“Curt Cacioppo: ITALIA” now available

March 26th, 2010 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

“ITALIA” is the title of Curt Cacioppo’s latest release. This is the composer’s 10th disc, and features exclusively music that he has written either in Italy or in response to Italian inspiration. The first work is “Impressions of Venice” (“Impressioni venexiane”), performed by the ensemble that commissioned it, the Quartetto di Venezia. Next is a set of solo piano pieces penned while in residence in Tuscany and entitled “On the Road of the Seven Bridges” (“Sulla Via dei Sette Ponti”). The performer is virtuoso Matthew Bengtson. Rounding off the program is a work called “Red Dove of Libya” (“Colomba scarlatta della Libia”), for an ensemble that includes flute, harp, contrabass and percussion, with vocal recitation. The story behind it concerns cult practices at the ancient Temple of Venus located in Sicily in the town of Erice. Members of Philadelphia’s Network for New Music, for whom the piece was composed, give it a vivid interpretation.

“Curt Cacioppo: Italia” is Navona Records CD#5827. Accompanying the disc is an enhanced content website where you can find extended program notes in both English and Italian, composer and performer bios, audio and video commentaries by the composer, slide shows synched to each work that reveal the images that inspired the music, as well as scores for study, and downloadable images suitable for computer desktop display.

For more information go to https://curtcacioppo.com/recordings.
To access enhanced content on the Navona site, visit http://navonarecords.com/italia/.

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2 new CD releases

March 19th, 2010 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

Congratulations to the Quartetto di Venezia on their new Decca 3 disc set of the complete Cherubini string quartets. These neglected works deserve much attention and study. Beethoven and Brahms were both correct in their esteem for this composer. And these performances are superb. It’s Decca 476 3604 – a long awaited contribution to the string quartet discography.

And congratulations to Charles Cacioppo for his second release this season. The CD is “Dialogues” on LP Recordings #2010 featuring the Italy-based duo Andrea Ceccomori flute, and Elitza Harbova, piano. Along with Chuck’s 2 pieces inspired by Sandor Woeres poems are works by Casella, Copland, Berio, Dorff, Gach, Gentile, Zaimov, Anzaghi, and Goleminov. For more information, visit
http://www.ceccomori.it/project/dialogues/

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Charles Cacioppo on CD

December 25th, 2009 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

It is a pleasure to announce the release of Charles Cacioppo’s
“Piece for Unaccompanied Clarinet (2003)” performed by Ikuko Arai
on the new Beauport Classical CD “GHOSTS.” Of the nine composers
represented on the disc, Chuck is the youngest, this being his debut
recording. For order/download info, go to
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/beauportclassical6
and visit Chuck’s My Space page at
http://www.myspace.com/charlescacioppo
to sample more of his work. Chuck is currently working on
pieces for the Momenta String Quartet and for violinist Joseph Lin.

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Audience members respond to “Orchard Dances”

December 13th, 2009 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

Here are some audience responses to the Carnegie Hall premiere of “When the Orchard Dances Ceased” received by email:

“Your piece was absorbing and I particularly enjoyed the way you got so much out of the orchestra in terms of coloration and mood.”

“We enjoyed the piece enormously – your chanting, too! We didn’t know about that facet of your musicianship.”

“Bravo! I wanted you to know how much I enjoyed ‘Orchard Dances.’ Lano and the orchestra did a remarkable job. Of course, it helped that your music was so exquisite and idiomatic. The players really like it when the composer makes them sound good!”

“Kudos on the concert last night! Your music sounded wonderful. I am so pleased that the ‘new music’ funding circuit is recognizing how innovative your work is. I appreciated the intertwining of the Indian themes. Evocative. I hope this concert leads to new commissions and a whole new public.”

“Be very happy with your accomplishment!”

“I thought the piece was wonderful; I loved all the different thematic elements, the colors, and your singing was quite stunning.”

“A terrific and evocative piece. Congratulations!”

“We have been talking about your concert…I still hear it in my
head…That piece was so powerful, gutsy and tender at the same time,
it hit right into my heart!”

And these from the ACO’s blogspot
SOUND ADVICE
http://acosoundadvice.blogspot.com/2009/12/sound-off-orchestra-underground.html

Yanmei said that ‘When the Orchard Dances Ceased’ “sent chills down my spine.”
December 16, 2009 3:08 PM

Agnes B. commented that Curt Cacioppo is “a scholar as well as a musician and has mastered the idiom.” She also said that composers have a deeper commitment to “get it right” when they are also the soloist. Agnes said she was surprised by the degree to which she responded to “offbeat” works and credited the extreme competence of the musicians in the orchestra.
December 16, 2009 3:11 PM

Susan B. said that Cacioppo was “complex and fabulous, needed rehearing because lots of intellectual effort is needed to follow the intent (as written in the program notes).” She also was surprised by the use of voice as an instrument, and instruments as voice, both as they sound in nature.
December 17, 2009 1:00 PM

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Debra Harder on “Lenape Refrains”

November 25th, 2009 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

One of the most haunting compositions I heard last season was Curt Cacioppo’s “Lenape Refrains,” a large-scale orchestral work premiered by the Philadelphia Classical Symphony, Karl Middleman, artistic director. Refrains is a deceptively mild term for this eight-movement work, which depicts the celebration, dances, and fate of the Lenape people, who are native to the Philadelphia region.

From a musical standpoint, the piece convinces because of its structural integrity, but it also captivates because of its striking use of Native American rhythms, chanting by the orchestra musicians, solo singing, and Native American instruments. One instrument in particular, the corn husk rattle, caught my ear.

