THE GROUP FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC

 1962 to 1992 
by 
Susan Elizabeth Deaver
(Thesis Advisor: Dr. David Noon) 

The Group for Contemporary Music

1962 to 1992

by Susan Elizabeth Deaver 

Submitted to

The Manhattan School of Music
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Musical Arts
March 1993 

Dedicated to Harvey Sollberger, Charles Wuorinen and Nicolas Roussakis

  LIST OF MUSICAL EXAMPLES

#1 Charles Wuorinen: Chamber Concerto for Cello and Ten Players (1963) - 17 February 1964
#2 Chou Wen-Chung: Cursive for Flute and Piano (1963) - 16 November 1964
#3 Charles Wuorinen: Bearbeitungen über das Glogauer Liederbuch (ca. 1470; 1962) - 11 January 1965
#4 Stefan Wolpe: Trio in Two Parts (1964) - 16 November 1964
#5 Stefan Wolpe: Piece in Two Parts for Flute and Piano (1960) - 25 April 1966
#6 Charles Wuorinen: Janissary Music (1966) - 1 May 1967
#7 Charles Wuorinen: Nature's Concord (1969) written for Ronald Anderson
#8 Nicolas Roussakis: Six Short Pieces for Two Flutes (1969) - 27 October 1969
#9 Charles Wuorinen: Ringing Changes (1969-70) - 4 May 1970
#10 Stefan Wolpe: Form IV: Broken Sequences (1969) - 10 April 1972
#11 Charles Wuorinen: Flute Variations II (1968) - 10 April 1972
#12 Mario Davidovsky: Synchronisms No. 1 (1963) - 5 February 1973
#13 Mario Davidovsky: Synchronisms No. 6 (1970) 19 March 1973
#14 Harvey Sollberger: The Two and The One (1972) - 23 April 1973
#15 Harvey Sollberger: Riding The Wind II (1973-74) - 11 November 1974
#16 Elliott Carter: Canaries from Eight Pieces for Four Timpani (1950-66)-16 December 1974
#17 Charles Wuorinen: Ringing Changes (1969-70) written for The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble
#18 Milton Babbitt: Arie Da Capo (1974) written for The Da Capo Players
#19 Elliott Carter: A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975/1976) written for Speculum Musicae
#20 Charles Wuorinen: Second Trio: Piece for Stefan Wolpe (1962) performed by the New Music Consort
#21 Donald Martino: Triple Concerto (1977) - 18 December 1978
#22 Nicolas Roussakis: Ephemeris (1979) - 9 March 1979
#23 Nicolas Roussakis: Pas de Deux (1985) - 2 April 1985
#24 Harvey Sollberger: Double Triptych (1984) - 29 January 1986
#25 Charles Wuorinen: String Quartet No. 3 (1987) - 5 January 1988

LIST OF PRINTED PROGRAMS

Ex. 1: GCM Inaugural Concert - 22 October 1962
Ex. 2: GCM Program - Fourth Season - 8 November 1965
Ex. 3: GCM Program - Seventh Season - 28 October 1968
Ex. 4: GCM Program - Seventh Season - 24 March 1969
Ex. 5: New Jersey Percussion Ensemble Program - Eighth Season - 4 May 1970
Ex. 6: GCM Program - Eleventh Season - 20 November 1972
Ex. 7: GCM Program - Eleventh Season - 21 May 1973
Ex. 8: GCM Season Flyers from Ninth, Tenth and Twelfth Seasons
Ex. 9: GCM Programs - Logo of Eleventh Season and Twelfth Season
Ex. 10: GCM Program - Thirteenth Season - 20 May 1975
Ex. 11: GCM Fourteenth Season Flyer 1975-1976
Ex. 12: Tully Hall Recital by Harvey Sollberger - Fourteenth Season 29 March 1976
Ex. 13: GCM Sixteenth Season Flyer 1977-1978
Ex. 14: GCM Candlelight Concert - Sixteenth Season - 21 November 1977
Ex. 15: The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble - Sixteenth Season - 6 March 1978
Ex. 16: GCM Program - Seventeenth Season - 18 December 1978
Ex. 17: GCM Program - Seventeenth Season - 16 April 1979
Ex. 18: GCM Program - Nineteenth Season - 10 November 1980 & 8 May 1981
Ex. 19: GCM Program - The New York State New Music Network - 19 November 1983
Ex. 20: GCM Season Flyers - Twenty-fourth and Twenty-fifth Seasons
Ex. 21: GCM Concert Announcement - 13 January 1987
Ex. 22: GCM Concert Announcement - Twenty-eighth Season - 25 March 1990
Ex. 23: GCM: Concert Announcement - Twenty-eighth Season - 19 and 20 April 1990
Ex. 24: GCM Concert Announcement - Twenty-ninth Season - 21 April 1991

PREFACE AND AKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Articles have been written on The Group for Contemporary Music, but to date no one has devoted an entire thesis to this ensemble. My interest in the Group came about initially through my involvement as a flutist in Manhattan School of Music's Contemporary Ensemble in 1972. At that time Harvey Sollberger had just been appointed as the Contemporary Ensemble's director. I can still vividly remember the rehearsals and performance of Wolpe's Cantata that Harvey conducted with the ensemble. He was extremely inspiring. Harvey's way of approaching music and bringing it to life influenced me greatly as a flutist, teacher and conductor. Gradually I came in contact with Charles Wuorinen and Nicolas Roussakis--Wuorinen when he conducted performances of Manhattan's Orchestra and Roussakis when I first performed his Six Short Pieces for Two Flutes on a Group concert. I was fortunate to have been drawn into contemporary music on a professional level through flutist Patricia Spencer who recommended me to Daniel Shulman for several concerts with The Light Fantastic Players. Around the same time I was introduced by oboist Susan Barrett to Josef Marx, who had been the Group's manager and oboist during its years at Columbia University. I was invited to his chamber music evenings which he had every Saturday night at his home in New York. My association with new music continued as a performer on Group concerts and also as the flutist for the New Music Consort from 1976 to 1982.

The design of my thesis is that of a chronological nature, so that the history of The Group for Contemporary Music unfolds season by season. To give some sense of historical periods, I divided the history of The Group into four periods of time--the residency at Columbia University from 1962 to 1971, the residency at Manhattan School of Music from 1971 to 1985, the period of transition and crisis from 1985 to 1989, and The Group since 1989. The exception of chronology is Chapter V which is devoted to the second generation performers and ensembles that The Group inspired. Program and music examples along with the appendices of concert dates and repertoire, recordings, performers and administrators, and a time line help to illustrate The Group's history

My research for this thesis began as early as 1988 when I first started to formalize the idea of writing about The Group for Contemporary Music. In the spring of 1991 I began to gather information on The Group. For months I would go on a weekly basis to work through the files on The Group that Nicolas Roussakis had organized over his fifteen years as Executive Director of The Group. During the winter and spring of 1992, I spent one afternoon a week continuing to go through Roussakis' files, and one afternoon a week in the basement of Wuorinen's brownstone sorting through boxes of Group materials to organize and obtain programs from 1962 to 1992. Research at Wuorinen's was also made possible through the assistance of Howard Stokar. Angie Marx gave me access to earlier information on The Group from Josef Marx's files, which contained the program from The Group's Inaugural Concert The other approach of my research was through interviews which reinforced my belief that The Group had been a tremendous influential force in shaping the history of new music in New York.

 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to acknowledge and thank the following people who offered encouragement, support and valuable assistance with the research and completion of my doctoral thesis on The Group for Contemporary Music. This thesis was a project that could have not been realized had it not been for The Group's Directors, Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen and the work of Nicolas Roussakis who as The Group's Executive Director for fifteen years compiled a rich source of information on The Group into files. In addition, Roussakis also contributed editing corrections to the thesis. My special thanks goes also to Howard Stokar who provided a wealth of information on The Group and Angie Marx who gave me access to The Group's early files compiled by her late husband, Josef Marx.

A personal thanks to David A. Coester for all his support, encouragement and understanding throughout the entire project. My thanks also to my supportive colleagues at C.W. Post/Long Island University, to my family, D. Clem Deaver, friends, students and Dr. Viginia Kelley.

Many of The Group's performers and composers who I interviewed were also extremely supportive of my thesis and in particular I wish to thank performers Raymond DesRoches, Ronald Anderson, Patricia Spencer, Allen Blustine, Claire Heldrich and composers Milton Babbitt, Raoul Pleskow and Joan Tower.

Thanks also is extended to those individuals who assisted in computer and organizational problems --Joshua Gilinsky, Hugh G. Williams, Carole Schaffer and Virgilio Serrano. Special recognition and thanks is acknowledged to Dr. David Noon who was my thesis advisor and Dr. Jeffrey Langford, Director of Doctoral Studies at Manhattan School of Music.

The following publishers are acknowledged for their assistance. Musical examples from (Charles Wuorinen: Chamber Concerto for Cello and Ten Players, Bearbeitungen über das Glogauer Liederbuch, Janissary Music, Nature's Concord, Ringing Changes, Flute Variations II, Second Trio: Piece for Stefan Wolpe and String Quartet No. 3 ; Chou Wen-Chung: Cursive for Flute and Piano; Stefan Wolpe: Form IV: Broken Sequences; Milton Babbitt: Arie Da Capo; and Harvey Sollberger: Double Triptych.) are used with the kind permission of C. F. Peters Corporation. Musical examples from (Nicolas Roussakis: Six Short Pieces for Two Flutes, Ephemeris, and Pas de Deux; and Harvey Sollberger: The Two and the One and Riding The Wind II) are reprinted with the permission of American Composers Alliance, New York, New York. Musical examples from (Mario Davidovsky: Synchronisms No. 1 and Stefan Wolpe: Piece in Two Parts for Flute and Piano) are reprinted with permission of McGinnis and Marx Music Publishers. Musical examples from (Elliott Carter: A Mirror on Which to Dwell and Canaries from Eight Pieces for Four Timpani) are reprinted with permission of G. Schrimer Incorporated. Musical examples from (Stefan Wolpe: Trio in Two Parts) is reprinted with permission of Peer-Southern Concert Music. Musical examples from (Donald Martino: Triple Concerto) are reprinted with permission of Dantalian, Incorporated. Musical examples from (Mario Davidovsky: Synchronisms No. 6) are reprinted with permission by Edward B. Marks Music Corporation.

