D.J.WOLF
MUSICAL WORKS
A Selective & Descriptive Catalog
(List
in reverse chronological order; a classified list can be found here;
when not otherwise indicated, scores are available from
Material Press. All
scores registered with GEMA.)
31 SPECTRAL MADRIGALS (2016) for Alvin Lucier on his 85th. For five equal voices.
DUO (2016) for violin and cello
60 MADRIGALS (2015) for three voices, for Ron Kuivila on his 60th
WILDE EHE (2014) Marsch für Klavier 4-Händig. Für Barbara Schmidt-Blankenhagen und Detlev Kittler zur Hochzeit
IN TIME'S A NOBLE MEASURE OF PROPORTION (2014) for chorus SATB. Text: E.E. Cummings. Ca. 2'. For Christina on our 25th
THE COWBELL IN HIS LIFE (2013) for viola and cowbell, for Hauke Harder on his 50th birthday (amplified viola and transducer on cowbell)
SONATA (2013) for oboe alone. Ca. 6'
SAPPHICS (2013) for violin.
BROUT MET FLILLEKEN (2013) solo flute. (3:25) with optional Double (also 3:25) which may be performed separately on the same program, the flutist possibly hidden from view,
DOUBLE
HOCKET (2013) for three treble and two bass instruments, for
example flute, clarinet, trumpet, bassoon & cello. Ca. 4’30”
TWO
TONES FOR SAMUEL VRIEZEN (2013)
variable resource duet or solo, for
sustaining instrument(s).
9’34”
PROFESSOR PYTHAGORAS WOULD BE JEALOUS(2012) for electric guitar and six sine waves, 10-12', for Alvin Lucier on his 81st birthday.
UNASSISTED LEVITATION FOR ANTON LUKOSZEVIEZE (2012) for ensemble 12-24'
FARONELLS GROUND (La Follia) (2012) for alto recorder and cello or viola da gamba
100,000,000,000,000 PIECES FOR CLARINET (2011-12) 10 pages, each of 14 lines in English sonnet form, recombinable in 10^14 different ways. With each piece ca. 1'30" in duration, a complete performace would last some 285198891 years. An homage to Raymond Queneau whose 100,000,000,000,000 Poems is the obvious model.
AMONG
THE WIRES, AN ILLUSION SPACE (2011) piano solo, for Alvin Lucier
on his 80th birthday. With the dampers of selected low bass
tones raised silently, sharp attacks in the treble elicit beating and
microtonal differences between partial tones.
FIELD &
STREAM (2011) five computers with shared mixer and sound system,
another Beckett-Gray Code piece, each of the computers having its own
library of water-related sounds to be sent to shared input channels
and each able to process those sounds and send to a shared output.
TWO SONGS (AFTERNOON IN THE CANYON, END OF AMBITION)
(2011) for baritone and piano, lyrics: George Hitchcock, Score
in preparation.
SONATINA IN G (2011) for piano
SIX
SIMPLE MACHINES (2010) six pieces for melody instrument and live
electronics (programmed in pd) for my own use.
SOUS LES PAVÉS LA PLAGE! (2010) for flute, glockenspiel, and piano, optional version with oscillator and ring modulation.
CAME AND WENT (2009) for woodwind trio (flute, oboe, clarinet in Bb) ca 3'
OBLIGATORY
BICYCLES (2009)
Three cyclists leisurely lap around the perimeter of the
performing space, the order (but not precise timing) and style of
their bell-ringing is specified. May be played alone or as an
obligato part of the accompaniment to a forthcoming piece of
out-of-doors music for solo violin and ensemble.
A
BECKETT-GRAY CODE (2009)
fifth wind quintet
Samuel Beckett had planned to
organize a theatre piece for four players, percussion and lights,
Quad,
on the basis of a sequence in which every combination of the four
players would be used, each combination in the sequence differing
from its neighbor by the entrance or exit of only one player, and an
exiting player is always the player who has been on stage
longest.
It turns out that the conditions Beckett set
were mathematically impossible to realize with four players (making
Quad
another example
of the inexorable execution of an imperfect logic at work in
Beckett), but solutions to what is now known as the Beckett-Gray code
have been found for other numbers, among them n = 5, which
immediately struck me as an interesting premise for a wind quintet,
in which the player who has played longest is most deserving of a
breather.
ISN'T
IT GREAT TO BE LIVING ON A PLANET? (2009)
solo melodica (f-f''') ca 2'20"
Imagine that the virtusos
genre of choice of high modern music-making, ca 1957, had not been
the David Tudor piano piece or the Severino Gazelloni flute solo but
had, instead, been music for solo melodica; this is what you'd get.
