Chamber Music
SCHOENBERG Op. 31 VARIATIONS, remade for two pianos (1996)
I was pleasantly surprised by Charles Wuorinen’s two-piano transcription of Arnold
Schoenberg’s Opus 31 Variations for Orchestra, a version much more romantic in sound
than the thickish Brahms-sounding original, and at the same time far clearer and more
involving in its unfolding. I’ve always admired the work, if from a considerable
distance. Wuorinen and the two-pianists brought it closer and also made it likable. If you
don’t think that’s a feat, you don’t know the music. LA Weekly
click here for full review (Anna Kisselgoff, New York
Times), performance at the New York City Ballet
SONATA FOR GUITAR AND PIANO (1995)"Wuorinen’s Sonata accomplished the seemingly impossible task of combining the piano and guitar and creating the effect of parity between them, in true sonata style." The Music Connoisseur
SAXOPHONE QUARTET (1993) Wuorinen’s piece is a grand design of
the technical and tonal features of this instrumentation. It is a massively complicated
work, which remains interesting due to its crystal-clear form and its urgent dramaturgy.
The ensemble (the Rascher Quartet) mastered the wild difficulties outstandingly and won a
big success for the discovery of the evening. Der Tagesspiegel Berlin
Wuorinen’s work, played by the Rascher Quartet, was a richly layered and gorgeously
dovetailed exploration of transforming material. The Washington Post
STRING SEXTET (1989) "Mr. Wuorinen's composition, commissioned by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, was compelling and vigorous as well as obsessed, a 20-minute expression of fury and overflowing energy." Edward Rothstein, New York Times "The work's success is a result of its dramatic coherence and tensile strength, which gradually unfold as it progresses from stasis to kinetic energy." Kansas City Times
SONATA FOR VIOLIN AND PIANO (1988) "The Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress was the site of an important musical event last night: the world premiere of the Sonata for Violin and Piano by the renowned contemporary composer Charles Wuorinen- The sonata ... was compelling from the opening phrase...The performance, by violinist Benjamin Hudson and pianist Garrick Ohlsson was splendid, and set an enviable standard for future and hopefully frequent performances of this fine addition to the repertoire." Washington Post "A Stunning West Coast premiere of Charles Wuorinen's Sonata ... a tightly conceived, exciting monolith." Los Angeles Times
THIRD STRING QUARTET (1987) "It is a long span of thoughtful, beautiful music ... one can hear everything happen. - this is a poetic - I'd say inspired - composition, representing Wuorinen in an unusually intimate vein, and it strikes me as a major contribution to the string-quartet repertory." Andrew Porter, The New Yorker "Wuorinen's remarkable String Quartet No.3 ... An incredibly fresh amalgam of romantic gestures, contemporary musical language and imaginative use of colors and dynamics." Washington Post
THIRD PIANO SONATA (1986) "Incredibly exciting and affecting ... rip-roaring Wuorinen." Leighton Kerner, Village Voice "If Thelonius Monk had been blessed with Art Tatum's technique, this might have been the result." Los Angeles Press Telegram "Mr. Feinberg’s high-energy reading of Mr. Wuorinen’s Sonata No. 3 also focused on dramatic continuity, particularly in the first movement, in which interlocking melodic strands seemed in this performance to carry vague echoes of Baroque keyboard music. Allan Kozinn New York Times "A big virtuoso show piece for the performer ... a wild piece. Its first and last movements scampering about the keyboard in feverish excitement for pages on end. Wuorinen's Sonata, sounds like music born of deep inner necessity, something its composer had to write." Robert Finn, Cleveland Plain Dealer
TRIO FOR VIOLIN, CELLO AND PIANO (1981) "Those who attended the concert, including myself, were awed by the sheer beauty of the musical experience." "A superbly crafted ten-minute piece" Detroit News "One can easily tell what each instrument is doing - even on first hearing - sense the relationships of the musical lines to one another. There is a nice balance between agitation and repose, and when the gentle minor-mode ending of the piece is reached, the listener feels that the musical journey taken has been well plotted and nicely worked out." New York Times
HORN TRIO (1981) "The first epithet that occurs to me is 'Haydnish,' by which I would indicate a play of musical ideas so dexterous, inventive, and happy that a listener to them smiles with pleasure. The music dances on its way, changing gait sometimes at a proposal from one of the three instruments, sometimes as if on a new impulse commonly shared. There is a seductive waltz episode. -Me work, in one movement, is 'classical" in being a discourse on pregnant motifs, even on melodious themes. Excellently Haydnish is the surprise when the apparent close in (more or less) C proves to be not final: it dissolves, and there are two more turns through which the players tripple merrily before the true, satisfying end is reached." Andrew Porter, The New Yorker
SECOND STRING QUARTET (1979) "Mr. Wuorinen is a composer of acuity, vision and striking resourcefulness. What commands attention, rat-her than particular materials or momentary effects, is the continuing evolutionary thrust. In the second movement, for instance, Mr.- Wuorinen uses vacant tremolos, trills and harmonics somewhat in the style of Bartok's, night music.' But rather than fully congealing, this potentially atmospheric design generates contrasting episodes of a more extroverted, aggressive nature. The transformations are richly detailed and persuasively organic ... the polyphonic strength of the writing is one of its most absorbing features, especially in a performance as lucid and well-considered as the one provided by the Columbia String Quartet on this occasion." Joseph Horowitz, New York Times