In concluding, a final word of appreciation and thanks to all the performers and composers who contributed to the history of The Group for Contemporary Music.

INTRODUCTION

Founded in l962 by composers Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen, The Group for Contemporary Music has been one of the most influential and foremost contemporary ensembles in New York. During its thirty-year existence, The Group has premiered works by Babbitt, Carter, Davidovsky, Martino, Sollberger, Wolpe, Wuorinen and given a place for two generations of performers and younger composers to be heard in high caliber concerts.

Originally at Columbia University, The Group for Contemporary Music gave a series of six concerts at McMillin Theatre each year during the years of l962 to l971. The Tenth Season (l971-1972) began a new period of association for The Group with Manhattan School of Music. In the late l970s in an effort to expand beyond the conservatory and reach a wider audience, concerts were shifted to the 92nd Street Y, Cooper Union and Symphony Space. The mid-1980s saw a period of very crucial years for The Group. In 1985 Nicolas Roussakis resigned as Executive Director of the Group, a position he had held for fifteen years. Also The Group's founding composers, Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen, were both becoming increasingly involved in composing activities that took them out of New York. Sollberger had accepted a teaching position at the Indiana University , and Wuorinen, a Composer-in-Residence position with the San Francisco Symphony.

The combination of The Group's failing administration, dwindling funding and loss of its residency at Manhattan School of Music created a crisis for The Group. Since l989 the activities of The Group have resumed with both a concert series re-established and numerous recording projects either completed or under way.

During its thirty years, The Group has always maintained that adequate rehearsal be given to each and every work to be performed. The combination of this belief and the excellence of the performers who are 20th-century music specialists has created performance of new music at a new level of excellence. This inspired a younger generation of new music performers who performed with The Group to found their own ensembles, such as The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, The New Music Consort, The Da Capo Chamber Players, Speculum Musicae and Parnassus.

PART I The Years at Columbia University 1962-1971

Chapter I

The Beginning Years 1962-1965

The Birth of An Idea

The l960s were ushered in by a new focus in contemporary music in America, particularly in New York City. The influence of Varèse's efforts in advancing new music before World War II were rekindled and gathered a new momentum. This new focus was seen in efforts such as the establishment of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center at Columbia University with Milton Babbitt, Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky and with the formation and influence of several contemporary music ensembles such as the Contemporary Chamber Ensemble founded and conducted by Arthur Weisberg in l960 and The Group for Contemporary Music which was founded in l962 at Columbia University by Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen.

It was The Group for Contemporary Music which particularly brought a new focus to contemporary music, especially American contemporary music. Both Sollberger and Wuorinen were graduate students at Columbia University in l961 enrolled in Otto Luening's "Seminar for Composers." They were encouraged by Luening to perform their own music. The idea of "composer/performer" was, as Luening put it, a "hands on" way. This was out of the old notion that the composer was also the performer, just as Bach, Mozart and Beethoven had been in their time.

During the 1961-62 school year, as classmates at Columbia University, Charles Wuorinen as pianist, Harvey Sollberger as flutist, and Joel Krosnick as cellist formed a trio. In the spring of l962, Wuorinen decided to initiate the idea of having a concert series in which the desire to have much higher standards of performance could be achieved through adequate rehearsal and a group of set performers. Wuorinen also knew about the possibility of applying to the Alice M. Ditson Fund at Columbia. Sollberger named the new ensemble The Group for Contemporary Music, and thus it became the first contemporary ensemble based at a university and run by composers. Here it differed from The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble, founded in 1960 by Arthur Weisberg, which was not under composers leadership or based at an university.

The Group for Contemporary Music gained support of Columbia University and was awarded $3000 from the Alice Ditson Fund for the initial 1962-63 season, which included seven concerts all given at McMillin Academic Theater at Columbia University. Admission was free.

According to Otto Luening, "The Group was recognized as a serious group with serious attention." Since the philosophy of the Columbia Music Department was to let students explore freely, Luening did not have any control of The Group's programming or development. Unlike The League of Composers which, according Luening, had ties with Copland, and the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), which was geared towards the international, The Group had a "broader and wider concept of repertoire and style" and concentrated on American composers.

Another influencing factor was the presence of Edgard Varèse whom Sollberger felt was "like our Godfather." Varèse felt that Wuorinen and Sollberger were doing with The Group what he and Carlos Salzado had been able to do for only eight years in the 1920's. Sollberger says he made it a goal to have The Group last longer. "I felt a real sense of mission." Since there were no performance outlets for the "cutting edge", it was "a real mission to bring new pieces to life."

The environment at Columbia University also played a key role in influencing Wuorinen and Sollberger. There was the influence of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center established in 1960. There was also a nucleus of active, strong, young composers and a younger group of faculty members such as Peter Westergaard and Ben Boretz. The same year that The Group was established, Ben Boretz established Perspectives of New Music.

The First Season 1962-1963

Program Ex. 1 Inaugural Concert 22 October 1962

Curiously a work of Thomas Morley titled Chrites Crosse (1597) opened the first program. The idea of incorporating old music into the concerts was an idea that would remain a part of the program format for nearly all of The Group's years at Columbia University. Old music was of interest to Sollberger and Wuorinen as composers and Marx, who was a musicologist as well as oboist.

By strange coincidence the opening concert fell on the same evening as the Cuban Missle Crisis. Unaware of the sudden crisis, the performers of The Group were backstage before the 8:30 p.m. concert as President John F. Kennedy announced on national TV at 8 p.m. his blockade and the possible risk of nuclear war with the Russians.

There was a good design and structure to the programing for the first season. Directly in the middle of the season on January 14, 1963 was a concert presented by The Trio of Sollberger, Krosnick and Wuorinen in which Sollberger as flutist performed Edgard Varèse's Density 21.5 for solo flute as a tribute to Varèse who had been influential and supportive of The Group's efforts at Columbia University.

On either side of the Trio concert was placed a solo recital, first by Sollberger who presented a concert entitled "New Flute Music" on 19 November 1962, and secondly by cellist Joel Krosnick who gave a concert in the spring on 11 March, 1963 entitled "Contemporary Cello Music". Each solo concert presented recent works.

Sollberger was assisted at his recital by Joel Krosnick, cello, Sophie Schultz, flute, Edward Staempfli, celeste, Joan Tower, percussion, and Charles Wuorinen, piano. Included in the program was the Sonatine (1946) by Pierre Boulez for flute and piano. Wuorinen was the pianist for the Boulez. Also included was George Perle's Monody I (1960) which had been composed as a solo flute piece for Italian flutist Serverino Gazzelloni.

Joel Krosnick's recital included Otto Luening's 1952 Sonata for Violoncello Solo, Ralph Shapey's Sonata for Cello and Piano (1954), Charles Wuorinen's Duuiensela (1962), Joseph Penna's Four Reflections for Solo Cello (1961), Elliott Carter's Sonata for Violoncello and Piano (1948) and the premiere of Ursula Mamlok's Composition for Solo Cello (1962).

The Group's other concerts for the first season were held on 17 December, 1962, which included a premiere of Raoul Pleskow's Movement for Flute, Cello and Piano (1962); 18 February, 1963, which included a premiere of Stefan Wolpe's Piece for Two Instrumental Units (1963); and the final concert on 12 April, 1963 in which Sollberger appeared as conductor for the first time in the performance of his own piece entitled Solos for Violin and Instruments (1962). The Group also performed during its first season music of Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, Igor Stravinsky, Milton Babbitt, Issac Nemiroff, Roger Reynolds, Donald Martino, Olivier Messiaen, George Rochberg and numerous composers from the 13th through 16th centuries.

The Second Season 1963-1964

The second season included six concerts at Columbia University's McMillin Theater again under the sponsorship of the Department of Music, the Alice M. Ditson Fund and now the assistance of the American Composers Alliance and The Scherman Foundation. The first concert of the season was held on 11 November, 1963 and included Milton Babbitt's Composition for Four Instruments (1948).

Perhaps the most striking change from the first season was the absence of cellist Joel Krosnick who had left New York for a teaching position at the University of Iowa. Krosnick returned to New York in 1973 when he became the cellist for The Juilliard String Quartet. To fill Krosnick's place, Robert Martin was selected for Wuorinen's Chamber Concerto for Cello and Ten Players (1963) which was given its first performance at The Group's fourth concert on February 17, 1964.

Musical Example No. 1 - Wuorinen Cello Concerto

Also included in the personnel for Wuorinen's Chamber Concerto was an even more important addition to The Group's nucleus of performers, pianist Robert Miller, who remained with The Group until his death in 1981.

During the second season more pieces written specifically for The Group appeared on the programs. The Group by now had established itself as a serious and high level nucleus of "new music specialists." Aware of each individual's level of performance capabilities, Wuorinen and Sollberger both composed pieces for The Group's performers. Other composers, many of whom were faculty members at Columbia University or connected with other Universities, now had an opportunity to have their compositions performed at an extremely high level. An example of this interaction between composers and The Group was Chou Wen-Chung's Cursive for Flute and Piano (1963) which was encouraged by and written for Sollberger and Wuorinen who gave its premiere on January 13, 1964. In the score, the composer gave credit to Harvey Sollberger for his fingerings for microtones used in the piece and acknowledged his assistance on the flute notation.

Musical Example No. 2A shows opening of Cursive.