The title quotes the composer Anthony Braxton Free score
available online at the Melodica!
page.
NEGLECTED
TOPIARY (2009)
a book of music for flute, clarinet in Bb, percussion & guitar
17'00"
commissioned by Saarländischer Rundfunk for
Ensemble L'Art pour L'Art
SOME
HANDYWORK (2009)
easy pieces for piano
for Walter Zimmermann's 60th
birthday
THE
LONG MARCH (2009)
for four melodicas (prose score)
exploits the found
intonation of four off-the-shelf melodicas, for Taylan Susam; score
available at Upload ..
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WE'RE
NOT CROWDED (2009)
ATB voices (text: Charles Chase) ca 1'
OCCASIONALS
for solo piano,
including: PIERRE TOSSES ONE OFF (2008) miniature; TANGLED
LULLABY (2008) ca 1'; WRITTEN OFF AS A SCOUNDREL (& I
HAVEN'T EVEN MET THE WIFE) (2009) ca. 1'30" , VARIATIONS
(2008) for piano ca 2', A MAP DRAWN FROM MEMORY (Portrait of Nanne
Meyer in two parts)(2011) ca 2'00".
AN
AUGUST EPISODE (2008)
for brass quintet (2 tp, hn, tn, tb)
FOR
DOUGLAS LEEDY (2008)
(2 tp, 2 tb, spatially separated)
PERSIMMONS,
A GROUND (2008)
for solo recorder
Written in memory of my teacher Shirley
Robbins. Premiered by Tom Axworthy, in Claremont, April 22, 2008
DR
ROGERS, HIS GROUND (2008)
first version, second version
Having more archaic.
WHEN
THE PARLOUR IS COLD (2008)
for mittened pianist, piano, and portable sound system
This
was written for A
WINTER ALBUM,
an online anthology of small piano pieces by 15 composers (score
available free online here)
THREE
DAYS IN NOVEMBER (2007)
for wind quintet gathers November
the Thirteenth,
November
the Fifteenth and
November
the Nineteenth together
as a Fourth Wind Quintet. (ca 10').
NOVEMBER
2007:
30 Pieces for various forces
The task was to compose a piece, a
stand-alone piece with beginning and end, and perhaps some middle,
each day for a month and to publish the score of each piece at my
blog, Renewable Music. For
various resources, one to many players or voices. The pieces carry,
as titles, the date of composition and publication: The First
of November for (any) clarinet solo ca 1'10''; November the
Second for five flutes or multiple quintets of flute 10'12"; The
Third of November for three instruments (TrTrB, e.g. clarinet, muted
trumpet, bassoon); November the Fourth chorale for SATB voices; A
Fifth of November miniature for violin & piano 3p. ca.
40''; November the Sixth (cheap?) imitation for fl, ob, cl, bn,
hn, tp, tb, cb 6p. ca. 2'30''; The Seventh of November ATB
recorders; November the Eighth for clavichord; The Ninth of
November for string trio ca. 1'45''; November the Tenth for
two voices over a ground bass; The Eleventh of November for
harp; November the Twelfth for flute, clarinet, harp &
percussion; The Thirteenth of November for wind quintet, ca.
3'; November the Fourteenth for soprano with flute, vibraphone,
and piano (text: William Blake); The Fifteenth of November for
wind quintet; November the Sixteenth For winds &
percussion. ca 4'40"; The Seventeenth of November for English
Horn, Contrabassoon, Wagner-Tuba, Celesta & Harmonium. ca.
1'; November the Eighteenth for piano, microphone, oscillator,
and ring modulator; The Nineteenth of November for wind
quintet; November the Twentieth for string quartet. Ca. 2'50";
The Twenty-First of November minuet and trio for keyboard
instrument; November the Twenty-Second two voice chorale; The
Twenty-Third of November for cornet with flute, bass clarinet,
contrabass; November the Twenty-Fourth for string trio; The
Twenty-Fifth of November for string quartet. Ca. 20"; November
the Twenty-Sixth for eight snare drums; The Twenty-Seventh of
November three voice canon; November the Twenty-Eighth for three
unison orchestras. Ca. 10'30''; The Twenty-Ninth of November for
piano; November the Thirtieth for small orchestra and chorus
(wordless). Ca. 3'.)
Dr.
WOLF's Complete & Correct SCHOOL of PIANO LEVITATION
(2007) three
etudes for piano two hands (1. Errors, Eliminated; 2. Knocking About;
3. Catching Butterflies), prose score
Studies in listening
as much as playing; appropriate for younger players. Score available
fromUpload .. Download ..
