These works were all created for Stephen Drury by composers he has worked closely with for many years, and is a kind of history of a performer creating himself through creating a repertoire. The program embraces the wide range of styles and characters Drury is known to project from the stage: Zorn’s wild cartoon gestures and mystical incantations, the rock-inflected vigor of Hyla’s piano writing and the vast minimalist structures of John Luther Adams’ Alaskan visions.
John Zorn’s Carny is one of his first major, fully-notated works, in which the composer introduced his lightning-fast changes, multi-stylistic quotations and outrageous humor to the classical concert stage. Fifteen years later Zorn returned to solo piano with an entirely different take in the hypnotic Fay Ce Que Vouldras, inspired by the mystical visions of Alastair Crowley. Basic Training is Lee Hyla’s tribute to Drury’s early teacher Margaret Ott, and is a “portrait of the artist” tracing his development from a young, enthusiastic but clumsy piano-banger to a more nuanced and visionary musician. John Luther Adams’ 4,000 Holes, referencing The Beatles through an intricately layered web of electro-acoustic waves, is the newest work here; the composer creates a chilling poly-rhythmic landscape for piano and processed sounds of grand proportions.
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Works to be performed on the “Written for Stephen Drury” program include:
John Luther Adams, 4000 Holes (for piano and recorded sounds)
John Zorn, Carny
Zorn, Fay Ce Que Vouldras
Lee Hyla, Basic Training
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John Luther Adams’s original program notes for 4,000 Holes:
4000 Holes
“…and though the holes were rather small,
they had to count them all,
now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall.”
–John Lennon
I came of age playing rock and roll. And although I left that musical world long ago, the truth is I’ve never really felt completely at home in the classical music world. I’m especially uncomfortable with much of the so-called “crossover” music of recent years, in which classical musicians try to expand that tradition by appropriating elements from pop culture.
In 4000 Holes I wanted to re-appropriate and reclaim for myself something of my own musical past. For the first time since my teens, I’ve chosen to restrict myself to major and minor triads—those most basic elements of Western music (both pop and classical). But I’ve tried to assimilate them fully into my own musical world. Approaching these simple chords as found objects, I’ve superimposed them into multiple streams of tempo, to create lush new composite harmonies.
In recent years I’ve been fortunate to form a close musical partnership with Stephen Drury. Steve’s extraordinary gifts inspired me to indulge my desire to explore expansive forms and textures (similar to those of my orchestral music) with only one or two performers.
In essence 4000 Holes is a concerto. To begin I composed the score for the electronic tracks. Steve made recordings of all the individual chords that occur in the score. I took those recordings, time-stretched them, reversed their envelopes, and knit the reversed sounds together with their original decays. The resulting waves of sound I layered into eight independent tracks to create the virtual “orchestra”.
Next I composed the piano solo, which articulates the peaks of all the electronic tracks simultaneously – a feat of coordination that demands considerable virtuosity from the pianist. Finally I composed another multi-layered part for metallic percussion sounds, which I conceive as sparks showering out of the piano.
In 4000 Holes strong musical currents fall and rise, again and again, as points and lines are juxtaposed with heavy, hammered chords. The mix of the “live” and electronically processed sounds blurs the distinction between musical figure and ground. As in much of my recent music, I conceive of the entire piece as a single complex, slowly evolving sonority. As we settle into this sound, we begin to hear contrapuntal lines unfolding, and maybe even the occasional ghost of a tune.
– John Luther Adams