ARCHÆOPTERYX for Bass Trombone and 10 Players (1978) "Wuorinen draws fascinating sounds from this unusual combination, which irresistibly suggests a flapping prehistoric bird soaring into flight." New York Magazine "Archaeopteryx possesses a snarling beauty, a near theatrical sense of drama." New York Times "It begins with scrappy, punchy sounds, and then the soloist embarks on short flights, some which inspire cadenza exchanges with members of the ensemble (three flutes, two clarinets, two horns, tuba, piano and marimba). Sustained melodies alternate with skittering and dithering. Eventually, the music 'fossilizes' (as the archaeopteryx did). Hard bright stratified chords made a strange new sound that has continued to haunt me." Andrew Porter, The New Yorker
THE WINDS (1977) "This is a brilliant, animated stretch of music ... some episodes are whirling, some lyrical. There is exuberance both in the invention of incidents and in the scoring, which makes striking use of different combinations...-Me prolific Wuorinen is in good form. He brims with lively ideas. He effortlessly commands - and combines - a diversity of techniques. A big generous creativity pours through." The New Yorker
PERCUSSION SYMPHONY (1976) "Wuorinen's Percussion Symphony was the most astonishing piece, sustaining in its own inventive vitality and a listener's interest for a full 40 minutes. Aside from containing a lavish number of arresting thematic ideas, the Percussion Symphony is cunningly devised to engage the ear with shifting layers of pitched and unpitched sounds as they continually change perspectives in the most surprising and satisfying ways...'modernity and antiquity are pleasingly conjoined' in this wonderful piece, the best possible finale to an exciting concert of contemporary music." Peter Davis, New York Magazine
SECOND PIANO SONATA (1976) "Charles Wuorinen's Sonata No, 2 for piano, which received its premiere performance Saturday afternoon at the Kennedy Center, should add significantly to the composer's already substantial reputation. It is music clearly contemporary in form but not modem for the sake of modernity, often angular in its melodic lines but nonetheless emotionally expressive, ingenious in the way it uses silences as well as the more substantial dynamic resources of the piano. The first performance made two things quite clear: The sonata requires considerable technique to achieve its proper effect, and the pianist Jeffrey Swann, who played it at the Kennedy Center, has all the technique it demands." The Washington Post
ARABIA FELIX (1973) "Wuorinen's Arabia Felix -- a dazzling display piece which pits the metallic glitter of guitar, piano, and vibraphone against the sustained-note luster of flute, bassoon, and violin ... When sinuous, complex threads gradually merge into Arabian dance rhythms at the end, they do so with unmistakable glee." Keynote
GRAND UNION for Cello and Drums (1973) "Speculum Musicae, the group of young New Yorkers who play good contemporary music with the care and love it deserves, graced its Chicago debut on November 5 with the world premier of a work by Charles Wuorinen. Written last summer to honor Speculum cellist Fred Sherry's twenty-fifth birthday, Grand Union is a one-movement duo for cello and four drums that acts like a rondo. It circles around like a snake charmer theme that retains its energy through myriad transformations, including a couple that delightfully resemble a bossa nova." High Fidelity
SPECULUM SPECULI (1972) "made so forceful an impression that it could hardly be ignored even by those who do not care for contemporary music.... This work for flute, oboe, bass clarinet, piano, double-bass and percussion is full of energy and has an urgency about it that simply cannot be ignored ... its jots and jolts of woodwind colors and drum beats, melodic fragments, contrasts of register and many other elements come together in a vivid musical fabric that insists, quite successfully, on the integrity of its form and the importance of its existence." Allen Hughes, New York Times
FIRST STRING QUARTET (1971) "Without recourse to secondhand romantic mannerisms, Wuorinen creates a rhetorical vocabulary all his own. It is founded on the interplay, understated at first and gradually intensifying, of regular rhythmic periodicity and timeless, suspended lyricism ... The music is hectically expressive, even expressionistic, in tone. At one moment it rears up in a gesture of vehement oratory, at another it sings a song of far-off beauty, and then again it pounds away ... And as the argument unfolds, so the implicit accents gradually emerge and converge in a concluding processional of potent tragic force." Bernard Jacobson, Chicago Daily News
CHAMBER CONCERTO FOR TUBA (1970) "One of the great new classical composers of the post World War II era ... this wild, brilliant work scored for - dig this - tuba, four flutes, two oboes, two bassoons, four horns, and a gang of percussion ... with a degree of composer's virtuosity bordering almost on the whimsical ... I think of "Chamber Concerto for Tuba" as Wuorinen's masterpiece." Village Voice
For further information on the music of Charles Wuorinen please contact:
HOWARD STOKAR MANAGEMENT
870 West End Avenue
New York, New York 10025
Telephone (212) 866-5798
Fax (212) 662-0804
hstokar@stokar.com
All works are published by C.F. PETERS CORPORATION (New York, London, Frankfurt)