Composed in 1948 and written for fl ute, oboe, clarinet in B fl at, horn in F and bassoon, the piece was dedicated to his teacher, the renowned pedagogue and composer/conductor - Nadia Boulanger.

Elliott Carter, 1932

Carter’s early musical infl uences were a result of his friendship with the composer Charles Ives. Ives used to take Carter to numerous concerts where the majority of music performed was composed by the modernist composers of the time. He also wrote Carter’s reference to help him get into Harvard University. Initially, Carter did not study music at Harvard but was a student of English literature, Greek and philosophy while he continued his music studies at the Longy School. He went on to study music as a postgraduate student at Harvard where the eminent American composer Walter Piston was one of his composition teachers. Carter was so impressed by Piston’s understanding of the disciplines of counterpoint, harmony and composition that he decided to continue his learning with Piston’s former teacher Nadia Boulanger. Carter did so between the years 1932-35 where he studied both as a private student with Boulanger and at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. According to Carter’s biographer David Schiff, Ives and Boulanger could be considered Carter’s musical parents.

Who was Nadia Boulanger? Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) lived the majority of her life in Paris. A former student of Fauré, Boulanger was one of the fi rst recognised female composers of the 20th century and was one of the greatest teachers of harmony and counterpoint. Every composer in the 20th century that wished to further their studies and experiences in understanding repertoire sought the professional development that Boulanger had to offer. She was also known for her conducting and premiered numerous works including Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks for chamber orchestra. She suffered tragedy early in her life when her sister Lili, also a musician and a respected composer, died young. Nadia admired Lili’s compositions so much that after Lili’s death, Nadia refused to write her own compositions as she felt she could never improve on what her sister had done.

Although Boulanger taught in the USA in the later part of her life, she maintained her residence in Paris. Due to her teaching of the highly esteemed and respected American composers Aaron Copland, Walter Piston and Carter, Nadia Boulanger had a profound infl uence on the evolution of American composition in the 20th century. It is also interesting to note that some of her students went on to compose popular and fi lm music. Three notable examples were George Gershwin, Quincy Jones and Burt Bacharach.

Studying with BoulangerBeautifully documented in Allen Edwards’ book Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds- A Conversation with Elliott Carter, Carter talks in great detail about the time he studied with Boulanger. Carter was in awe of the way Boulanger passed on her detailed musical knowledge to her students. She drilled them in the rules of counterpoint and harmony and made her students ‘copy by hand’ numerous examples and exercises. Boulanger was adamant that Bach was the key to understanding musical construct and as part of her teaching would hold weekly tea parties for her students where they would be expected to sing through several Bach cantatas. She introduced her students to the music of Stravinsky and although (according to Carter) not a huge fan of German composers, Boulanger would still present the music of Webern, Berg and Schoenberg to her students. In addition, Carter recalls the time she sight-read Hindemith’s Reihe kleine Klavierstücke which he described

Elliott Carter with Nadia Boulanger© New York Philharmonic

Elliott Carter to Nadia Boulanger, (1949)Paris, 31 August

Chére Mademoiselle,

I am truly sorry to have not seen you in Paris, but we had to leave suddenly for America on account of an annoying change of dates by Cunard, and this prevented me from arranging to see you as I should have done. I do hope that next time we will be able to meet up and have a chat as I have been wanting to do for so long.

Our visit to France, although so short, was full of charming and enjoyable things. Once again we were deeply moved by the cathedrals, the castles, and the landscape, and how we should have liked to share our impressions with you!

By the way of a little souvenir I am sending you a copy of the quintet I’ve been so bold to dedicate to you, which I hope will give you much pleasure to read through as it gave me to compose. If ever I were lucky enough to have it played here, it would give me great pleasure, for I have always admired the refi nement of French performers.

We wish you a very happy year here- and how could it be otherwise? Helen joins me in sending you our most affectionate greetings,

Elliott

(original in French, English translations by Mark Weir)

Hear the music

Carter Wind QuintetGeoffrey Collins, fl ute; Huw Jones, oboe; Dean Newcomb, clarinet; Robert Johnson, horn; Andrew Barnes, bassoonSubscription concert 2, 2014Saturday April 12, 8pmSir John Clancy Auditoriump: +61 2 9385 4874

as having ‘bowled us over’ and was inspired by her performance of Strauss’s Salome for the class, with all of them knowing that she detested this work.

