barbara white

apocryphal stories (1999-2002)

In recent years, I have become increasingly preoccupied by the relationship between pre-existing music and my own compositional designs.  Most of my works are haunted, if subtly, by my collected musical experiences, and in a series of works entitled Apocryphal Stories, I chose to engage deliberately and explicitly with my musical memories, creating new artifacts out of excavation, appropriation, and commentary.  The apocryphal story is an apt metaphor for my current working process, not because the authorship or veracity of the final product is in doubt, but rather, because the constant recycling of spurious legends recalls the transmission of musical "fictions" from one generation to the next, and the way in which, over time, familiar tropes and forms take on new guises.  Apocryphal Storiesincludes four works composed between 1999 and 2002.   A compact disc was released on Albany Records in 2004.

reliquary (2001) for solo piano

A collection of musical reminiscences in the form of homages and memorial pieces.

• Excerpts from  Reliquary, performed by pianist Geoffrey Burleson:
• "Sin."  A misreading of the 1929 song "'Taint No Sin (To Take Off Your Skin and Dance Around in Your Bones)" by Edgar Leslie and Walter Donaldson.
• "Mirage."  An paraphrase of  Maurice Ravel's "Oiseaux Tristes" (from Miroirs,1905).
• "A Complex."   An homage to pianist/composer/improviser Lennie Tristano.

small world(2002) for clarinet and five-octave marimba

A response to three idioms from  Spain: medieval chant, Catalan traditional music, and flamenco.

• Excerpts from Small World, performed by Barbara White, clarinet; and Haruka Fujii, marimba.
• "Time is Fleecing."  A memorial piece based around a setting of the chant "Ad sepulchrum beati iacobi [To the tomb of blessed James]," from the Santiago de Compostela repertory.
• "'Musical impromptus are no such thing; no one ever improvises,' pronounces Gaudí, savoring a sangria at Els Quatre Gats, the future site of Picasso's first solo exhibition, one hundred years before the Archbishop of Barcelona names him patron saint of his profession."  An irreverent impromptu,  in which a well-known melody from Antoní Gaudí's native Catalonia is warped to suggest the architect's fantastical curvilinear structures.

chansons d'amour (1999) for violin duo

A conversation with the medieval composer Guillaume de Machaut appropriating his melodies and emulating his compositional procedures.

• Excerpt from  Chansons d'Amour, performed by violinists Joanna Kurkowicz and Joseph Lin.
• "He laughs in the morning who weeps in the evening."  A setting of Machaut's monophonic song "Tels rit."

learning to see  (2000) for sextet

Learning to Seeincorporates references to visual art and music of the twentieth century, making use of "junk percussion" and collage techniques.

• Excerpts from  Learning to See, performed by Boston Musica Viva, Richard Pittman, conductor.
• "From the Meta-Matic Junk Heap," an emulation of Jean Tinguely's kinetic sculptures.
• "Bird,"one of a set of variations composed in response to Constantin Brancusi's series of bird sculptures.

concerts

• "Apocryphal Stories: Chamber Music by Barbara White." Performed by Geoffrey Burleson, piano; Jayne West, soprano; Joanna Kurkowicz and Joseph Lin, violins; Akie Takada, marimba;  Boston Musica Viva, directed by Richard Pittman; and the Talujon Percussion Quartet.  Paine Hall, Harvard University, Sunday, May 20, 2001.
• See also "Recent and Upcoming Performances."

• "Inside the Apocryphal Story."  Preconcert lecture, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Friday, May 18, 2001.
• "Appropriation Across Space and Time: Where is That Sound?"  Lecture delivered at the Centre for Intercultural Music Arts 7th Biennial Festival and Symposium on the Theme "New Intercultural Music."  Churchill College, University of Cambridge (U.K.).  April 15-17, 2002.

• Albany/TROY 626, 2004; available from Albany Records.