Bach's "The Art of Fugue"
Sponsored by NCSU CenterStage and the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild
Sponsored by NCSU CenterStage and the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild
SITE: (Please Note) Stewart Theatre, North Carolina State University Campus
PROGRAM: The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080 (1750) J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Contrapunctus 1
Contrapunctus 4
Contrapunctus 12: Canon alla Ottava
Contrapunctus 6
Contrapunctus 15: Canon per Augmenmtationem in Contrario Motu
Contrapunctus 11
-INTERMISSION-
Contrapunctus 1
Contrapunctus 2
Contrapunctus 3
Contrapunctus 5
Contrapunctus 7
Contrapunctus 8
Contrapunctus 10
Contrapunctus 9
Contrapunctus 13: Canon all Duodecima in Contrapunto alla Quinta. (alto & baritone)
Contrapunctus 14: Canon all Decima. Contrapunto alla Terza (soprano & tenor)
Contrapunctus 16: Rectus & Inversus (soprano, alto, & baritone)
Contrapunctus 19: Unfinished
Chorale: Wenn wir in höchsten Nöthen sein
Johann Sebastian Bach
The Art of Fugue
When discussing the possibility of performing and recording J.S. Bach's "Die Kunst der Fuge" (The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080) with those in and outside the classical music world, the question of playing this great masterwork on saxophones invariably arises early in the conversation! After all, the saxophone was not even invented until nearly 100 years after Bach's death. However, there are two interesting points which should allay any concerns as to the appropriateness of the music of Bach to the saxophone. First, Bach, who was known to be a man of precision regarding instrumentation and other musical issues, did not indicate any instrumentation for "The Art of Fugue." Neither did his son C.P.E. Bach, to whom he dictated this, his final work. Second, the saxophone quartet is the only modern chamber ensemble designed as a true consort. The entire family, from sopranino to contrabass was conceived by its maker, Adolphe Sax, as an extension of a single acoustic design, uniform and complementary throughout the range. Thus the soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones represent a pure consort, more consistent in tone color from top to bottom than the brass or woodwind quintet, and even the string quartet.
It was in fact a member of one of the world's most well known string quartets who convinced us to look at this music. In 1994 the New Century Saxophone Quartet and the Julliard String Quartet performed in Los Angeles' Ambassador Auditorium on consecutive nights. In a backstage conversation, the Juilliard's cellist, Joel Krosnick, suggested that we explore "The Art of Fugue," feeling it might be a good match for the sonority of a saxophone quartet. This was not the first time we had heard this. Five years earlier, in 1989, Philip Dunigan, the well known flutist and teacher at the North Carolina School of the Arts, had also encouraged us to play "The Art of Fugue"; however, it took the advice of a second great musician, Krosnick, to get the quartet to overcome a natural hesitation to take on this challenge.
A year later, the quartet began performing three of the contrapuncti as a set in our recitals. After years of performing these excerpts, we decided to take on the entire work. That entailed finding a good edition to begin with; finding a coach that really understood Baroque performance practice who would be willing to, of all things, work with a saxophone quartet; and then making the thousands of decisions involved in presenting a historically representative rendition that also bears the creative stamp of the New Century Saxophone Quartet. It should not be overlooked that throughout this process, our manager, Robert Besen, was not merely supportive of taking on the entire "The Art of Fugue." He was downright persistent about it.