Carter explained that Boulanger was a passionate and excellent teacher of counterpoint who would also spend time with the students analysing the works from the French Renaissance era. It was through Boulanger that Carter had the opportunity to meet Stravinsky. According to Edwards, Carter observed a preview of Stravinsky’s work Perséphone and was inspired by the way Stravinsky played the piano and noted the composer’s precise and rhythmic approach. This left an indelible memory in Carter, which can be seen in his own works.

Carter, unlike Copland, did not compose during his studies with Boulanger, yet her teaching broadened Carter’s understanding of past compositional approaches which was vital in his education as a composer and musician. Although Carter was very much ‘the student’ in the eyes of Boulanger, there was an obvious affection between student and teacher and this is refl ected in the following letter Carter sent to Boulanger after he wrote the Woodwind Quintet telling its dedication.

Dr James Wierzbicki

Dr Wierzbicki is currently on the Arts Music Unit faculty at the University of Sydney. Prior to commencing this position in 2010, James Wierzbicki taught musicology in the United States at the University of Michigan and University of California-Irvine, and for more than twenty years he was chief classical music critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and other large American newspapers. Along with exploring questions of modernity and the postmodern, his research focuses on twentieth-century music in general and fi lm music in particular. His articles have appeared in Beethoven Forum, Music and the Moving Image, Opera Quarterly, Perspectives of New Music, the Journal of the American Musicological Society, and Musical Quarterly; his books include a monograph on the electronic score for the 1956 fi lm Forbidden Planet (Scarecrow Press, 2005), Film Music: A History (Routledge, 2009), and Elliott Carter (University of Illinois Press, 2011). Wierzbicki’s current large project is a study of the full range of American music in the 1950s, regarded through such societal ‘fi lters’ as post-war technology, the Red Scare, race relations, and sexual politics. As mentioned, Wierzbicki had his book published on Elliott Carter as part of the American Composers series. He fi rst came into contact with the music of Elliott Carter in the 1970s whilst doing his postgraduate degrees at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. During this time the renowned LaSalle Quartet was ensemble-in-residence at the University, and as a result he was privileged to hear live performances of the Carter string quartets on a fairly regular basis. Later in the 1980s, while working as a music critic in

St. Louis, Wierzbicki reviewed recordings for the magazine High Fidelity. According to Wierzbicki, the editors would send him recordings of ‘new music’, and quite a few of these happened to contain works by Elliott Carter. Wierzbicki states that he was very surprised in early 1988 to receive a telephone call from someone at BMI (the American musicians’ copyright protection group). BMI were preparing a special catalogue of Carter’s music in honour of the composer’s up-coming eightieth birthday, and the representative informed Wierzbicki that Mr. Carter had personally requested that he was to be invited to write the essay that would be included in this brochure. Wierzbicki states that although he had never met Carter he had the opportunity to write regularly on the composer’s recordings of his major works. Apparently Carter was very impressed with how Wierzbicki wrote about his music as the composer felt that Wierzbicki in the composer’s own words ‘got’ his music.

We very much look forward to Dr Wierzbicki sharing his unique insight into Carter’s music this month.

This April the Australia Ensemble is privileged to have Dr James Wierzbicki present the Lunch hour workshop on Elliott Carter’s Woodwind Quintet.

