Dan Román:
Música de Palladium
Innova 904
Música de
Palladium
for violin, viola, cello and piano
2005
Track
01: Preludio 1:22
Track
02: Candela 3:25
Track
03: Sentimental 4:13
Track
04: Sensacional 4:36
Annie Trepanier (violin), Steve
Larson (viola), Carlynn Savot (cello), and Pi-Hsun Shih (piano)
Recorded in Berkman Hall,
University of Hartford, 2010.
Sound recording: Justin Kurtz
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La
Machina Line
for alto saxophone and viola
2006
Track
05: La Machina Line 4:11
Track
06: Cielo-line 4:22
Track
07: La Park Line 3:54
Carrie Koffman (saxophone) and
Tim Deighton (viola)
Recorded in Berkman Hall,
University of Hartford, 2010 and 2011.
Sound recording: Scott Metcalf
(track 5), Justin Kurtz (track 6), and Gabe Hermann (track 7)
=================================
Retrospectos
for cello and piano
2006
Track
08: Introducción al Paseo 2:13
Track
09: Retrospecto a Tavárez 3:50
Track
10: Retrospecto a Morel 3:16
Track
11: Retrospecto a Quintón 4:48
Track
12: Retrospecto a Mislán 3:35
Beth Ringel (cello) and Alex
Maynegre (piano)
Recorded in Berkman Hall,
University of Hartford, 2011.
Sound recording: Justin Kurtz
=================================
Fábulas
for violin and piano
2006
Track
13: La capilla del Cristo 2:59
Track
14: La garita del diablo 5:00
Track
15: Santa María, líbranos de todo mal 3:40
Katalin Viszmeg (violin) and
Pi-Hsun Shih (piano)
Recorded in Berkman Hall,
University of Hartford, 2011.
Sound recording: Justin Kurtz
=================================
Passing
Puntos
for violin, cello, and piano
2004
Track
16: 10:00
Annie Trepanier (violin), Carlynn
Savot (cello), and Pi-Hsun Shih (piano)
Recorded in Berkman Hall,
University of Hartford, 2010.
Sound recording: Justin Kurtz
=================================
Track 5 (La Machina Line) edited
by Scott Metcalf. All other tracks edited by Justin Kurtz.
Mixing and mastering by Justin
Kurtz:
Laurel
Hill Recording
Mobile
Mix Remote Music Recording
www.laurelhillrecording.com
All tracks produced by Dan Román.
=================================
Liner notes by Dan Román and
edited by Gail Woldu.
=================================
This recording was made possible through
a generous grant by Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
Thanks to my family, friends and
colleagues for their love, support and encouragement!
And to the players who braved the
difficulties of my music and brought forward such excellent performances!
Biographical Notes:
Puerto
Rican composer Dan Román has developed a
compositional style integrating elements of the folkloric music from the
Caribbean with the mechanics of minimalism and the aesthetics of postmodern
art. His music has been performed in Puerto Rico, Europe, South
America and throughout the United States, including performances at the 34th
International Viola Congress in 2006, the 2005 Guitar Foundation of America Convention,
CCSN's 4th Annual International New Music Festival, and as part of the Hartford
Commissions Concerts at Merkin Hall in New York. In
addition, Dan Román has received commissions to write
new pieces for the Alturas Duo, the New World Trio, The Guitar Ensemble of
Chile, The Irrelevants, the Goldspiel
& Provost Guitar Duo, the Connecticut Children’s Choir, and others.
Dan Román currently teaches courses in composition, music
theory and electronic music at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut.
Scores and
parts are available by request: [email protected]
www.foreversound.com
Tracks 1-4: Música
de Palladium - for violin, viola, cello and piano
Performed by Annie Trepanier (violin), Steve Larson
(viola), Carlynn Savot
(cello), and Pi-Hsun Shih (piano)
Recorded in Berkman Hall, University of Hartford
Recording engineer: Justin Kurtz
Produced by Dan Román
This
piece is loosely inspired by the history and legacy of the great Palladium ballroom, which was located at
West 53rd Street and Broadway in New York and the site where so much Latin
music was performed in the United States during the '50s and '60s.
The
first movement, Preludio,
works as an introduction, with a sense of transformation from the noise of the
city to the musical landscape of the ballroom. The second movement, Candela (Flame or Flaming Hot), suggests
as well as anticipates the growing chatter and the musical rhythm in the
ballroom, including fleeting reminiscences of the mambos and guarachas of Tito Puente. The third movement, Sentimental, is a combination of
Afro-Antillean rhythms, including those of the Cuban guaracha
and the romantic bolero of the Caribbean, in addition to a few melodic
extractions from Montiel's "Canta
lo sentimental" (Sing the Sentimental). The fourth and last movement, Sensacional, is a
collage of aural images taken from mambos and other dance music of Machito, Tito Puente and Tito Rodriguez.