Another piece written for The Group with this type of interaction was Peter Westergaard's Variation for Six Players (1963) which had its premiere on 17 February , 1964 with Arthur Bloom as conductor. Bloom also was the conductor for Wuorinen's Chamber Concerto for Cello on the same program. He had commissioned Michael Colgrass's Rhapsody for Clarinet, Violin and Piano (1963) which was given its premiere on The Group's second concert on December 16, 1963 with Arthur Bloom as clarinetist, Doris Allen as violinist and Howard Lebow as pianist.

The idea of featuring a member of The Group in recital continued from the first season to the second by featuring Josef Marx, oboist, on a program given on 16 March, 1964. Marx included two pieces of Stefan Wolpe (1902-1972): Quartet for Oboe, Cello, Percussion and Piano (1955) and an earlier work from 1938-41, the Sonata for Oboe and Piano. Marx took a great interest in Wolpe, the man and his music. Marx, along with composer Raoul Pleskow, was at this time on the faculty of C. W. Post College, Long Island University where Wolpe was Chairman of the Music Department.

Wolpe's reputation as a gifted and inspiring teacher and his dynamic presence in the New York community drew a number of young composers to him, including Ralph Shapey, Issac Nemiroff and Morton Feldman.

 

 

Marx was not alone in this support. The Group continued to support Wolpe's music.

Although Wolpe's music was not widely known during his lifetime, he had a substantial impact on a number of younger New York composers including Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen, whose Group for Contemporary Music was the major forum for the performance of Wolpe's scores during the 1960's and 1970's.

Also included on Marx's recital was a new piece by Sollberger entitled Two Oboes Troping (1963-64) that Marx performed with his oboe student Judith Martin. Elliott Carter's Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord (1955) concluded the program.

During the first season flutist Sophie Schultz performed with The Group on numerous occasions. Her name appeared on the 13 April, 1964 program as Sophie Sollberger for a performance of Luciano Berio's Sequenza (1958). Another performer who remained with The Group is harpist Susan Goodman (Susan Jolles).

In addition to its concert series at Columbia University, The Group performed at Southern Illinois University as part of a Guest Artists Series. The 16 January, 1964 concert included Harvey Sollberger, flute, Josef Marx, oboe, Arthur Bloom, clarinet, Robert Martin, cello, Charles Wuorinen,piano and Raymond DesRoches, percussion. The program consisted of Sollberger's Music for Flute and Piano (1963), Wuorinen's Piano Variations (1963), Davidovsky's Synchronisms for Flute and Tape (1963), Boulez's Sonatine for Flute and Piano (1946, rev. 1954), Wolpe's Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1938), and Foss's Echoi (1961-63) for clarinet, cello, piano and percussion.

In an article written by Charles Wuorinen entitled "Notes On The Performance of Contemporary Music" that was published in Perspectives of New Music in 1964, Wuorinen discussed various approaches to the performance of new music. He offered examples and suggestions concerning rhythmic complexities and discussed the need to be aware of a piece's entire musical structure.

To make his point about rhythmic complexities, he cites how Thomas Morley's Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597) trained students to negotiate the rhythmic difficulties of the 16th century. Wuorinen's belief is that if a performers' training included the rhythmic language of the 20th century, many obstacles in performing contemporary music would be eliminated. He offered a suggestion enabling a performer to learn and memorize the relations of speeds between ratios of 3:2, 5:4, 5:6, 7:4 and 7:6.

Once beyond the basics of 20th-century rhythms, Wuorinen feels "we arrive at what is really a more crucial aspect of contemporary performance: the accurate realization of ensemble rhythm." (p. 14 PNM) Citing examples from Babbitt's Composition for Four Instruments and Wolpe's Quartet for Oboe, Cello, Percussion and Piano, Wuorinen demonstrates how "meaningful representation is only possible if each player knows the total score, and therefore can "hear the piece."

Wuorinen's article expressed how proper musical training and a keen awareness of the music structure, its rhythm and pitch content , are necessary along with adequate rehearsal to produce an intelligent and rewarding performance of both modern and old music.

Obviously from the amount of old music programmed on The Group's programs, there is no doubt that a keen interest in old music remained throughout the years at Columbia University. Undoubtedly Josef Marx, who became The Group's oboist and manager for the duration of the years at Columbia University, influenced programing because of his background as a musicologist and publisher. As composers, Wuorinen and Sollberger took an interest in composers of an earlier time who had influenced the course of music.

Music Ex. 3 Wuorinen: Bearbeitungen

The Third Season 1964-1965

The third season presented a series of six concerts with continued sponsorship from the Department of Music and the Alice M. Ditson Fund. The American Composers Alliance renewed their support along with new support from Ingram Merrill Foundation, The Scherman Foundation and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

During the third season Sollberger took on a much more active role as conductor. He conducted his own transcription of John Bull's In Nomine (1600; 1964), the premiere of Charles Dodge's Composition for Oboe, Violin, Contrabass, Horn and Piano (1964) and the premiere of Beverly Bond Clarkson's The Second Coming (1964). Gunther Schuller also conducted Westergaard's Variations for Six Players (1963), which The Group had premiered the previous season with Arthur Bloom conducting. Schuller appeared as conductor on the final program on 19 April, 1965 in a performance of his own piece entitled Music for Violin, Percussion and Piano (1957) and Varèse's Intégrales (1926).

A new performer who would take on an important role in the history of The Group was violinist Jeanne Benjamin who was added on during the beginning of the third season.

Sollberger and Wuorinen's commitment to involve the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Center, which was established in 1960 in New York City, is evident in the programing for the 1964-65 season. The first concert on 16 November, 1964 presented Milton Babbitt's Ensembles for Synthesizer (1962/64). The next concert on 14 December, 1964 included Luciano Berio's Thema (Omaggio a Joyce) (1958). The third concert on 11 January, 1965 gave the first New York performance of Mel Powell's Events (1963). The fifth concert on 22 March, 1965 premiered Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 3 for Cello and Electronic Sounds (1965) with Robert Martin as the cellist. The final concert on 19 April, 1965 premiered Vladimir Ussachevsky's Of Wood and Brass (1965).

Wolpe's presence continued with The Group with the premiere of his Trio in Two Parts (1964) on 16 November 1965. It was written at the request of Sollberger and Wuorinen and performed at the opening concert by Sollberger, Wuorinen and Krosnick. Sollberger felt that the performances The Group did of Wolpe's music provided him with an outlet and influenced his style with regards to meter changes.

Musical Example No. 4. Wolpe Trio

The third season also heard the premiere of Sollberger's own piece Chamber Variations for Twelve Players and Conductor (1964). This piece won a 1965 award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters and its parent organization, The National Institute of Arts and Letters. The piece was recorded in collaboration with Composers Recordings, Inc. with Gunther Schuller as conductor. On the same recording, members of The Group also recorded Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 1 for Solo Flute (1963) with Harvey Sollberger as flutist, Synchronisms No. 2 for Flute Clarinet, Violin and Cello (1964), and Synchronisms No. 3 for Cello (1964-65) with Robert Martin as cellist.

The third season also marks the year in which composer Nicolas Roussakis began his association with The Group. On February 22, 1965 his Sextet (1964) was performed. Roussakis would take on an influential and active role as an administrator during The Group's years at Manhattan School of Music up to the mid 1980's.

Chapter II

The Middle Years 1965-1968

The Fourth Season - 1965-1966

During the summer of l965, The Group's Manager Josef Marx kept busy with his correspondence with composers and performers to organize and carry out the ideas that had been proposed by Sollberger, Wuorinen and himself for the l965-66 concert season. In a letter to Gunther Schuller dated July 20, l965 Josef wrote that the "double quintet was ruled out by the policy we are advocating this year to do more small ensembles so that we can keep control of the quality of the performances." Earlier letters had discussed the possibility of Schuller's Trio for Flute, Guitar and Percussion, but because Schuller felt it was not his strongest piece, the idea of performing his Woodwind Quintet (l958) was suggested. Although the Quintet had received other performances, it was programmed for the final program of the season on 25 April l966.

That same summer, Josef corresponded with Stefan Wolpe to request "that the new work be written for the players of The Group whose quality of performance and loyalty of participation we can guarantee, leaving outside players which we would have to engage from the outside world. These inside players are flute, oboe, piano, percussion." Marx went on to say that it was "against our bias policy to program works which are not yet composed. We are therefore sticking our neck out".

The Group for Contemporary Music began its 4th Season in the fall of 1965 with a new way of presenting its concert season to the public by assembling a season flyer for the entire 1965-66 concert series. In addition to Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen as Directors, Josef Marx was now listed as the Manager. The Department of Music at Columbia University and the Alice Ditson Fund continued to sponsor The Group's endeavors with the addition support of sponsorship from The Ingram Merril Foundation, The Scherman Foundation, The Leonard Bernstein Foundation, the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, and Broadcast Music, Inc. Written in the season flyer was the following statement:

The Music Department announces the fourth season of THE GROUP FOR CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, formed in 1962 to provide responsible for performances of contemporary music. The resident character of the Group makes the extensive rehearsals which are mandatory for the performance of most new music, and the permanence of its personnel encourages the development of a unified ensemble style. The establishment of the Group is an expression of the Music Department's belief that the University has an obligation to serve the community by sponsoring the performance of music which is rarely or never given in the conventional concert environment.

 

The season included six concerts, all of which were offered to the public free of charge and held at McMillin Academic Theatre at Columbia University. In keeping with a tradition of programing early music, each concert began with a selection of music from the Renaissance. In addition to listing programs for the 4th season, the performers with The Group were also listed indicating how The Group's personnel was taking shape.

FLUTES: Harvey Sollberger, Sophie Sollberger

OBOES: Josef Marx, Judith Martin

CLARINETS: Jack Kreiselman, Efrain Guigui

BASSOON: Donald MacCourt

HORN: Barry Benjamin

VIOLIN: Jeanne Benjamin

CONTRABASS: Kenneth Fricker

PERCUSSION: Raymond DesRoches, Richard Fitz

HARP: Susan Goodman Jolles

PIANO: Charles Wuorinen, Robert Miller

CONDUCTORS: Harvey Sollberger, Charles Wuorinen

Sollberger and Wuorinen were now listed both as performers and conductors, which was what Luening had encouraged them to do. In earlier seasons, Bloom had conducted on numerous occasions. Also, Jeanne Benjamin was now the violinist after beginning her association with The Group during the 3rd season.