Hear the music

Carter Wind QuintetPresenter: Dr James WierzbickiGeoffrey Collins, fl ute; Huw Jones, oboe; Dean Newcomb, clarinet; Robert Johnson, horn; Andrew Barnes, bassoonFree lunch hour workshopThursday April 10, 1.10pm Leighton HallFree, all welcome

Dr James Wierzbicki [photo: Dom Blake]

Who was Rabaud?Rabaud, a native of Paris, was born in 1873 and died in 1949. He is known for being a composer and conductor and importantly succeeded Fauré as Director of the Paris Conservatoire, a position he held from 1922 to 1941. Rabaud came from a family of musicians and his compositional approach was very much a product of the Viennese and French traditions. In 1894, Rabaud won the Prix de Rome which afforded him the opportunity to live in Italy at the Villa Medici. This Italian foray led Rabaud to study and appreciate the music of Verdi, Mascagni and Puccini, which in turn inspired him to refl ect the infl uences of these operatic composers in his later works. Rabaud is mostly known for his operas which include Job (1900) and Mârouf, savetier du Caire (1914). Prior to his position at the Paris Conservatoire, Rabaud was conductor for the Opéra-Comique and Opéra in Paris. In addition, he held the position of Music Director of the Boston Symphony for one season in 1918.Rabaud is widely considered as a conservative in his compositions and was known to state: ‘Modernism is the enemy’.

In the lunch hour concert this month the Australia Ensemble performs a short work for clarinet and piano, Solo de Concours by French composer Henri Rabaud.

Bohuslav Martinů The music of this fascinating Czech composer is being featured by the Australia Ensemble this April. The works performed are the Madrigal Sonata (1942) for Piano, Flute and Violin and the Three Madrigals (1947) for violin and viola, and were both composed whilst Martinů was living in the USA.

Hear the music Rabaud Solo de concours Dean Newcomb, clarinet; Ian Munro, piano Free lunch hour concert: Tuesday April 8, 1.10pm Leighton Hall Free, all welcome

Hear the music

Martinů Madrigal SonataGeoffrey Collins, fl ute; Dimity Hall, violin; Ian Munro, pianoFree lunch hour concert Tuesday April 8, 1.10pmLeighton HallFree, all welcome

Martinů Duo no.1Dene Olding, violin; Irina Morozova, violaSubscription concert 2, 2014Saturday April 12, 8pmSir John Clancy Auditoriump: +61 2 9385 4874

Charlotte & Bohuslav Martinů in their apartment, New York, 1942 or 1943 © PBM

BBC radio celebrated Ravel’s birthday March 7th this year with a special day of fascinating programs and podcasts on the life and music of this important composer. The programs included a fi lm clip on Ravel’s house where you can view the home where Ravel lived and worked in the later part of his life. Due to the close camera angles and intimacy of watching a program online it is almost as if one is actually there with the presenter. A feature of the tour is seeing the room where Ravel composed his opera L’enfant et les sortilèges.Another program that one should be able to access on the site is on Ravel’s letters, written between Ravel and English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. Although Vaughan Williams was close in age to Ravel he went to study with the French composer in order to seek a fresh approach to his own understanding of composition technique. Tom Service and Stephen Johnson fully engage the listener in this program through their discussion and play examples of Vaughan Williams repertoire which highlight the ideas and techniques he learnt from Ravel.Also available on the website is a fi lm clip of Ravel’s biographer Roger Nichols playing on Ravel’s piano. Nichols makes an interesting point about tempo in the Pavane pour une infante défunte saying that the work should not be played too slow and supports this statement explaining that musicologists have access to information on Ravel’s tempos through the composer’s own piano rolls. Included in the archival broadcasts is an interesting and historical interview with Nadia Boulanger taken in 1975 when she was 87 years old. Boulanger, like Ravel, was a student of Gabriel Fauré and in this program she shares many stories about Ravel. She describes Ravel’s music as ‘simple, clear and linear’ and talks about the compositional structure of several works by Ravel. For example in Ma mère l’oye (Mother Goose Suite) Boulanger goes through each movement and describes the various infl uences that Ravel incorporated throughout the work. Ravel included a diverse range of styles that stemmed from the music of his teacher Fauré, the technique of jazz (due to his association with Gershwin) as well as the music from Mozart’s inspiring clarinet quintet. Boulanger also described Ravel as a ‘superb’ orchestrator and mentioned that Ravel attempted to write a book on orchestration on several occasions. In addition, to these programs there are a number of performances of major works by Ravel that are wonderful to hear and see. I hope that you enjoy searching through the BBC website as much as this author did!