We chose the Breitkopf & Härtel edition of "The Art of Fugue" due to its close resemblance to original manuscript and first editions. As in Bach's manuscript, there are very few editing marks. Aside from the few articulations and basic ornamentations supplied by Bach, all decisions regarding tempi, articulations, dynamics, phrasing, and expression are left to the performers. Where additional ornamentation was added, care was taken to make appropriate, clear choices, in concert with proper performance practice. All of the ornamentation, along with articulation choices and issues of rhythmic interpretation, were handled chiefly through the coaching and suggestions of the renowned Baroque flutist Stephen Preston. Bach composed the "The Art of Fugue" in the key of D minor, with each voice covering a range of just under three octaves. The highest and lowest notes of each voice fall within the comfortable range of the corresponding saxophone, allowing the whole work to be kept in the original key. On very rare occasions a decision had to be made regarding an octave transposition, or trading of voices, and in a few of the fugues, where the closing cadences expanded to five or six voices, a part or two had to be left out. Otherwise the notes being played are exactly the ones Bach heard as he dictated the music to his son. We feel the acoustical characteristics of the saxophone consort make it possible to hear the unique timbre of each particular voice in the contrapunctal sections; yet when the parts come together homophonically, the ensemble has the ability to blend into a sonorous whole, with a sound not unlike a pipe organ.
-New Century Saxophone Quartet
I have had the honor of working with the New Century Saxophone Quartet for just shy of twelve years. We have cooked up a lot of mischief together, all of it with the invaluable support of Jared Sacks, the Director of Channel Classics Records, but nothing that remotely compares to "The Art of Fugue" project. New Century has been performing both sets of contrapuncti as pure music for some time in their standard format concerts, and they intend to continue to do that. However, early on in their discovery of this music they recognized that while it is written is in a style that is familiar to all classical music lovers, it is nonetheless extremely challenging, especially when large portions or the complete work are performed. (Of course the entire "Art of Fugue" has had many successful performances by ensembles such as the Juilliard Quartet.) Thus, almost immediately after the quartet decided to learn and perform the complete "Art of Fugue," we found ourselves considering various multimedia formats that might be offered to more ambitious concert promoters, with the intent of adding a component that would illustrate the music, to make it more possible to comprehend by bringing in the participation of the visual sense. The initial discussion concentrated on dance and lighting effects. But as is so often the case, a series of chance meetings led us in a very different direction, to Misha Films, the remarkable team of Misha Votruba and Misha Zabranska, and so this collaboration was born.
Just at this time, April 2002, New Century performed for Purdue Convocations, and included a set of three contrapuncti on the program. The performance proved a great success, and when I spoke with Todd Wetzel about a re-engagement, I found that Purdue Convocations already had a lively interest in multimedia projects. (Their current season has also included a presentation of "Sun Rings" by the Kronos Quartet.) It did not take very much coaxing to secure Purdue Convocations as one of the first commissioning sponsors of Misha Films' animation work for "The Art of Fugue."
Early in 2003, after Misha Films had completed a demo animation and things were well along the way towards the premiere performances of a first set of animations in early 2004, it became clear that the project could reach a significantly higher level, technologically and artistically, with the collaboration of a top-notch university media lab. That ultimately led to our partnership with the Envision Center for Data Perceptualization, a state-of-the-art center for the use and advancement of visualization technology at Purdue University.
Throughout the fall of 2003 and into early 2004, Misha Films and faculty and students from Purdue's Department of Computer Graphics Technology (CGT) worked on the animations you will see today. Simultaneously, the development of the production design and show control progressed through a collaboration by Misha Films, Purdue Convocations, the Envision Center, the Department of CGT, and Purdue's Theatre Division. In short, Purdue University's involvement has been as generous as it has been mammoth.
The goal of this effort is to create a homogenous live concert combining the performance of classical chamber music with projected visuals. If successful, the animations will complement, but not dominate, the experience of watching a live ensemble perform the music, and the audience will leave with one common feeling from the music and visuals. The visual component in today's performance is the project's first stage, with three of the contrapuncti receiving full-scale 3-D animation. Ultimately six to nine of the contrapuncti will receive this level of treatment.
Enormous quantities of creativity from and hard work by many individuals have gone into this venture, and I hope you will look through the production credits to learn their roles, all crucial. But nothing would have happened at all without the support of the commissioning sponsors of the animation work from Misha Films: North Carolina State University Center Stage (Sharon Moore, Director; Mark Tulbert, Assistant Director), Purdue Convocations (Todd Wetzel, Director), the Raleigh Chamber Music Guild (Nancy Lambert, Executive Director), and Premiere Performances, University of Missouri-St. Louis (Katharine Lawton Brown, Director). As the project continues, we look forward to inviting more sponsors to participate.