While setting out with a new season, the two Directors (Sollberger and Wuorinen) also published a "Report of The Group for Contemporary Music at Columbia University 1962-1965" which was a "wish to issue a summary of The Group's activity and reaffirm its basic policies and objectives." This seven-page booklet included a list of all the music The Group had programmed from 1962 to 1966, a list of recordings, a list of concerts given at locations other than Columbia University and television appearances on NBC and CBS.

As the capabilities of The Group's personnel emerged, composers were able to envision possibilities for new pieces. Out of this awareness came pieces such as Wuorinen's Chamber Concerto for Oboe and Ten Players (1965) which was commissioned by the Serge Koussevitsky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress and dedicated to the memory of Serge and Natalie Koussevitsky. The Concerto was first performed on 8 November 1965 at the opening concert of the 4th season with Josef Marx as the solo oboist and Charles Wuorinen conducting. On the same program, Harvey Sollberger conducted Boulez's Improvisation sur Mallarme No. 2 with the soprano Valerie Lamoree, who was to remain with The Group throughout the Columbia years. On this same program she also performed in Milton Babbitt's Vision and Prayer for voice and synthesized sound which was realized in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center.

Nicolas Roussakis also appeared for the first time with The Group as a composer of a new piece entitled Concert Trio for Oboe, Contrabass and Piano which was performed by Josef Marx, oboe; Kenneth Fricker, contrabass and Charles Wuorinen, piano. Before the end of the Columbia years, Roussakis would become the Assistant to the Directors and begin an exhaustive, dedicated number of years as The Group's administrative force.

Continued attention to the European "masters" was kept during these years. During the 4th season, The Group performed works of Schoenberg's Suite, Op. 29, Stockhausen's first New York performance of Gesang der Junglinge (1955-6) and Boulez's Improvisation sur Mallarmè No. 2 (1958). Wolpe's Piece in Two Parts for Flute and Piano (1960) and the music of Stravinsky, Copland and Carter.were also included during the season. Tribute was paid to Carlos Salzedo who had collaborated with Varèse in the 1930s to get new music performed. At the same time Columbia faculty composers Mario Davidovsky, Chou Wen-Chung, Charles Dodge, Otto Luening, Peter Westergaard and those connected with the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center (Babbitt and Ussachevsky) and young Columbia composers, like Nicolas Roussakis, were premiered.

Reviews for the 4th Season included Eric Salzman's review for the New York Herald Tribune on 18 January 1966 which gave special mention to The Group's performance of Schoenberg's Suite, Op. 29 , citing it as a "vigorous, lively performance by an excellent young ensemble under Harvey Sollberger." Salzman also pointed out how "It is a curious fact that Wolpe's influence stays high while his music remains obstinately unknown to the public." Salzman was referring to the influence of Wolpe in Raoul Pleskow's Music for Two Pianos which was performed by Robert Miller and Charles Wuorinen. In another review in the Village Voice, critic Carman Moore wrote of the Pleskow premier as "the highlight of the evening" and Robert Miller and Charles Wuorinen's "usual immaculate performance". New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg reviewed the 21 March 1966 concert which included the premier of Columbia composer Peter Westergaard and his chamber opera entitled Mr. and Mrs. Discobbolos. Mr. Schonberg did not share the view that the Westergaard was actually an opera at all and in fact took sides against the direction of The Group's music. Referring to Davidovsky's Electronic Study No. 3 In Memoriam Edgard Varèse, Schonberg expressed the concern that "aren't he and the rest of his school working themselves into a corner? By now all the sounds are all too familiar, and the spectrum too limited." In the same review he acknowledged the performances of both Sollberger and his wife Sophie as flutists and Ray DesRoches, percussionist.

An unlikely spot for an article on The Group would be Vogue magazine, but author Joan Peyser took an interest in both Sollberger and Wuorinen and wrote an entire article which was published in the February 1966 issue of Vogue magazine. It included pictures of the youthful composers in Columbia University's Electronic Music Studio and gave a personal look at the composers and their group.

The 4th Season also included the 1st Annual American Society of University Composers Conference held in New York on 1, 2, and 3rd April 1966. The Group became a role model for other university based new music ensembles that sprang up in the first half of the decade of the l960s. The successes prompted the First Annual Conference of the American Society of University Composers to be held on 1, 2, and 3 April l966. It was held in cooperation with the Departments of Music of New York University and Columbia University with the assistance of The Fromm Music Foundation. The first day of the conference took place at NYU's Loeb Student Center and included Seminars on "the University and the Composing Profession: Prospects and Problems." Benjamin Boretz was the Chairman, and the speakers included Charles Wuorinen from Columbia University. The afternoon Seminar was on "Computer Performance Music" and included Donald Martino from Yale University. That evening at McMillin Academic Theatre at Columbia University performances were given by new-music performance groups resident in American Universities. The program was shared by The Group for Contemporary Music from Columbia University and The Contemporary Chamber Ensemble in Residence at Rutgers. The Group offered Varèse's Octandre (l924) in memoriam to Varèse who had recently died. The rest of The Group's performance were John Harbison's Emily Dickinson's Marriage (l965), Milton Babbitt's Ensembles for Synthesizer (l964) and Stefan Wolpe's Piece in Two Parts (l959-60) for flute and piano. The Society encouraged the participating groups to select their own programs that would be "characteristic representations of their work." Saturday, April 2 returned to Loeb Student Center for a lecture given by George Perle on the "Discoveries and Problems in a Study of Berg's Wozzeck". The final day of the conference returned to Columbia's McMillin Academic Theatre for performances representing the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center with Mario Davidovsky's Electronic Study No. 3 (l965). The Contemporary Music Ensemble from the University of Pennsylvania gave a performance of George Crumb's Night Music (l965), and the Creative Associates from the State University of New York at Buffalo with Lukas Foss as its Co-Director gave performances which included Webern's Quartet, Op. 22 and also Henri Pousseur's Trios Chants Sacres (l961) with the composer conducting. The final seminar on Sunday, 3rd April was on "What do you want a student to hear in a piece of music?" Peter Westergaard from Columbia University was the chairman of a panel that included Milton Babbitt from Princeton University and twelve other composers representing universities from America.

Music Ex. No. 5 Wolpe: Piece in Two Parts

The Fifth Season - 1966-1967

The Fifth Season included The Group's established concert series at Columbia University as well as a concert in Carnegie Recital Hall on 18 February 1967 and also a concert in conjunction with The Fromm Music Foundation held at Columbia University on 26 May 1967. The established series included premiers of Columbia University composers. Among these premiers was Mario Davidovsky's Junctures, Chou Wen-Chung's Pien for Piano, Winds and Percussion, Peter Westergaard's Divertimento on Discobbolic Fragments, and Charles Wuorinen's Janissary Music.

Wuorinen's Janissary Music was written for The Group's percussionist Raymond DesRoches and was an example of how music was written specifically by a Group composer for a Group performer. Example 1 shows the opening of Janissary Music and the percussion instruments incorporated into the piece.

Musical Example No.6 Wuorinen: Janissary Music

The opening concert of the 5th season on 31 October 1966 had two very large ensemble pieces on the first half of the program. The first performance of Salve Regina: John Bull set by Charles Wuorinen opened the program, and the first half closed with Tempi by Claudio Spies (1960-62) conducted by the composer. In between these large ensemble pieces was a solo violin pieces by Donald Martino titled Fantasy Variations (1962) which was given its first New York performance by violinist Paul Zukofsky. The second half of the program presented Mario Davidovsky's Junctures (1966) and Stravinsky's Concerto per Due Pianoforti Soli (1935) with Robert Miller and Charles Wuorinen as pianists.

The second concert on 5 December 1966 combined much smaller ensembles in performances of Jack Beeson, Anton Webern, J.K. Randall, Milton Babbitt and Raoul Pleskow. The largest ensemble was required by Elliott Carter's Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello and Harpsichord (1952).

The third concert on 9 January 1967 included two large ensemble pieces of Chou Wen-Chung and Edgard Varèse. Chou Wen-Chung's Pien for Piano, Winds and Percussion (1966) was given a first performance. Conducted by Harvey Sollberger, the ensemble included in its roster flutist Thomas Nyfenger and Gerard Schwarz, trumpet. The other large ensemble piece was Deserts (1950-54) of Edgard Varèse which was scored for twenty wind, brass and percussion players. Included in the ensemble was Donald Butterfield, tuba, for whom Wuorinen later wrote his Chamber Concerto for Tuba in 1970.

The Carnegie Recital Hall concert on 18 February 1967 presented The Group in performances of Sollberger, Wolpe, Babbitt, Gaber and Wuorinen. Unlike the Columbia University concerts which were free admission, the 18th February program listed the admission cost at $2.50.

The final concert on 1 May 1967 again utilized small ensembles in performances of music by Schoenberg, Ussachevsky, Sollberger and Harbison, and included the first performances of Wuorinen's Janissary Music (1966) given by percussionist Raymond DesRoches and Peter Westergaard's Divertimento on Discobbolic Fragments (1967), which was written for Sollberger as flutist and Wuorinen as pianist.