The String Quartet (1902-3 rev.1910) by Maurice Ravel, like the Debussy String Quartet (1893), is a favourite amongst both musicians and audiences alike and will feature in the Australia Ensemble’s lunchtime concert this month.

A Belated Birthday for Ravel(March 7, 1875 – December 28, 1937)

Full Ravel site on BBC Radio: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01sp8b8Ravel’s House: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01tc7jtRavel and Pavane performed by Roger Nichols: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01t6l0s Ravel and Boulanger: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01td4n6Music Matters: Ravel’s Letters: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01tdfzp

Hear the music

Ravel String QuartetDene Olding, Dimity Hall, violins; Irina Morozova, viola; Julian Smiles, cello Free lunch hour concertTuesday April 8, 1.10pm Leighton HallFree, all welcome

Ludwig van Beethoven’s beautiful Trio in B fl at for Violin, Cello and Piano (the ‘Archduke’), Op.97 will be featured in the Australia Ensemble’s subscription concert this month.

During my research on the Trio and the Archduke Rudolph himself, I came across the website for Beethoven Haus in Bonn, Germany. This brought back a lovely memory of the time I visited Germany and I made a point of visiting Bonn especially to visit Beethoven’s birthplace. I remember feeling quite overcome during my time in the museum as the visit brought this great composer to life for me. With the wonders of the internet if you are not able to get to Bonn it is possible to see the fi rst home of Beethoven via virtual tours of the house. In addition, a 24 hour webcam has been placed on the house so that you can see it at any time of the day or night. I also think it is great that like any museum here in Australia the museum offers research opportunities as well as tours for school groups and you can even host a child’s birthday party there!In addition, the museum and website (in both German and English) offer research tools such as original manuscripts to view digitally as well as portraits and letters. For example, the museum website has some great pictures of Archduke Rudolph of Austria (after whom the ‘Archduke’ Trio was nicknamed) a fi ne pianist who was Beethoven’s patron as well as his friend and piano/composition student. The technological advances the staff have implemented on the Beethoven Haus website have set a good example for other museums as they have created an opportunity for researchers all over the world to have readily available access to Beethoven’s archival materials.

Archduke Rudolph of Austria

Beethoven Haus website: http://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=portal_en

A sample of the manuscript of Beethoven’s ‘Archduke’ Trio

Hear the musicBeethoven Piano Trio Op.97 ‘Archduke’Ian Munro, piano; Dimity Hall, violin; Julian Smiles, cello Subscription concert 2, 2014Saturday April 12, 8pmSir John Clancy Auditorium p: +61 2 9385 4874

Beethoven Today

Robert Johnson Guest ArtistThe Australia Ensemble @UNSW is featuring many guest artists in its varied and interesting program this month. One of these notable musicians is Principal Horn of the Sydney Symphony, Robert Johnson.

I recently asked Robert a few questions about his association with the Australia Ensemble and he was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule to answer them.

How long have you been playing with the Australia Ensemble as a guest artist?

RJ: I have played as guest with the Australia Ensemble for over 25 years.Why do you enjoy playing with the Ensemble? When invited to play with the Australia Ensemble - what aspect of performing with the ensemble motivates you to say ‘yes’ to each call?

RJ: I enjoy working with the group because after all this time, apart from great musicians, I regard them as friends and this kind of rapport is something one treasures. It is this, as well as this interesting repertoire, that motivates me to want to keep on playing with the Ensemble.Music is not the easiest of professions - What inspires you as a musician? And most importantly to keep going forward as a musician?

RJ: What inspires me as a musician is variety, the challenges that come with that and the satisfaction of working outside one’s comfort zone. It’s fair to say that this is what keeps me going too.What is interesting about the program for you this April?

RJ: For the program this April, the big challenge will be the Elliott Carter Quintet as it is a work I have never played before. The Gounod is an old friend and is always a lot of fun.

Music Performance UnitUNSW Sydney NSW 2052AUSTRALIA

p: +61 2 9385 4874f: +61 2 9313 7326e: australia.ensemble@unsw.edu.au

Publications Specialist: Dr Joanna Drimatis