Música de Palladium was written for the New World Trio (Annie Trepanier,
violin, Melissa Morgan, cello, Pi-Hsun Shih, piano)
and violist Steve Larson.
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Tracks 5-7: La Machina Line - for alto saxophone and
viola
Performed by Carrie Koffman
(saxophone) and Tim Deighton (viola)
Recorded in Berkman
Hall, University of Hartford.
Recording engineers: Scott Metcalf, Justin
Kurtz, and Gabe Hermann
Produced by Dan Román
The
subject of this piece is the phenomenon of the migration of Puerto Rican
culture to the United States, focusing on the Puerto Rican community in Hartford,
Connecticut, and in particular the area around Park Street (commonly known
among many local residents as “La Park”), which is surrounded by the Capitol
Area and the downtown commercial district. This phenomenon creates a
distinctive and colorful amalgam of cultural crossroads, with mingled languages
and ideas.
The
movements picture travel through the areas of downtown Hartford and Park
Street, and a quick vision of the transformation of a typical North American
city into a dream of Puerto Rican urban landscape. The first part, La Machina Line, uses a reference of the word machine
taken into Spanish, referring in this case to a motorized vehicle of public
transportation traveling into downtown. The second part, Cielo-line, is a take on the term skyline, obviously
referring to the visual collective of tall buildings in the downtown area. The
third and last part, La
Park Line,
refers to an imaginary journey through Park Street, and the clash of cultures
that can be seen in the landscape.
This
piece was written for The Irrelevants (Carrie Koffman,
saxophone and Tim Deighton, viola).
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Tracks 8-12: Retrospectos - for cello and
piano
Performed by Beth Ringel
(cello) and Alex Maynegre (piano)
Recorded in Berkman
Hall, University of Hartford.
Recording engineer: Justin Kurtz
Produced by Dan Román
Retrospectos is
based on material derived from the musical genre of the Puerto Rican Danza, a type of
classical music that originated in the nineteen century and has continued to
evolve to this day. The Danza, as its name implies,
was born as a dance form that eventually made its way into ballroom social
occasions. Its growing popularity motivated composers to also develop it into a
highly refined instrumental and vocal genre.
Each movement of this piece uses a different aspect
of the Danza. Each movement also explores a
particular composer from among the most significant authors of the genre.
However, the source material is always treated as series of analytical objects that
become manipulated to nearly the point of abstraction.
The first movement represents the introductory
section known as the paseo,
which serves as a kind of promenade for the dancing couples to establish the
traditional protocol of introduction before the actual dance. This movement
utilizes melodic fragments from the paseo of the Danza Margarita
by Manuel Gregorio Tavárez. The second movement is
based on Manuel Gregorio Tavárez’s La sensitiva,
a slow and lyrical Danza in the romantic style.
Gregorio Tavárez (1843-1883) is today considered to
be the godfather of the Puerto Rican Danza, as he,
after returning from Europe, devoted himself to make the Danza
an elaborate and sophisticated type of classical composition, especially through
his many instrumental Danzas for solo piano. The
third movement uses material from Juan Morel Campos’ Un conflicto, a Danza
in the merrier style of the festive type. Juan Morel Campos (1857-1896) was a
student of Gregorio Tavárez, and was eventually to
become perhaps the greatest exponent of the genre, writing hundreds of Danzas and refining the style to its highest expression. The
fourth movement is based on José Ignacio Quintón’s Mi estrella,
another slow and romantic Danza. Quintón
(1881-1925) is today better known by his highly popular composition El coquí,
which has become a staple of Danzas in the festive
style. Like Morel Campos, he was a very prolific composer, and contributed
enormously to the development of the genre. The fifth and final movement takes
shape from the Danza Sara, by Angel Mislán (1862-1911). Sara is one of the most beloved Danzas of the festive type, and it has situated Mislán as one of the most recognizable names of all Puerto
Rican composers of Danzas.
Retrospectos was written for the Montserrat Duo (Beth Ringel,
cello, and Alex Maynegre, piano).
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Tracks 13-15: Fábulas - for violin and piano
Performed by Katalin
Viszmeg (violin) and Pi-Hsun
Shih (piano)
Recorded in Berkman
Hall, University of Hartford.
