Stefan Wolpe died in 1972, leaving a legacy of accessible avant-garde compositions, if one may hatch an oxymoron. The short-breathed pointillism of the virtuosic Trio will entrance hard core modernists. Others will prefer the earlier Violin Sonata, a four movement work whose knotty lyricism is well captured by Jorja Feezanis and keyboard partner, Garrick Ohlsson. Best of all may be the Quartet, a piquant work of melodic richness, sensuous timbres and, in the last movement, abundant wit. Oboist Stephen Taylor is first among equals, his plangent instrument leading a group enriched by percussion that adds a measure of vitality and expressiveness all too rare in music of the period (1955). Good sound adds to the attractiveness of this absorbing disc.
-Dan Davis CLASSICAL PULSE! JUNE/JULY 1994
Making up another 67'38' of Wolpe's refreshingly strenuous output are three pieces, all substantial in their musical density, which find him at significantly different stages in his development The Violin Sonata (19491 stands at the end of a decade in which he had thoroughly overhauled his musical thinking. The Quartet for oboe, cello, piano and percussion (1955) is one of a number of scores composed while teaching at Black Mountain College, and the Trio for flute, cello and piano (1963-64) is part of another series, written in response to European experiences after visits to the summer New Music courses at Darmstadt All are extremely demanding of performers and are excellently played by members of the Group For Contemporary Music
What more specifically links these works is what can only be called the unified diversity of their sources. This music, by turns tonal, atonal, modal and serial, shows the influence of jazz and folk music, and yet always has an unmistakeably personal tone. Wolpe had a desire to eliminate stylistic boundaries that first became evident in some Qf his 1 920s pieces; and a wish to fuse what began as quite different modes of discourse. A result of this, illustrated differently by each of these three works, is that although the music is rigorous, even austere, it is constantly surprising. and extraordinarily varied in gesture, sound, texture, expression. It can be violent or intimate - or violent and intimate, for opposites are reconciled, blended, in an exceptionally mobile polyphony. As the composer himself writes, in connection with the Violin Sonata, 'The partials of the sound behave like river currents and a greater orbital spread-out is guaranteed to the sound, a greater circulatory agility (a greater momentum, too). The sound gets the plasticity of figures of waves and the magneticisrn and the fluid elasticity of river currents.
MAX HARRISON, The Wire, December 1993
Stefan Wolpe (1902-72) was a committed abstract expressionist--he admired the painters of this school too--and a determined post-Webern composer. He was much admired by Elliott Carter and younger composers on the New York scene such as Charles Wuorinen and Harvey Sollberger, who formed The Group for Contemporary Music in 1962. This group supported Wolpe in the 1960s and 1970s and now adds some magnificently dedicated performances to those already available.
First comes the premiere recording of the resourceful Quartet for Oboe, Cello, Percussion and Piano, written in 1955 when Wolpe was on the faculty at Black Mountain College, North Carolina. This is splendidly done, with Stephen Taylor's athletic and mellifluous oboe playing under Sollberger's direction. Only the music theatre gimmicks in the last movement sound like a trivial false note for Wolpe, but after all Cage was often around at Black Mountain too.
The Sonata for Violin and Piano (1949), at nearly half an hour, is a major work of its period although somewhat over-extended even in this virtuoso performance. The Trio in Two Parts from the mid-1960s is closest to post-Webern manners. Fragments of material ricochet from one instrument to the other in a tireless demonstration of energy.
Austin Clarkson, the authority on Wolpe, writes in the booklet that the composer must be considered as "one of the handful of major figures of twentieth-century music". This seems an overstatement. Like Dallapiccola and Gerhard. both affected by Schoenberg's discoveries, Wolpe shows an unswerving integrity which in his case is expressed in rather remote abstract terms. What is certain is that these well-recorded performances make the best possible case for the music. PD
Gramophone February 1994
Koch International Classics 7112
Quartet for Oboe, Cello, Percussion and Piano (1955)
23'53" [first recording]
Sonata for Violin and Piano (1949) 26'49"
Trio in Two Parts for Flute, Cello and Piano (1963-64) 16'36
[first recording]
Performers:
Stephen Taylor, oboe
Fred Sherry, cello
Aleck Karis, piano
Daniel Kennedy, percussion
Jorja Fleezanis, violin
Garrick Ohlsson, piano
Harvey Sollberger, flute and conductor
Charles Wuorinen, piano
This recording is dedicated to the memory of Josef Marx.
Recorded at Concordia College, Bronx, New York 1 & 10
November 1991.
Produced and Engineered by Michael Fine
Editing: Joanna Nickrenz
Executive Producer: Howard Stokar
Program note: Austin Clarkson
Cover: fractal image M-set Rug, by Dr. Richard Voss, IBM Research
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