Read more and view photos at
http://www.debralewhardermusic.com/blog/

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Alejandro Cardona on “Ancestral Passage”

November 6th, 2009 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

Last week I got your CD “Ancestral Passage.” I have been listening to it for days now. Really great music. The “Coyoteway” quartet is incredible. What I really like is that all the native references/material have become like a very natural part of your music, so it’s not like you’re “working with” these elements, it’s more like they are coming through you. Both quartets have this quality in a very transparent and organic way. I really like “The Ancestors” too, which I had heard a few years ago. But my favorite is still “Snake Dance” — such a great piece. There is something so intuitive and powerful about it.
Alejandro Cardona

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An artist’s visual interpretation

August 18th, 2009 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

The artist Vladimir Tamari, who is based in Tokyo, recently did a visual interpretation of my American Indian inspired music.  Like the Navajo painter David Chethlahe Paladin, Tamari “channels” the music and paints directly as he listens.  He has produced a whole “painting the music” series representing composers from Bach and Vivaldi to Copland and Takemitsu.  His new “African music” painting is particularly vivid.  All can be viewed on his website.  Here is what he envisioned of my music.

artist Vladimir Tamari's painting of Cacioppo's music

artist Vladimir Tamari's painting of Cacioppo's music

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Gravity and Shadow

August 17th, 2009 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

During this heat wave in the Delaware Valley, I am keeping cool by practicing a new piece by the Italian composer Franco Cavallone entitled “Ombre allungate,” which he graciously dedicated to me.  Inspired by winter shadows cast by the pine trees on the mountainsides of the Dolomites, it draws its harmonic processes from the theories of Roberto Lupi.  Lupi published his treatise “Armonia di Gravitazione” in 1946, and there seems to be a resurgence of interest in it, particularly among a group of composers in Torino, where Cavallone resides.  It intrigues me, as the main thrust concerns a systematic approach to the possibilities of major and minor triad combination, something already central in works of my own, especially the “Trilogia dantesca.”  I am eager to start reading it.

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More on Inspiration & Creativity

June 23rd, 2009 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

Two entries paraphrasing remarks on inspiration and the creative process, apropos of what I said and quoted in earlier posts.  The first from Ian Frazier, from an online reminiscence about his mentor, conductor William Appling.  The second from Johannes Brahms.

     Frazier:

To be an artist is hard. Unlike mastering a subject or a skill, being an artist partakes of mystery. In the arts, at the highest levels, technique engages with leap-of-faith, oblique transfer, E.S.P., and unknown elements.

Being a writer, or any kind of artist, involves something of magic; as an artist, you’re generally apart from most people, you’re not where any system or bureaucracy wants you to be, and what you’re doing combines things of the spirit with, basically, messing around. Art is artifice is a trick, definitely, but with endless, powerful consequences: a frail wand, but a profound spell.

[Again the outward appearance of the creative mode being mistaken for “messing around” reminds me of a reference in Emerson’s notebooks in which Ralph Waldo complains that he can’t sit in contemplation more than 5 minutes without someone in his company asking whether he has a headache – here the impression taken is that the person’s perceived lack of industry is due to illness rather than sloth. 

I wonder if Frazier’s notion of art as “trick” has any origin in e.e. cummings’ play “Him.”]

     Brahms:

There is no real creating without hard work.  An inspiration from above for which I am not responsible is a present, a gift, which I’ve made mine by dint of hard work.  And there doesn’t have to be any hurry about that…it germinates unconsciously.  Once I’ve found the first phrase I might shut the book there, go for a walk, do some other work, and maybe not think about it again for months.  Nothing, however, is lost.  If afterward I approach the subject again, it is sure to have taken shape on its own, apart from myself.

[Biographer Jan Swafford views Brahms as presaging Freudian theories of the subconscious and its workings.]

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More on Diabelli

June 23rd, 2009 · Write Comment · Uncategorized

A few more comments on the Diabelli Variations, following up on my post of April 1. 

Katherine, the musicologist/protagonist in Kaufman’s play, is more affected by the maestoso aspect than the martial.  For her the variation regally announces embarking on an odyssey that will demand courage.  Let us think of another situation in which Beethoven marks “maestoso,” the introduction of Op. 111.  There seems to be nothing regal about this, unless the scene means to depict the regent desperately embattled, perhaps with a deity hurling bolts of lightning.  Rather than majestic reassurance in the face of trepidation, Variation 1 in my mind embodies more of the rude juxtapositioning that Diane Walsh alludes to (see the recent issue of LISTEN, article by Linda Fowler, p. 30), and which Beethoven is so well known for.  A further confrontational interpretation comes from Dary John Mizelle, who explained the contrast in more nationalistic terms, that Beethoven’s first variation aimed to Germanicize the Italianate theme. 

And about that theme, once examined more fully, it shares much more musical DNA with themes of Beethoven beyond those already discussed.  For instance, the great c-minor sonata for piano and violin, Op. 30, No. 2, readily offers comparative examples.  Take the first four notes (plus initial grace note) of the Scherzo – same gesture as Diabelli’s motif.  We have just been discussing triple vs. duple meter.  The rhythmic argument of the Scherzo is founded upon this rivalry.  Then think of the opening motif of Beethoven’s first movement, and relate it to the eighth note bass figure of the Diabelli theme, measure 3 into 4.  This same grouping is then the principal subject of the 8th Symphony.

 

 

 

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