Recording engineer: Justin Kurtz
Produced by Dan Román
1) La capilla del
Cristo (Chapel of The Christ):
Daring
horse races were quite popular in the city of San Juan during the mid 18th
century, with competitors racing through the streets and towards the finish
line by one of the massive stone walls of the colonial city, not before riding
through a segment of the course dangerously close to a cliff into the sea. In
one particular account a rider lost control and was thrown off the cliff, as
spectators watched in horror. And, as we are told, those present spontaneously
joined in devout clamor for the life of the unlucky rider, who was then somehow
miraculously saved from what should have been certain death. Years later a
small chapel was erected in the same place where the events took place. This
small edifice still stands to this day, in commemoration of whatever may have
actually happened there.
Fast
arpeggios, repeated notes and scales in the violin recreate the speed,
excitement and danger of these horse races, leading to a suspended climax of
questioning, and then emotional release.
2) La garita del diablo (The Devil’s Sentry Box):
The old
city of San Juan is surrounded by a fortified stone wall
built by the Spaniards to protect the city from their enemies, which included
the French, British, Dutch, as well as pirates and corsairs. The Spaniards
placed stone sentry boxes at several strategic locations alongside the wall,
from where soldiers could gain an advantageous view and see any approaching
ships. One of these boxes was built at the end of a long extension of the wall,
which reached meters high above over the sea. The mystery and myth surrounding
this particular sentry box began after a period of a few weeks during which
several soldiers disappeared during their guards, leaving no trace behind.
Despite a number of reasonable theories, popular imagination, fueled by further
stories relating the seemingly mystical qualities of this sentry box, ended up
blaming the disappearance of those soldiers on evil and supernatural forces.
The
piano and the violin form aural impressions of the echoes and distant
reverberations that take shape in the old passages leading to the sentry boxes,
and of the darkness and impersonality of the ocean during the night, until the
observer gets to the sentry box and hears the breaking of the sea waves against
the rocks and against the city wall.
3) Santa María, líbranos de todo mal (Oh,
Holy Mary, save us from evil):
A famous
plena song tells the story of how, in
the town of Agüadilla, an otherworldly creature was
sighted at the town square, described as running around and terrorizing the otherwise
peaceful and quiet population. Assuming the beast was the devil's own incarnation,
the townspeople rushed into the church, praying to Virgin Mary for protection. And
so, the story goes, they saw Holy Mary herself descending from the heavens,
accompanied by her celestial courtship, to save the town from the terrible
demonic beast.
This
piece uses tonality, consonance, and dissonance to represent the different
aspects of the story as told in the plena song. The violin and the piano
obsessively play the typical rhythms associated with the genre of the plena, as
well as episodes taken directly from the melody of this popular song.
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Track 16: Passing Puntos - for violin, cello, and
piano
Performed by Annie Trepanier
(violin), Carlynn Savot
(cello), and Pi-Hsun Shih (piano)
Recorded in Berkman
Hall, University of Hartford.
Recording engineer: Justin Kurtz
Produced by Dan Román
The plena is regarded
as one of the most authentic genres of Afro-Antillean music in Puerto Rico. It
is a close relative to the genre of the bomba, which also provides source material for this piece. The
characteristic rhythms, patterns and syncopated idiosyncrasies from the plena
and the bomba have been extracted and then
synthesized into the constructed mechanics of this piece, taking advantage of
the natural sense of reiteration, overlaying patterns and off-beat accents from
those genres. One single melodic motive serves as a recurrent and generating
cell, taken from the plena song Matan a Bumbum ("They killed Bumbum"
or "They’ve killed Bumbum").
As it is
common with plena songs, the text relates a factual or fictional event that reveals
the life typical of any small town in Puerto Rico, especially before the 1960s.
As such, it serves as a vehicle for folkloric oral traditions, producing music that
is simultaneously lively in rhythm but melancholic and nostalgic in its melodies
and harmonies. Further elements of Afro-Caribbean music have been added to the mix,
including the typical syncopated bass line of the Son and the Guaracha, and the juxtaposition of triple over duple
rhythms (3 beats against 2 beats across the same time) present in so many
variations of African-descendant genres.
The word
Puntos in
the title refers to the rhythmic improvisatory element that percussionists use
in Afro-Caribbean music to accentuate or offset the beats. Puntos
(meaning points or dots) also relates in this case to the minimalist technique
of repeating patterns. The performers are thus passing the puntos
within the ensemble, while also producing the passing of repeating patterns in
time.
Originally
composed for Katie Lansdale (violin), Robert Black (double bass), and John
McDonald (piano) as part of the Hartford Commissions Concerts, this version has
been arranged for violoncello substituting the double bass.
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