85 Years and Counting: Continuity
b. 1954,
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The State of Things, American Academy of Arts and Letters
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(b Washington, DC, 30 Dec 1954). American composer. He
studied composition at the Geneva Conservatoire and the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Thereafter he worked with
Crumb, Rochberg and Wernick at the University of Pennsylvania
where he received the master’s degree (1978). Three years
later he joined the music department at Duke University and
established the prominent concert series Encounters: With Music
from Our Time. He was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1981 and
received the Brandeis University Creative Arts Citation in 1989.
Other honours include the Kennedy Center’s Friedheim Award
(1991) and the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Lifetime
Achievement Prize (1993). In 1999 Jaffe was named Mary
D.B.T. and James H. Semans Professor of Music Composition at
Duke University.
• I played in a lot of rock bands, sure. The reason I went on to other music was because it was more interesting! I would say by the age of 13, 14, I was already doing both simultaneously, or had moved on to other things.
• Abbey Road is from 1969? The Late Stravinsky albums with the Requiem Canticles and the drawing by Giacometti on the cover – those are from the same time, and that was really amazing.
• Pierre Boulez
• Luciano Berio
• Karlheinz Stockhausen
• Honegger
• Alberto Ginastera
• George Rochberg, Third String Quartet
• George Crumb, Ancient Voices of Children
• Cellist, David Hardy, NSO cellist
• Jaffe, Songcycle, Homage to the Breath
• What is the fundamental mission of music for you? • SJ: Something like “to sing the soul”.
• I think that the purpose of art is make us feel more alive and aware of how the fires within, if you like, can lead to larger leaps of
intention, decisions about what you do not want to leave out, and what you do want to leave in, what is really a touchstone, what is crucial.
• That doesn’t mean that art has to be serious, searingly serious all the time – lightness is also important in my music. But I don’t want to go to a concert or listen to a CD by someone who is giving me a lecture. The listener and performer are participants, the composer is a
participant. That is vital, fundamental. If you are alive, there is no way that you can’t notice some terrible things going on, things which need to be changed. Some of those things may be out of your control – some you can address in the sphere of art, and some you can’t.
Your politics, your religious beliefs, your every act, if you are a creative artist, whether a photographer, or writer, or painter, these are bound to come out in your work, and be very much at the fiber. It will be boring if it is only about ideas, absolutely boring.
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Jaffe’s style forges a path between American modernist
traditions of the 1960s and 70s and the more pluralistic
approaches of the 1980s and 90s. Although his work shows a
deep understanding of many different types of music, his
compositions are unique and resist easy description. Later
works, such as Offering (1996), engage challenging paradoxes
within various strata: materials traditionally understood as tonal
are used in a non-tonal manner, and a mercurial interplay exists
between lyrical, sensual impulses and taut, lean structural
groundings. One of the most distinguished composers of his
generation, his works have been performed throughout the USA
and Europe.
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I
The Sea Wind
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II
On That Cool Plane
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III
His running My Running
• I Molto maestoso, poco stravagante, ardente
• II Vivace leggiero (jouous, precise and articulate)
• III Adagio (in memoriam V.P. and M.F.)
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Figure 1
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Figure 2
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Figure 3
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I
Forceful and bold (allegro molto energico)
[KEYBOARD]
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II
Sportive, playflul, with a light touch
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III
Like a breathing rhythm (poco adagio)
• In 1989, Jaffe wrote a seventeen-minute song cycle for soprano and mezzo called Fort Juniper Songs . The cycle contains seven poems by the American poet Robert Francis, who lived most of his life in
Amherst, MA in a modest, self-built house which he called Fort Juniper . The composer has stated that "the poems I have chosen trace a progression from the comic to the tragicomic, and nearly back again." They are: (1) "O World of Toms"; (2) "The Pope"; (3)"Diver"; (4) "Gloria"; (5) "Blood Stains"; (6) "Light Casualties"; and (7) "Waxwings". The poems traverse a myriad of ideas from those
demonstrating clever word play such as "O World of Toms" to the antiwar sentiments of "Blood Stains."
• Jaffe masterfully captures the essence of each poem, presenting the text without musical gimmicks, yet creating a convincing sonic atmosphere for this memorable poetry. The composer's writing style is extremely versatile, angular yet having a discernible form that makes these complex songs highly effective. The piano is used to create moods; sometimes percussive, sometimes coloristic with occasional use of harmonics. The vocal writing encompasses a very wide range of pitches and dynamics. There are large sections of a cappella singing and numerous rhythmic complexities. This is cerebral music for singers who have an excellent sense of pitch and rhythm, clear, precise diction, and the ability to achieve a consistency of vocal placement through a melodic line containing staccatos, extreme leaps, and numerous florid passages. A tour de force for both singers and the pianist, this would be a
spectacular addition to the repertoire of two advanced singers. It is published by Merion Music, Inc. (Theodore Presser Co.)