Finally, I am certain that all of my colleagues who have participated in this journey will concur with my singling out of Todd Wetzel for special recognition. Without his creative input, diplomacy, and unquenchable enthusiasm, if this project had come off at all, it would have been with neither the scope nor the ambition of what you will witness.
-Robert Besen
New Century's 1993 New York debut at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall earned the group praise for their "virtuosic display of dexterity and keen ensemble work," in which the "players handled all the music with panache" (New York Post). Upon becoming the first saxophone quartet presented at the Ambassador Auditorium in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times heralded the Quartet's West Coast debut: "Tackling brave new territory in the conservative-leaning realm of classical music takes a unique blend of conviction, refined talent, and a bit of damn-the-torpedoes ambition. Those qualities are amply in evidence with the New Century Saxophone Quartet, not to mention a finely honed musicality deserving wider acceptance. Other engagements include Chicago's Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, Atlanta's Spivey Concert Hall, Boston's Symphony Hall and Gardner Museum, New York's Merkin Concert Hall and the Kosciuszko Foundation Townhouse, Washington, D.C.'s Strathmore Hall, and the Juneau Jazz and Classics Festival.
New Century premiered Peter Schickele's "New Century Suite" with North Carolina Symphony under the direction of Gerhardt Zimmermann in September 2000. Subsequent performances include the Canton, Western Piedmont, Waterbury, Billings, Bakersfield, and Winston-Salem Symphonies. Over the past decade, New Century has been responsible for a significant broadening of the repertory of saxophone quartet. In January 2002, the Quartet premiered a new work from the well-known jazz saxophonist Bob Mintzer, commissioned by Chamber Music America. A commission from Lenny Pickett, band leader and lead saxophonist of the Saturday Night Live band, had its premiere in 1997 at Merkin Concert Hall in New York. The Quartet premiered a work from Benjamin Boone - a concerto with wind ensemble - in Carnegie Hall in 1999. Other premieres include works of Ben Johnston, David Ott, Sherwood Shaffer, Arthur Frackenpohl, and Ken Valitsky. A work by Toshiko Akioki for New Century in collaboration with the jazz saxophonist Lew Tabackin was premiered in the summer of 2003 at the World Saxophone Congress.
Recording exclusively for Channel, NCSQ's most recent release prior to "The Art of Fugue" (January 2004) was "Standards" (September 2002), an album of original works for saxophone quartet ranging from Jean-Baptiste Singelée (his "Premier Quatuor" of 1857, the first work for saxophone quartet) to Bob Mintzer's "Quartet No. 1." "A New Century Christmas" was released in September 2000, featuring arrangements by a wide range of American composers. The recording won enormous critical acclaim ("the aural equivalent of spiked eggnog," according to the Chicago Tribune) and was featured on National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition." Earlier in 2000, Channel released "Home Grown," comprising works commissioned by the ensemble. New Century's first recording, Drastic Measures, released in 1994, winning acclaim from Fanfare Magazine for its "elegant musicianship with a wonderful sense of chamber music." New Century's second recording, Main Street USA (1996), including the ensemble's arrangements of music by Bernstein, Gershwin, and Morton Gould.
The New Century Saxophone Quartet has appeared on television and radio across the United States on National Public Radio's Performance Today, the Voice of America, and North Carolina Public TV. New Century has been the resident ensemble of two radio stations in North Carolina, WUNC in Chapel Hall (1995) and WHQR in Wilmington (1996). Outside of the United States, Panamanian TV aired a documentary and live performance, and in the Netherlands, Dutch radio presented a live broadcast from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. The ensemble participated in a special performance for the Chinese New Year in January 1998 that was broadcast to over 100 million people on television throughout the world.