Perform
STRING
QUARTET VI. (2007)
WINTER
(STRING QUARTET V.) (2007)
AUTUMN
(STRING QUARTET IV.) (2006)
WIND
QUINTET III. (2006)
AN
UNEARTHING (2007) (Virgil,
Georgics) unison voices, harp, optional percussion (3')
MR
BRENNER, HIS PAVANE (2006)
solo keyboard or variable resource ensemble (5')
Having
archaic and eating it, too.
FOR
JAS. TENNEY (2006)
trio of alto, tenor, bass voices or instruments
A
memorial piece.
12
KLEINE PRÆLUDIEN (2006)
piano solo
Preludes are cadences elevated to epiphanies.
When played as a set, I prefer that a circle-of-tempered-fifths
sequence be used. Most of these short pieces are dedicated to a
colleague I have not yet met in person.
ACROSS
THE POND (2004)
for piano solo, homage to Ives & Schoenberg, in left and right
versions (P, left version: Bratislava: Daan Vandewalle)
ETUDES
for solo
microtonal instruments (1994-2004), including: YET ANOTHER (OCTAL)
FOR GORDON MUMMA (1994) harpsichord in 8-tone equal temperament,
NOCTURNE (2004) keyboard in 9-tone equal temperament; ORTOLANS ENCORE
UNE FOIS? (2002-4) keyboard in 11-equal temperament CHANGE OF REGIME
(Prelude, Invention, & Air to a Ground in 13tet)(2004) keyboard
in 13tet; IVOR DARREG IN EAGLE ROCK (2004) keyboard in 14tet;
AMERICAN TREES & HOW TO CLIMB THEM: AN ACADEMIC PIECE keyboard in
15tet SAPPHO, DE SELBY & THE OTHER PRE-SOCRATICS (2004) keyboard
in 16-tet PRELUDE (2004) keyboard in 17-tone equal temperament; DAUD
SALAAM (2004) keyboard in 18-tet equal temperament PASSACAGLIAS &
MINUETS (2003) for three instruments in 19-tone equal temperament;
RULE 42 (2004) keyboard in 21-tone equal temperament SUITE (2004)
keyboard in 22-tone equal temperament SCACIATTA & FRUGUE (2004)
keyboard in 23-tone equal temperament
The project in these
etudes was to make music that sounds familiar with materials that do
not immediately respond to the familiar. A set of scores for
instruments that, for the most part, do not yet exist. My
long-term studies of musical intonation generally avoided these
temperaments in favor of just intonation; this was an opportunity to
work against my own habits.
BAGHDAD
(2003) for piano
solo, 22'45", a protest piece
DECOHERENCE
for n orchestras of n players (1996-),
for example: Decoherence
(3) (realisation:
2007) for nine players
Decoherence, stealing its name naively
and cheerfully from physics, is an essay in counterpoint, or more
precisely, an attempt to make counterpoint from an alternative
premise or metaphor. Instead of this against that the idea here
is that same becomes different through a loss of cohesion, a coming
apart. This can be gradual (through accumulated errors, for
example) or sudden, and just as suddenly, the ensemble can
recohere. This is a piece which may be realized in several
possible versions for ensembles of different sizes, but each a square
number of participants. This arrangement allows the process of
decoherence to be traced within and between the various "orchestras",
and the moments of coherence or recoherence become sharp formal
markers.
GNOMIC
ROUNDS for eb
clarinet, bb clarinet, basset horn (Nr. 1) (2006) ; Nr. 2
(2007); Nr. 3 (2007)
An on-going series of brief rounds
for a family of clarinets, eventually making up a small
Serenade. Usually diatonic, but not necessarily tonal.
THE
VIEW FROM HERE (2002)
for Partch-style adapted viola and cd (P: Berlin, Marc Sabat)
THE
WHITE CANOE (2000)
opera seria for handpuppets, libretto by Edward Gorey, SATB voices, 2
violins, cello, tackpiano (ca. 45:00). Mr. Gorey provided 13
scenes in rhymed couplets, narrating a story related to Moore's
Ballad of the Great Dismal Swamp. The set of recitatives,
arias, choruses, and an insect ballet was an invitation to make music
that resembled familiar music, and each scene is a unique solution to
a problem of music-stylistic combinatorics. I prefer that this
piece be played with the tack piano tuned in 1/5 comma temperament.