In addition to The Group's regular season concerts at Columbia University during the Fifth Season, The Group for Contemporary Music also performed "A Concert of Commissioned Works" presented by The Fromm Music Foundation on 26 May 1967 at McMillin Academic Theater. The concert presented performances of Mario Davidovsky's Inflexions (1965), Donald Martino's Concerto for Wind Quintet (19640, Charles Wuorinen's Chamber Concerto for Flute and Ten Players (1964), Milton Babbitt's Vision and Prayer (1961) and Harvey Sollberger's Chamber Variations for Twelve Players and Conductor (1964). Out of the five pieces performed on the program, Harvey Sollberger conducted three of the pieces: the Davidovsky, the Martino and his own composition. He performed as flute soloist in Wuorinen's Chamber Concerto for Flute and Ten Players, which Wuorinen conducted. Babbitt's Vision and Prayer for voice and synthesized sound featured The Group's soprano, Valerie Lamoree. Listed as cellist on both the Davidovsky and the Sollberger was Frederick Sherry. The author noted that this was the first performance that Sherry had with The Group.

The Sixth Season 1967-1968

The Sixth Season flyer indicated that six concerts were planned for the season. For some unknown reason, only a few programs for this season could be found and the author could only located three out of the six programs. The individual programs found were the second program of 4 December 1967, the third program of 8 January 1968 and the fifth program of 18 March 1968. A compiled repertoire list indicated that the sixth concert scheduled for May was "cancelled due to student riots."

Also listed on the Sixth Season Flyer were the "Performers with The Group for Contemporary Music at Columbia University" indicating that the size of the ensemble was now twenty-nine musicians. The most significant addition to the list of performers was that of cellist Fred Sherry, who was listed on the season flyer as "Frederick Sherry." Sherry had first appeared as a performer with The Group on the Fromm Concert of commissioned works at the end of the Fifth Season. Now listed as cellist with The Group, his involvement continued during the Sixth Season when he performed on the second program of the season, held on 4 December 1967. On this program he was listed as an ensemble member in Milton Babbitt's Composition for Tenor and Six Instruments (1961). Sherry performed also on the third concert on 8 January 1968 in Stravinsky's Dumbarton Oaks, which Wuorinen conducted. Sherry was to remain a very significant performer and member of The Group throughout the rest of its thirty year history.

Also listed on January 8th concert is The Group's first cellist, Joel Krosnick. On this program, the original Trio of The Group (Sollberger, Wuorinen and Krosnick) rejoin together to perform once more Wolpe's Trio in Two Parts (1964).

Columbia composers listed on the Sixth Season Flyer included Raoul Pleskow, Benjamin Boretz, Otto Luening, Peter Westergaard, Vladimir Ussachevsky and Charles Dodge. The flyer also listed music of Charles Ives, Edgard Varèse, Elliott Carter, Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Béla Bartók and Gunther Schuller.

Summary of Middle Years at Columbia University

The Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Seasons kept to a format of six concerts a year, with the exception of the final concert of the Sixth Season which was cancelled due to student riots. The Group continued to tie in with early music and new compositions based on or influenced by early music. These years also saw the establishment of Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen as conductors for The Group. Important performers added on to The Group during this period were Valerie Lamoree, soprano, who appeared first during the Fourth Season, and Fred Sherry who began his association with The Group on The Fromm concert in May of 1967. Also included during this period of time were performances with The Group of violinist Paul Zukofsky during the Fifth Season in a performance of Donald Martino's Fantasy Variations (1962). The Group also received numerous favorable reviews from the press and additional support from foundations and grants during these years. Special events during this period were the First Annual American Society of Composers Conference in 1966 and the Carnegie Recital Hall concert in 1967.

Chapter III

The Final Years at Columbia University -1968-1971

Introduction

The final three years at Columbia University saw an expansion in The Group's personnel as well as funding and programing. While the 7th Season contained only four scheduled programs, the 8th Season had seven and the 9th had six. Concerts remained free to the public and were held at McMillin Theater. Loyalty to Columbia University composers continued, as did the interest in composers of earlier times. Certain factors lead to the end of The Group's association with Columbia University and its relocation to Manhattan School of Music in 1971.

During the final years at Columbia University, certain performers such as flutist Patricia Spencer and percussionist Claire Heldrich, began their formal playing with The Group during this time. Both women would go on to form their own twentieth-century groups during the 1970s.

The Seventh Season 1968-1969

It was an unusual concert season in that only four programs were scheduled and no early music was programmed. Support for the season was given by The National Endowment for The Arts and The Alice M. Ditson Fund.

The opening concert on 28 October premiered Wuorinen's The Politics of Harmony: A Masque. As can be noted from the program copied below, the instruments were basically in four pairs (2 flutes, 2 tubas, 2 violins and 2 contrabasses) and two trios (3 percussionists and 3 plucked instruments - 2 harps and piano). Richard Monaco, who had at times assisted in the administrative duties of The Group, provided the texts for Wuorinen's work.

Program Example No. 3 28 October 1968

The Group's interest in non-Western music and collaboration with other activities at Columbia University was presented in this opening concert by a performance given by the members of the African Performance Study Group at Columbia University with Nicholas England as Director. This performance group presented a selection of Ewe (Ghana) Music.

A month later The Group presented a concert at Town Hall on West 43rd Street in New York City in association with The New York University Contemporary Music Series. At the time of this program, Town Hall was New York University's Midtown Cultural Arts Center. The concert was entitled "A Concert of Contemporary American Music" and included Milton Babbitt's Composition for Tenor and Six Instruments which included as performers Jack Litten, tenor, Sophie Sollberger, flute, Josef Marx, oboe, Jeanne Benjamin, violin, Jacob Glick, viola, Fred Sherry, cello, Robert Miller, harpsichord and Harvey Sollberger as conductor of the 1960 composition.

Also included on the program was Benjamin Boretz's Group Variations I. In addition to being a composer, Boretz was also the founding editor of Perspectives of New Music which he had established in 1962, the same year as The Group was established. Both Sollberger and Wuorinen contributed as writers to Perspectives of New Music during the Columbia years.

The Town Hall program, also included Harvey Sollberger's Impromtu (1967) which Wuorinen, as a pianist ,performed and Charles Wuorinen's Janissary Music which was written for and performed by The Group's percussionist, Raymond DesRoches. Milton Babbitt had high praise for the performances at the Town Hall concert and brought this program to the author's attention when he noticed it was missing from the original list of concerts given by The Group. Fortunately, Harvey Sollberger had a copy of the program so its history could be documented.

The Town Hall program, which was presented with support of the Fromm Foundation and Joseph Machlis, concluded with Seymour Shifrin's The Odes of Shang which was written in 1962 for chorus, percussion and piano. Performers from The Group included Robert Miller, piano and Raymond DesRoches and Richard Fitz, percussion.

The 13 January 1969 concert repeated two pieces of Chou Wen-Chung. Yu-Ko (1965), which had been performed during the 4th Season, and Pien (1966) which was performed during the 5th Season. Harvey Sollberger conducted both pieces on this concert. Pien is scored for five woodwinds, five brass, four percussion and piano. Performing within this ensemble was Ronald Anderson, who remained as The Group's trumpeter for the entire history of The Group and inspired composers to write contemporary music for the trumpet. In 1966, Stefan Wolpe had composed his Solo Piece for Trumpet and dedicated it to Anderson. A later Wolpe piece entitled Piece for Trumpet and Seven Instruments (1971) was included in The Group's 11th Season. In 1969, Charles Wuorinen wrote Nature's Concord and dedicated it to Anderson. The opening twenty-four bars of this eleven minute piece clearly demonstrate the virtuosity and endurance demanded of Anderson.

Musical Ex 7 Wuorinen: Nature's Concord

Unlike the earlier January concert which involved large ensembles, the 10th February concert combined music of Igor Stravinsky, Alvin Brehm, Elaine Barkin and Arthur Berger in much smaller ensemble work. The largest ensemble piece was the first performance of Elaine Barkin's Refrains (1967) which Sollberger conducted. Payment to the musicians was actually indicated in Josef Marx's files where he had written each performer's fee along side his or her name on the program. It indicated that each performer received $125 with the exception of Robert Miller who had $175 written by his name. The entire second half of the concert was devoted to music from Carnatic India performed by an ensemble specializing in the performance of this music. Such a guest ensemble showed The Group's interest in non-Western music.

The final concert of the 7th Season on 24 March, 1969 saw Harvey Sollberger in a prominent role as conductor of Wolpe's For Piano and Sixteen Players (1960-61) with Robert Miller as the piano soloist.

As conductor, Harvey Sollberger decided to divide the piece into six sections for rehearsals. The following sections were written in Marx's notes:

Section I: Bars 1 to 84

Section II: Bars 85 to 144

Section III: Bars 144 to l91

Section IV: Bars 191-244

Section V: Bars 245-270

Section VI: Bars 277 to end of piece

From this division, rehearsals were set over a two month period beginning on January 17th to cover the entire piece in extreme detail. From notes that Josef Marx took, the rehearsals were listed as follows:

January 17th 4:30 to 6:30 Section I

January 27th 4:30 to 6:30 Section I

February 4th 4:15 to 6:15 Section IV

February 8th 2:00 to 4:00 Section IV

February 19th 9:00 to 11 p.m. Section II

March 3rd 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. Section I

March 3rd 9:00 to 12:00 Section IV

March 10th 5:00 to 7:00 Section III

March 14th 11:20 to 1:30 a.m. Section IV

March 17th 5:00 to 7:00 Section III

March 18th 9:15 to 11:15 Section I

March 18th 11:30 to 1:00 Section I

March 19th 11:15 to 1:15 a.m. Section II

March 22nd 9:30 to 12:30 Section V

March 23rd 9:30 to 12:30 Section VI

March 24th 5:00 to 7:00 Section VI

Rehearsals took place not only at Columbia University in either classrooms on the 6th floor of Dodge Hall or McMillin, but also at the performers' apartments. Rehearsal times varied and sometimes went far into the early morning hours such as the rehearsal on March 14th which began at 11:30 p.m. and went until 1:30 a.m. The most important idea and philosophy that held with The Group was that adequate rehearsal time be given to prepare the difficult music to the highest level possible. As Ray DesRoches put it :

Harvey always got the music to peak out just right. It might be the last rehearsal or the dress rehearsal or the performance, but it always happened. Harvey conducted the way a composer composes.

