Parnassus; Anthony Korf, Conductor


Milton Babbitt writes:

"Paraphrases, for ten instrumentalists, was completed in December 1979, and frst performed by Parnassus, under Anthony Korf's direction, the following March.

"Of the work's multiple manifestations of the paraphrastic, in the senses of the glossed restatement, the reinterpretation, the clarification, the amplification, surely the most immediately evident is that which maintains between the first two large sections of this one- movement composition and the third, final section whose explicit foreground is paraphrased by the woodwinds in the first section and by the brasses in the second, thereby inducing a mutual paraphrasing between those two sections which is yet further enhanced by the brasses 'doubling' (yet otherwise autonomous) role in the frst section being assumed analogously by the woodwinds in the second.

Donald Martino writes:

"Strata was composed during a few days in the summer of 1966. Just as I was about to conclude the work, my very dear buddy and canine confidante, Muffin, passed away. This profoundly altered the outcome of my little improvision, to which I then appended a lament and funeral march, fashioned from previously discarded sketches for the work.

"The title refers to one of this composition's principal technical procedures: the registral stratification of melodic fragments."

A Farewell was completed in the fall of 1980 and given its first performance by The Group for Contemporary Music in collaboration with Parnassus on November 1, 1980. Anthony Korf writes:

"I sought instrumental combinations that inherently possessed the ability to convey harmony in a homogenous and well-balanced fashion, and symphonic winds seemed ideally suited to this purpose. As a result, the ensemble is organized into fve choirs: 4 futes (piccolo to bass), 4 clarinets (Eb to Contra-bass), 4 double reeds (2 oboes plus 2 bassoons), 4 conical bore brass (2 horns, baritone and tuba) and 4 straight bore brass (2 trumpets and tenor and bass trombone). The sole exception is the percussion, which is used principally for clarification and color.


This title, originally issued on the CRI label, is now available as a burn-on-demand CD (CD-R) or download in MP3/320, FLAC or WAV formats. CD-Rs come in a protective sleeve; no print booklet or jewel case included. Liner notes are accessible via the link above.