Lou Harrison offered some practical advice about how to handle
the recitatives, suggesting that I leave them in "free"
rhythm, notating with noteheads without stems; I decided
against this as The White Canoe is a comic opera, and pacing is
everything in a comic genre, so the rhythms had to be fixed or risk
getting bogged down. The opera was premiered and ran for nine
performances, in Cotuit Town Hall, on Cape Cod, played by the puppets
of Le Theatricule Stoique, in memory of Mr. Gorey.
DUO:
DUA LOLO (2000)
javanese gender barung slendro & simple system clarinet in C
(premiered 26.2.00 in Frankfurt by D. Franque and D. Wolf.)
DESSINS
D'ENFANTS (I)
(1999) for trombone and piano for Hildegard Kleeb and Roland
Dahinden, premiered in Kiel, October 1999. . Dessins d'enfants
are combinatorial objects which are drawings with vertices and edges
on topological surfaces. Their interest lies in their relation with
the set of algebraic curves defined over the closure of the
rationals, and the corresponding action of the absolute Galois group
on them. Dessins d'enfants were named by the great mathematician
Alexandre Groethendieck. These mathematical objects have
nothing to do with the piece of music at hand, but the piece does
have some affinity for childrens' artwork. I'd very much like to make
more pieces like this for HK & RD.
FIELDWORK
(String Quartet II.) (1996)
is
a belated sixtieth birthday present for the composer Gordon Mumma.
The sixteen strings of the quartet are tuned to relatively prime
frequency ratios derived from the harmonic spectrum of the low cello
C, and the pitches of the open strings, their natural harmonics, and
sub-harmonics are heard in a very slow melody of single tones and
aggregates deployed over sixty beats, each beat extending up to 12
seconds in duration. This rhythmic texture is in part a response to
East Asian court musics, but also to the time brackets used in the
later music of John Cage, but even more, a study in extreme rubato.
TWOITY
(1995) flute &
piano (P: Heidelberg, Philip Vandré and Yvonne Anselmont.)
Every composer's catalog gets the flute and piano piece it deserves.
The title is an hommage to the intuitionist philosopher and
mathematician L.E.J.Brouwer.
FIGURE
& GROUND (1994-95)
violin, viola & cello premiered in Kiel, 1995 by the Thürmchen
Ensemble, commissioned by the Federal State of
Schleswig-Holstein.
The first movement is based on
letters in Christian Wolff's name: pitch as static entities. The
second is a strict mensural canon (both pitch and rhtyhm) in the
proportions 1:2:3 (i.e. like the tuning of the three instruments):
pitch as markers of proportion. The structure of the canon was
determined by chance, but the details were through-composed.
The third is a study in an extended (11-limit) just intonation, with
pitches starting to move from clear points of reference. The fourth
in portamenti, mostly canons at either the octave or minor sixth
(which is, acoustically, the richest). And the fourth is a
passacagila in a fictional species, first plain and then with
accidental ornaments, i.e. grounded and then figured. The passacaglia
theme, separated by rests, grows with each iteration. The sul
ponticello was chosen to obscure the fundamentals, but the resultant
resemblance to viol playing was welcome.
VISTA
for trombone,
electronics & whistling teapot (1994) for Roland Dahinden,
withdrawn
The contours of a mountain view, taken at
regular intervals of elevation, are translated into glissandi on
successive overtones of a trombone and then recombined into a single
view. The piece has never worked, but ought to.
SOWING
& REAPING (1994)
violin, viola, cello & piano (P: Kiel, 1995 by the Thürmchen
Ensemble.) In this short piece, either Ives & Schoenberg get
together and chat about farming or an hommage is made to Alexandre
Grothendieck. A boustrophedon, written like an ox plows a
field, up one row and then down the next.
IN
BREGAGLIA (1993)
miniature for violin & piano premiered in Kiel, 1995 by the
Thürmchen Ensemble.
A miniature written during a
walk through the narrow Swiss valley of Bregaglia, from St. Moritz
down to Chiavenna, just across the Italian border.
MR.
CAGE, HIS WAKE (1993)
drum solo with or without amplification premiered in Köln, 1993,
by Tobias Liebezeit.
A memorial piece. A prose score.
CROSSING
THE FIELD (1992-
) for piano with any of the following: soprano saxophone, trumpet,
trombone, accordion, percussion, violin premiered in Bludenz, Austria
1992
Fields, one might notice, are a central concern around
here. A small piece for Hildegard Kleeb & friends.
TWO
PIECES (1992)
for piano
Two very brief piano pieces for Hauke Harder, who
does not play piano.
FIELD
STUDY (1991)
for violin, banjo, guitar & trombone premiered Kiel 1991.
Studies in pitches arranged or, as the case may be, scattered across
fields.