 

As preparation proceeded on the Wolpe, rehearsals were held for a performance of Varèse's Ionization (1931) to be given on the final concert by the newly formed New Jersey Percussion Ensemble with Raymond DesRoches as its founder and conductor. Scored for thirteen percussionists and piano, there were two percussionists within this ensemble, Joe Passaro and Claire Heldrich,who went on to take an important place in the second generation ensembles. According to DesRoches, it was this performance that inspired Wuorinen to compose his Ringing Changes (1969-70) and his Percussion Symphony (1976), both of which were dedicated to Raymond DesRoches and his ensemble, The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble.

Along with The Group's support of younger composers, the first performance of Nicolas Roussakis's Dialogos for Piano and Percussion (1968) was performed by percussionists Richard Fitz and Ray DesRoches with Charles Wuorinen, piano.

In keeping with its ties to the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center, the program included Two Images of a Computer Piece (1968) which was a film created by Lloyd M. Williams to music by Vladimir Ussachevsky.

According to Marx's notes, a reception for The Group for Contemporary Music was given by The American Composers Alliance on 29th March at the American-Scandinavian Foundation on E. 73rd Street in New York City during which the Laurel Leaf Award for distinguished service to contemporary music was presented to The Group. Marx notes that he could not attend as it was his last day of classes at C. W. Post College where he taught music and where Stefan Wolpe was Chairman of the Music Department.

The Eighth Season 1969-1970

The Eighth Season was one of the busiest yet for The Group with a total of nine concerts. Listed in its season flyer were four program and and three special concerts in the spring which featured performances by outside groups. The three special concerts were Ewe Music Ghana performed by members of the African Performance Study Group of Columbia University, Nicholas England, Director on 23 March 1970; The Wesleyan University Gamelan and Javanese Dancers on 27 April 1970 and The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble, Raymond DesRoches, Director on 4 May 1970. In addition, The Group also participated in two concerts given in celebration of the tenth anniversary of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center on 13th April and 10th May of 1970. Sponsorship of concerts continued to be given by the Columbia University Department of Music and the Ditson Fund along with the added support of the Rockefeller Foundation.

Music for the 8th Season showed a return to the old masters with performances of J.S. Bach's Contrapuncti I-IV from The Art of Fugue (1750) on the 27 October 1969 program and Contrapuncti IX, X and XI on 12 January 1970. Also the influence of early music showed itself in Wuorinen's Bearbeitungen über das Glogauer Liederbuch (c. 1470; 1962), set for flute doubling piccolo, clarinet doubling bass clarinet, violin and cello , and Sollberger's Two Motets from Musica Transalpina (1970) which were performed on 8 December, 1969. Other early music selections performed during the 8th Season included Three Psalms from Tricinia (1603) by Sethus Calvisius.

Although Josef Marx remained listed as Manager in the season flyer and program, of great importance and significance (as the future would show) was the new position that Nicolas Roussakis assumed with The Group. Roussakis was now listed as Assistant to the Directors. His influence on the history of The Group would be greatly felt during the next fifteen years.

There was a sense of The Group's own history as the 8th Season open with a real theme of 1962. On the 27th October concert, with the exception of the J.S. Bach work, all the pieces on the program were from The Group's 1st Season. Two pieces written in 1962, the same year as the The Group was founded, were programmed - Davidovsky's Study No. 2 (1962), which was realized in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio and Wolpe's Piece for Two Instrumental Units (1962) which had previously been performed on 18 February 1963. Webern's String Trio, Op. 20 (1927) was performed by Jeanne Benjamin, Jacob Glick and Fred Sherry. Later in the season on the third program,to balance an early performance of Webern, Schoenberg's String Trio, Op. 45 (1946) was performed. Carter's Sonata for Cello and Piano (1948), which had been performed by Joel Krosnick and Charles Wuorinen on March 11 1963,was now performed by Fred Sherry and Charles Wuorinen.

The second concert on December 8th had no large ensembles programmed and contained one premier which was Roussakis' Six Short Pieces for Two Flutes (1969) performed by Sophie and Harvey Sollberger.

Musical Ex.8 Roussakis: Six Short Pieces for Two Flutes

Sophie Sollberger first performed with The Group during the first season on a program of New Flute Music given by Harvey Sollberger on 19 November 1962. Together with Harvey Sollberger, she (listed on the program as Sophie Schultz) performed a piece by Edward Staemfli titled Ornaments (1960) which also listed as percussionist, Joan Tower. On this 8 December 1969 she also performed Ingolf Dahl's Duettino Concertante for Flute and Percussion (1966) with Richard Fitz. Included in the concert was a break from American composers with Pierre Boulez's First Sonata for Piano (1946) performed by Robert Miller and Luciano Berio's Circles (1960) conducted by Charles Wuorinen with Valerie Lamoree, soprano, Susan Jolles, harp, Raymond DesRoches and Richard Fitz, percussionists.

Susan Jolles, harpist, was The Group's harpist during the Columbia years. Under the name Susan Goodman, she first performed with The Group during the second season on the final concert of 13 April 1964 in performances of Stravinsky's Epitaphium for Flute, Clarinet and Harp (1959) and Four Russian Songs (1917; instrumented 1954).

Including the harp in performances was of great interest to The American Harp Society. In correspondence to Harvey Sollberger during the summer of 1969, The American Harp Society of the Metropolitan New York Area had requested information regarding the coming season saying that "It would be of great interest to our group to know if you are planning to use the harp in any of the forthcoming programs." Angelina Marx, Josef Marx's wife, had responded in October of 1969 to inform The American Harp Society that " Berio's Circles was scheduled for 8 December 1969 and Musica Transalpina of Harvey Sollberger on 16 February, 1970." Both pieces included harp.

The third concert on 12 January 1970 opened with a performance of J. S. Bach's Contrapuncti IX, X and XI from The Art of Fugue (1750). Performers of The Group took the rehearsal of the Bach as seriously as contemporary music. In correspondence to Charles Wuorinen, Josef Marx wrote:

It has been suggested by one of the players of the Bach Contrapuncti on the January 12th concert that since we put in sixteen hours of rehearsal (which is comparable to the rehearsal time for contemporary music) the payroll be increased from $50 to $75 for each player. Would you approve?

Also included on the 12 January, 1970 were the first performances The Group's two assistants, Jeffrey Kresky and David Olan, who were graduate composition students at Columbia University. Kresky became an Assistant for The Group during the 7th Season and was an example of how The Group took an interest in younger composers and offered support for younger composers to have their music performed. His first encounter with The Group was when he became a student at Columbia University in 1965 and took a course in composition with Otto Luening in which Charles Wuorinen taught one section of the class. As a student composer, Kresky sat in on rehearsals of The Group and later did editing work for Wuorinen. He felt that when The Group scheduled a performance of David Saperstein's Etude III (1966) for a concert on 8 January 1968, that it "opened the door" for other student composers since Saperstein was at the time a senior at Princeton. Kresky's Cantata (1968) was given its first performance by The Group with the composer conducting the ensemble of Sophie Sollberger, flute, Jack Kreiselman, clarinet, Ronald Anderson, trumpet, Fred Sherry, cello and Valarie Lamoree, soprano. When asked about Valarie Lamoree, who sang with The Group for numerous years, Kresky described her as a "pitch machine" whose voice was harsh. "She disappeared."

Kresky, who completed his doctorate at Princeton University and now is in his twentieth year teaching at William Paterson College in New Jersey, remembered how in the Fall of 1965 that Varèse had died a few days before one of The Group concerts and Harvey Sollberger performed unscheduled Varèse's Density 21.5 by memory in respect to Varèse who had been very sympathetic to The Group.

An interesting observation noted from Kresky was how in the early 1960's four elements of new music began with an "interlocking group of people". Those four elements were (1) the establishment of Perspectives of New Music with Ben Boretz as founding editor; (2) the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center; (3) the American Society of University Composers; and (4) The Group for Contemporary Music. Both Wuorinen and Sollberger were contributing editors to Perspectives of New Music and taught with Boretz at Columbia University. The Group throughout its time in residency at Columbia University program music realized at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and even celebrated the Center's Tenth Anniversary in two concerts on 13th April and 10th May of 1970 during its own 8th season .

The fourth concert took place on 16 February 1970 and reflected a continuation in a programmatic theme during the 8th season which tied in with the tenth anniversary of the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center. Each of the four concerts given by The Group included an electronic piece.

Mario Davidovsky: Study No. 2 October 27, 1969

Vladimir Ussachevsky: Linear Contrasts December 8, 1969

Karlheinz Stockhausen: Gesang der Junglinge January 12, 1970

Bülent Arel: Electronic Music No. 1 February 16, 1970

All four electronic pieces were realized in the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center with the exception of the Stockhausen which received "technical assistance by the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center."

In addition to the steady nucleus of performers, it should be noted that the flutist Patricia Spencer performed for the first time with The Group on the 16th February concert in a performance of John Harbison's from December Music Four Preludes (1967) with Josef Marx and Marx's oboe student Susan Barrett. Spencer's performance activities with The Group would continue, and in the 1970 she would be, along with Joan Tower, one of the founding members of a second-generation group called The Da Capo Players.

The 8th Season concluded with a seventh program presented by The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble which had been founded in 1968 by The Group's percussionist Raymond DesRoches. The concert opened with the first New York performance of Joan Tower's Percussion Quartet (1963, rev. 1969) and concluded with the first New York performance of Charles Wuorinen's Ringing Changes (1970) which was written for The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble. Also included in the program was Michael Colgrass's Fantasy-Variations (1961), Edgard Varèse's Ionisation (1931) and Lou Harrison's Concerto for Violin and Percussion (1940, rev. 1959) with The Group's violinist Jeanne Benjamin as solo violinist.

Musical Ex. 9 Wuorinen Ringing Changes

The Ninth Season 1970-1971

During most of the 9th Season smaller ensemble pieces were programmed and there was also an absence of early music. The season had five concerts scheduled with The Group and The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble concluded the season in what would be the final concert at Columbia University. Columbia University's Music Department and the Alice M. Ditson Fund continued sponsorship joined now by additional support from the New York State Council on the Arts.

The opening concert on 9 November 1970 included the first New York performance of Harvey Sollberger's Eleven Intervals (1970), which was scored for The Group's original trio combination of flute, cello and piano. About this performance, which was performed by flutist Harvey Sollberger, cellist Fred Sherry and pianist Charles Wuorinen, New York Times reviewer Donal Henahan wrote:

A more immediately vivid piece, Harvey Sollberger's "Eleven Intervals" (1970) for flute, cello and piano went further afield, making capital of flute microtones, sustained piano tones, percussive clacking of flute keys and flurries of repeated notes. There were breath-holding mini-cadenzas and small codas in which the cellist, say, would draw the bow, the hammered notes speaking out hoarsely and spookily. The esthetic path here again seemed to parallel Webern's, with much use of metered silences and attenuated strands of tone, but Elliott Carter came to mind, too.

 

The concert closed with a composer The Group frequently performed, Igor Stravinsky. This particular Stravinsky was the Septet (1952-53) which Wuorinen conducted. Listed as the performers were Jack Kreiselman, clarinet, Donald MacCourt, bassoon, David Jolley, horn, Robert Miller, piano, Jeanne Benjamin, violin, John Graham, viola, and Fred Sherry, cello.

The second concert on 14 December 1970 was comprised of very small ensembles with the exception of Stefan Wolpe's String Quartet (1968-69). Wolpe's Quartet was dedicated to the Juilliard Quartet, which had as its cellist Joel Krosnick who had been the original cellist in The Group. Both the piece and the performance caught Village Voice reviewer Carman Moore's attention:

At least one flaming, for-sure genius lives and works in the USA, and his name is Stefan Wolpe. He has the pitch sense of an Indian master and the time-timbre sense of an African master drummer. His "String Quartet" is much more Viennese in phrase lengths, singing-line tendencies, and pace of emotional growth than is typical of his later styles. The work presents a most unanguished stretch of legato lines in the beginning and proceeds to dole our surprise after surprise to first-hearer and second hearer alike. Get to know his music. The performance by violinist Jeanne Benjamin and Annie Kafavian, violist Jacob Glick, and Mr. Sherry started out of tune and a trifle shaky, but made more than adequate amends as the work danced on to the end.

 

Carman Moore's review had high praise for numerous of The Group's performers. He wrote that "Mr. Sollberger, playing as brilliantly as I've heard him play", that "Mr. Sherry showed off the broad range of his musicality in ways few young cellists could have matched" and that soprano "Miss Lamoree showed true tonal beauty."

Also included in the 14 December concert was the first performance of Nicolas Roussakis's Helix (1970) described by Mr. Moore as a "Webern-Wolpe-Boulez experience" which was written for and performed by cellist Fred Sherry and pianist Charles Wuorinen in a "powerful and unabashed" performance.

A review of the second concert also appeared in publication called "Contemporary Music Newsletter" which was published jointly by The Group for Contemporary Music at Columbia University, The Department of Music at New York University and The Department of Music at Princeton University. In the March-April 1971 issue, John Melby of Princeton University wrote in detail about the performance of each piece on the 14th December program. His impression of the performers included comments such as:

"As is usual with Mr. Sollberger, the performance appeared to be as close to flawless as is humanly possible."

 

"The performance by Robert Miller was exemplary."

 

"Valarie Lamoree and Fred Sherry delivered a capable, convincing performance."

The third concert of the season on 11 January 1971 included Charles Wuorinen's A Message to Denmark Hill (1970) which was scored for trio of flute, cello and piano with baritone. For this performance,The Group's trio of Sollberger/Sherry/Wuorinen performed with Richard Frisch, baritone. The text is from Richard Howard's "1851 - A Message to Denmark Hill" and was read by the poet at the concert prior to the performance. Mr. Frisch was also included as the reciter for Arnold Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, op. 41a (1942) which Mr. Sollberger conducted to conclude the concert.

The next concert on 22 February 1971 included performances of Milton Babbitt's String Quartet No. 2 (1954) and Mario Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 5 (1969) which combines five percussionists with tape. The performance of the Davidovsky was made possible by a grant from The Walter W. Naumburg Foundation, Inc. and was performed by Raymond DesRoches, Richard Fitz, Claire Heldrich, Donald Marcone and Howard Van Hyning with Harvey Sollberger conducting.

The fifth concert was held on 5 April 1971. This concert would be the last that The Group for Contemporary Music would present at Columbia University. In March 1971 a dispute over tenure between Columbia University and Charles Wuorinen, Harvey Sollberger and Benjamin Boretz, all of whom were assistant professors at the time, erupted. A series of articles appeared in The New York Times reporting the dispute.

In May another article titled "Columbia Music Unit Faces Extinction" written by Donal Henahan appeared in The New York Times.

The Group for Contemporary Music at Columbia University, one of the country's most prestigious avant-garde ensembles, is facing extinction, at least as a university-sponsored organization. The crisis, which has split the music faculty and rubbed academic tempers raw, resulted from the Columbia faculty's decision to deny tenure to Charles Wuorinen, the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and pianist who was one of The Group's founders.

The article also addressed some of the financial and philosophical aspects of the crisis.

Jack Beeson, the music department chairman, responding to a query about The Group's future, said the ensemble had been "expensive" for the university to maintain, even though much of its financing came from outside sources.

 

Mr. Wuorinen contends that the university's contribution to The Group's budget has been "very modest over the last three of four years--they never contributed anything to operation of any actual concerts."

 

Columbia's rejection of Mr. Wuorinen and his new-music group, which upon its founding in 1962 became the prototype for hundreds of such university-connected ensembles, brought to the surface an acrimonious philosophical disagreement in the music department over "pure" versus "applied" music. Composers tended to line up on one side, musicologists and theorists on the other, according to some faculty members.

Because of the music department 's position towards Wuorinen, both Sollberger and Wuorinen decided to leave Columbia University. In a final article "Are the Arts Doomed on Campus?" written by Charles Wuorinen and published in August of 1971, a final response to the situation was stated.

I was this past spring denied tenure by a vote of tenured members of the Music Department --a group constituting about one-fifth of the teaching staff. The effect of this vote, barring administrative intervention, would have been to force me to leave the university within two years; I decided to resign immediately.

 

Why was this decision taken, and who was responsible? To the outside world it seemed odd that one so deeply involved in the compositional scene at Columbia should be let go. But the outside world could not have known that all of the vigorous compositional activity at Columbia-the Electronic Music Center (founded by Otto Luening and Vladimir Ussachevsky), The Group for Contemporary Music (founded and directed by Harvey Sollberger and myself), the periodical, "Perspectives of New Music" (brought to the university and edited by Benjamin Boretz, a composer, like myself, given notice this spring), Columbia Composer (the student composers' organization), the Performers Committee for Twentieth Century Music, and others--was the result of individual initiative by faculty members; that the vigor and influence of the activities resulted solely from individual concern, and had all proceeded without encouragement from the university administration (except for the sympathetic support of the harassed department chairman, Jack Beeson.)

 

Moreover, in spite of the fact that music at Columbia has always meant to the public "contemporary" music, the ruling circles of the Music Department are--through accidents of retirement, resignation, and the like--overwhelmingly musicological. Perhaps, by concentrating so much on the past, they have developed a hostility to the present, and to those who advocate it in music. Perhaps also, by allowing their own active practice of the art to atrophy into scholarly sedentariness, they have likewise come to fear those who composer and perform.

 

I am beginning to believe that smaller institutions, like conservatories, offer the best hope for the present.

This event brought to a end The Group's residency at Columbia University where it had been founded in 1962 and successfully given a series of concerts each year for nine season. It also marked a new beginning for The Group at Manhattan School of Music.

Summary of Part I

During The Group for Contemporary Music' s first nine seasons of existence, it centered its performance activities at Columbia University where it was in residence from the fall of 1962 through the spring of 1971. The Group drew its focus from numerous sources. First,there was a deeply felt need by Sollberger and Wuorinen to establish a specialized and higher caliber of new music performances. This was achieved through adequate rehearsal and a development of a nucleus of musicians specializing in performing new music. Because of its residency at Columbia University, The Group was involved in an interaction with faculty composers such as Charles Dodge, Jack Beeson, Mario Davidovsky, Chou Wen-Chung, Otto Luening, Peter Westergaard and composers at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Studio such as Milton Babbitt and Vladimir Ussachevsky.

Another source was The Group's sense of history and interest in early music, which exemplified itself in programing either early music or performing new pieces which were based on or inspired by early music. Often a concert began with music from the Renaissance or the Baroque and included twentieth-century "classics" of an earlier generation of composers such as Varèse or the Second Viennese school of Schoenberg, Webern and Berg. Also taking place on these concerts were premiers of new works, often many of which were written for The Group and its performers. An opportunity was also created for younger composers such as Nicolas Roussakis, Jeffrey Kresky, Joan Tower and David Olan to assist The Group and have their music performed.