WAITING
ROOMS (1991-
) installations Frankfurt, Kiel, Zug Score: Four
Tunings For Sound Environments,here
(PDF) Use standing sine waves in rational proportions to create
an audible architecture.
...finding
the edge of the field... (1)(1989)
guitar solo premiered 1998, Switzerland, by Seth Josel
PROSE
ANTHOLOGY 1983-88)
Including: DISTINCTIONS for small ensemble / CONNECTION (After
William Billings) for ensemble / SCHOOL OF LEVITATION for any bowed
instrument / ELECTRONIC PIECES: 1. All the wrong places, 2. Funhouse,
or She Came Back, 3. One Last Wave / LARGE ENSEMBLE / BACKYARD
CONSPIRACIES / SERENADE / SATISFACTORY RENOVATIONS OF FAMILAR
CONTENTS / SARDINES Available from Upload
.. Download .. Perform.
Prose scores are wonderful
tools for getting ideas straight; figuring out the conceptual lines
and limits of a work both in general and in particular. They are
particularly efficient for describing situations that may lead to a
field of outcomes, unforseeable (unforhearable?) in detail. I started
making scores with words - both as a way of communicating to
musicians who had no knowledge of "conventional" notation
and as a kind of sketching procedure before making a "conventional"
score - well before I became aware of similar scores by others
(Wolff, Cage, The Scratch Orchestra, Young, Oliveros, Stockhausen,
Lucier, Mumma, Maue, Barlow), but the more I learned of this
tradition, the more I began to appreciate the specific dynamics and
advantages of the genre. Prose scores demand surgical editing but
invite whimsy; they need to be as technical as the assembly
instructions that should have come with the bicycle that your father
couldn´t finish putting together on Christmas eve; they need to
be attractive to the reader/performer; they might have literary
qualities of their own (my "Poor Dog Musics" was once
published in a literary journal (I have since withdrawn this score,
it being politically incorrect in the extreme)); they may be as
precise or a general as you like. I stopped making prose scores for
public use sometime in the late eighties: the times and my own
interests seemed to ask for new music in conventional notation. I do
continue to make prose scores for private use and as a warm-up while
composing a new piece, but the group of pieces included here strike
me now as an accurate record of my musical work from 83-88, and point
out areas of activity that have proven rich for subsequent work.
(Postface, 1996)
PLANXTY
(MORTON FELDMAN DIED LAST WEEK AT SIXTY-ONE) piano
solo (1987) premiered 1991, Kiel, by Brigitta Romano
Written
on my cousin, Jeremiah Ormond's, farm Poulbautia, in Cappoquin, Co.
Waterford, Ireland.
TRIO:
THE SANDS variable
ensemble in just intonation (1985) premiered Real Art Ways, Hartford,
1985
A controlled random walk across a just intonation
lattice.
PASSACAGLIA
for chamber
orchestra (1983)
Every composer needs an Opus One, a
journeyman piece, between student and "real" pieces. This
is mine, a Passacaglia with a theme that expands and contracts, is
realized in a coherent counterpoint but disfunctional harmony, using
throughout one of the species of counterpoint (three voices, in
perpetual suspension in triple metre) that Messrs Fux & Co.
forgot to put in their manuals. A small study in orchestration.
HOMAGE
TO PROPERTIUS (1982)
cantata for Baritone, Oboe, Alto Trombone, Electric Guitar and
Contrabass, text by Norman O. Brown.
SONATAS
FOR SEPTET (1981-82)
fl,bcl,tp,tb,pno,vn,cb
MULTNOMAH
RIFFS (1981)
variable resource ensemble My contribution to the minimal
repertoire.
FOR
POLYHYMNIA (1980)
trombone & American gamelan commissioned by Lou Harrison &
William Colvig, premiered, Cabrillo Music Festival 1980, Robert
Szabo, trombone.
STRING
QUARTET I. (1978)
in just intonation
Juvenilia, but still quite sweet.
CONCERTO
(1978)
on the double hexany for retuned piano and winds, just intonation
PALINODE
(1977) violin
and piano
32
SONATAS (1976-
) solo keyboard (PDF file of Picking Up The
Pieces (Sonata No. 14) for prepared piano (130KB))
When I
shuffle off, I intend to leave 32 keyboard sonatas, which have been
written and continuously re-written for private pleasures only.
OLD
BALDY (March
in F) (1975-76) for band
I played trombone in school,
and I played in bands, until I decided I did not like to march.
Nevertheless, I still managed to write three marches, in F, Bb, and
Eb. "Old Baldy" is named for Mt. San Antonio, as
everyone needs a mountain in their life, and this is mine.
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