The Group's interest and support of Stefan Wolpe's music remained constant throughout the first nine seasons. The music of Stefan Wolpe was performed each year during the first nine seasons by The Group for Contemporary Music. By examining the programs and repertoire lists, the following list was concluded upon:

Wolpe performed by The Group for Contemporary Music

1st Season-February 18, 1963 -* Piece for Two Instrumental Units (1963)

2nd Season-March 16, 1964 -(Josef Marx Recital)

Quartet for Oboe, Cello, Percussion and Piano (1955)

Sonata for Oboe and Piano (1938-1941)

3rd Season-November 16, 1964 -**Trio in Two Parts (1964)

4th Season-April 25, 1966 - Piece in Two Parts for Flute and Piano (1960)

5th Season-March 20, 1967 - Quintet with Voice (1956-57)

6th Season-January 8, 1968 - Trio in Two Parts (1964)

Performed by the original Group Trio - Harvey Sollberger, Joel Krosnick

and Charles Wuorinen

7th Season-March 24, 1969 - For Piano and Sixteen Players (1960-61)

Robert Miller, piano soloist

8th Season-October 27, 1969 - Piece for Two Instrumental Units (1962)

Harvey Sollberger, conductor

9th Season-December 14, 1970 - String Quartet (1968-69)

Jeanne Benjamin and Anni Kavafian, violins; Jacob Glick, viola;

Fred Sherry, cello

*World Premier

**Written for The Group for Contemporary Music

The Group also remained loyal to Edgard Varèse, Elliott Carter, Roger Sessions and Milton Babbitt. There is also an interest in non-Western music which is evident not only through the programing of Chou Wen-Chung's music, but also in programing Ewe (Ghana) Music and music from Carnatic India which took place during the final years at Columbia University.

During the Columbia years, The Group developed from the nucleus that formed the original trio of Harvey Sollberger, Joel Krosnick and Charles Wuorinen to an ensemble of dedicated new music performers. There is also a development of The Group's founders, Sollberger and Wuorinen, as they involved themselves as composers, performers, authors and eventually as conductors. From this a second generation of new music performers and ensembles began to be generated directly from The Group. The first ensemble to be generated from The Group was the New Jersey Percussion Ensemble established by The Group's percussionist, Raymond DesRoches in 1969. Soon after The Group's relocation in 1971 to the Manhattan School of Music, there were numerous other second generation ensembles established.

PART II The Years at Manhattan School of Music 1971-1977

Chapter IV

Residency and New Beginning at a Conservatory

The Tenth to Fifteenth Season 1971-1977

Introduction

In the fall of 1971 The Group for Contemporary Music began its Tenth Season in a new residency at Manhattan School of Music. Almost without exception from the Tenth Season through the Fifteenth Season, all of The Group's concerts were held either in Borden Auditorium or Hubbard Recital Hall. An atmosphere in which an interaction between The Group and the music students at MSM was mutually created by the school's Dean, David Simon, and The Group's Directors, Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen and The Group's Administrator, Nicolas Roussakis. Because of this atmosphere, The Group's concerts included not only performances by The Group's performers, but also performances by Manhattan School of Music's Contemporary Ensemble which was formed under Harvey Sollberger's direction. Both Wuorinen and Sollberger were given faculty positions at MSM.

The Tenth Season 1971-1972

It appeared from the initial Season Flyer to the individual programs that during the Tenth Season more adjustments than usual were needed as the year progressed. But the change in location seems to have been favorable as was reflected in Tom Johnson's review from The Village Voice.

The opening concert of The Group's 10th Season indicated that things may be changing now that directors Charles Wuorinen and Harvey Sollberger have moved the series to a new home. The auditorium at the Manhattan School of Music has a much more pleasant atmosphere than the big dingy hall at Columbia, and the audience Friday night seemed larger and more genuinely appreciative than in past seasons. The performances were as fine as ever, and the more varied program seemed to appeal more to non-professionals than some of the concerts of previous seasons did.

 

Both in the choice of programs and in the way the pieces were performed, the evening had a vitality and outwardness that I had not expected. If the series continues in this direction, it may yet become a vital part of our city's musical life, and not merely a showcase for new music.

Borden Auditorium at Manhattan School of Music was the actual location of all of the Tenth Season's concerts. The first concert was held on Friday, 17 December 1971 and opened with Antechrist (1967) of Peter Maxwell Davies. Two electronic pieces were programmed; Chinary Ung's Kama (1970) and from Yale University's Electronic Music Studio the first performance of a piece by Preston Trombly titled Kenetics III (1971) for flute and tape which flutist Harvey Sollberger performed. The concert also included George Crumb's Night Music II (1963) performed by violinist Jeanne Benjamin and pianist Robert Miller; and a performance of Raoul Pleskow's Three Movements for Quintet (1971) in which the violinist Rolf Schulte joined regular Group performers. The program concluded with a performance of Arnold Schoenberg's Third String Quartet, Op. 30 (1926) performed by "The Contemporary Quartet" which was The Group's string players: Jeanne Benjamin, violin, Jacob Glick viola, Fred Sherry, cello and new violinist Thomas Kornacker.

This idea for "The Contemporary Quartet" remained throughout the Tenth Season and disappeared along with violinist Thomas Kornacker by the Eleventh Season. While "The Contemporary Quartet" did exist during the Tenth Season, other performances included Igor Stravinsky's Three Pieces for String Quartet (1914) and his Concertino for String Quartet (1920), and Béla Bartók's Third String Quartet (1927)

The Tenth Season also marked the beginning of an interaction between The Group and music students at Manhattan School of Music. The fourth program of the season on 13 March 1972 opened with a performance of Carl Ruggles' Angels for Muted Brass (1921 rev. 1938) given by students from The Manhattan Brass Ensemble with David Simon conducting.

The second program of the season on 17 January 1972 included the first performance of Sextet (1971) by Erik Lundborg, who was student composer at Columbia University. It was contrasted by a performance of Claude Debussy's Sonate No. 2 (1916) given by flutist Sophie Sollberger, violist Jacob Glick and harpist Susan Jolles. Aaron Copland's Duo for Flute and Piano (1971) was given a performance by Sollberger and Wuorinen.

Music Ex. 11 Wuorinen: Flute Variations II

The Tenth Season concluded on 16 May concert with a performance of Davidovsky's Synchronisms No. 5 (1969) given by The New Jersey Percussion Ensemble.

The Eleventh Season 1972-1973

Several changes occurred during the Eleventh Season. First, the list of "Performers with The Group for Contemporary Music" indicated that clarinetist Virgil Blackwell had been added to the roster along with Allen Blustine, who was added on in the 9th Season. Up to the 9th Season, Jack Kreiselman was usually the clarinetist. Joe Passaro was added to the list of percussionists and bassist Alvin Brehm, who replaced Kenneth Fricker in the 10th Season, remained. Listed as "Voice" however, was only Richard Frisch. Soprano Valarie Lamoree was no longer with The Group because, according to both Wuorinen and Sollberger, she moved to Seattle. Secondly, the concerts took place now in Hubbard Recital Hall as well as Borden Auditorium. The other changes included an increased admission price of $2.50 and students were no longer free with a price now listed as $1, and a changed listing from "Directors" to "Artistic Directors" for Sollberger and Wuorinen.

The 11th season was also the first year that a "Final Report" was written. Prepared by The Group's Administrator, Nicolas Roussakis, the "Final Report" documented important information about The Group's activities for the season which included:

Description of services

Dates and places of the concerts; approximate number of people attending

Number of people employed by the program (all part time)

Total Project cost - Income and Expenses

Grant information

The "Final Report of The 1972-1973 Season" indicated that the Total income was $31,128.01 and the Total expenses were $30,015.25. Included in the income was a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts for $14,500, a $4,000 grant from both the Alice M. Ditson Fund and the Martha Baird Rockefeller Fund. The number of concerts remained constant and six concerts were performed during the 1972-73 season which were attended by a total of about 1900 people. The number of people employed by the program (all part-time) was 2 Directors, 1 Administrator, 1 Secretary-Bookkeeper (paid by the Manhattan School of Music), 1 Recording Engineer for Electronic Music (paid by the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center), ushers, stage managers, piano tuner, guards (paid by the Manhattan School of Music) and thirty six musicians. For the 1972-73 season the total performers' fee was $15,339.50. The schedule for paying the musicians was listed as follows:

For compositions requiring a conductor: $9.00 per rehearsal hour, $50 per concert; the conductor receives double pay (these figures are approximately the same as those approved by Local 802, American Federation of Musicians).

 

For unconducted compositions, the factor determining the performer's fee is the length of the composition; the schedule is the following:

Fee

up to 5 minutes $100

5 - 10 minutes $125

10 - 15 minutes $150

15 - 20 minutes $180

over 20 minutes $215

 

that fee, plus $50 per concert.

 

Manhattan School of Music contributed over $5,000 in terms of printing brochures, flyers and programs; rental of Hubbard Recital Hall and Borden Auditorium, postage, instrument rental, recording of concerts, mail service, music rental, rehearsal space, publicity, telephone, duplicating and one part-time secretary-bookkeeper.

During the Eleventh Season The Group continued to program pieces realized in The Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center and the idea of presenting performers from The Group in recital was renewed. A Flute Recital was given by Harvey Sollberger on 5 February 1973 and a concert by pianist Robert Miller was presented on 19 March 1973. Also included during the season were performances by students from Manhattan School of Music on The Group's sixth program on 21 May 1973 which presented performances of Wallingford Riegger's Music for Brass Choir (1949) conducted by Manhattan School of Music's Dean, David Simon. On the same concert, Harvey Sollberger conducted students in a performance of Varèse's Intègrales (1925).

Other performances to note include: Wolpe's Piece for Trumpet and Seven Instruments (1971) performed on 20 November 1972 with Ronald Anderson as trumpet soloist and Charles Wuorinen conducting; Wuorinen's Chamber Concerto for Tuba (1970) with Don Butterfield as soloist on the 18 December 1972 program; Sollberger's The Two and The One (1972) for two percussionists and amplified cello on the 23 April, 1973 program; and a performance of Schoenberg's Chamber Symphony No. 1, Op. 9 (1906) which Daniel Shulman conducted. Many of the performers included in this ensemble which Shulman conducted, were performers from his own contemporary ensemble called The Light Fantastic Players, which Shulman directed through a Fourth Season in 1974/75. Shulman would be added as conductor to The Group's roster during the next season along with Sollberger and Wuorinen.

Twelfth Season 1973-1974

Now in its third year of residency at Manhattan School of Music, The Group's season flyer took on a new logo and a season poster was made up for publicity. This logo remained with The Group until the 24th Seaso