Journal of Singing - The Official Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing 54.5
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. Stephen Jaffe's atonal musical language is perfect for the
occasionally ironic, eerie, or arch poems of Robert Francis. The
wordplay of some of the poems is often matched by brilliantly
devised musical effects, which in turn require a good deal of
virtuosity from the singers.
Fanfare - The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors 19.4 (Mar 1996): 324.
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Stephen Jaffe has created seven contrasting songs which
conceivably present the greatest vocal and musical challenges
of the recording for the performers but which are well worth the
effort as they delve into topics as diverse as puns on the word
Tom ("O World of Toms") and anti-war sentiments ("Light
Casualties").
Bradley, David. Journal of Singing - The Official Journal of the National Association of Teachers of
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I
Dance Prelude
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II
Water Music
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I
Passage
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II
Variations
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I
Running Pulse
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II
Ostinato elegiaco
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Composer Stephen Jaffe describes what it's like the first time
a new piece is played.
• Kennedy Center, 2004
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https://m.kennedy-center.org/home/play/A55194?_ga=1.254697480.1820107990.1444 934706
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How Pieces Evolve over Time
• Kennedy Center, 2011• http://www.kennedy-center.org/video/index/A55196
• I Bold and urgently lyrical (Allegro energico)
• II Clever, impish, a little “ugly” (Scherzino)
• III “Mysterious flower” Poco andante; interior, incoate (Variations)
• Jaffe's 2003 Cello Concerto heard here was premiered by David Hardy, with Leonard Slatkin conducting the National Symphony Orchestra. In it, Jaffe misses no opportunity to batter, braise, and beat the instrument black and blue, forcing it to emit tortured grunts, groans, glissandos, and glassy harmonics. Nor is the orchestra spared. Loud, flatulent blasts of percussion and bleating brass make the longed-for and long-awaited simpler dissonances seem like the balm of consonants in what is otherwise a maelstrom of chaos and cacophony.
• Says Jaffe in his own program note: "A composer should make imaginative music using broad knowledge. His or her music should be coherent, contemporary, and original." Clearly, the Cello Concerto-indeed all four works on the disc-fulfills the directive to be contemporary. But to my ear, Jaffe is a bit short on the coherent; and I don't know where he's been for the last 10 years or so, but there is little originality here in terms of
presenting us with a contemporary model that offers a style of writing that is essentially new or different. We've heard this sort of thing before from any number of contemporary composers-Esa-Pekka Salonen and Magnus Lindberg come to my mind. In the five years since Jaffe completed his Violin Concerto, he's definitely moved on in a different direction. It just happens to be, in my opinion, the wrong one. No composer who writes in this manner is incapable of producing music that is accessible and appealing, as is attested to by
other of Jaffe's works on this release. This is not the equivalent of tossing a bucket of paint at a canvas; rather, it is a deliberate act of musical anarchy, perhaps a more suitable term to describe what we tend to give credence to when we call something avant-garde.
Dubins, Jerry. Fanfare - The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors 32.2 (Nov 2008): 230-231.
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Composer Stephen Jaffe on how form affects a piece.
• Kennedy Center, 2/22/2011
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http://www.kennedy-center.org/video/index/A55195
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The kick-up-your-heels, brash, jazzy Cut Time testifies to the fact
that Jaffe can turn out a musically appealing score if and when
he wants to. The piece has all the makings for a curtain raiser to
an updated version of a 1920s Broadway musical set in a
speakeasy with flapper girls.
Dubins, Jerry. Fanfare - The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors 32.2 (Nov 2008): 230-231.
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Poetry of the Piedmont, if I read the notes correctly, is a tone
poem that sets out to paint a musical portrait of the cultures,
both human and avian, that populate Appalachia from the
Adirondacks to Georgia. It's no Appalachian Spring, but it is
colorful and somewhat plaintive, and again demonstrates
Jaffe's fine ear for orchestration and his ability to write music
that is accessible when the mood strikes him.
Dubins, Jerry. Fanfare - The Magazine for Serious Record Collectors 32.2 (Nov 2008): 230-231.
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I
Paysage
(lyric
resonance, bell, dove,
bones, the blues,
lamentation)
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II
Dialogue of figures
(march—vivace; scherzo)
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III
Solo
(Calmo, dolce)
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IV
Tornello
(kleine pop
musik)
• http://vimeo.com/82388014
• Open Rehearsal of Stephen Jaffe’s HIP Concerto (Chamber Concerto No. 3), 2013 with the Mallarmé Chamber Players
• Jaffe’s new Chamber Concerto is written for the instruments used in the Brandenburg Concertos, in this case replicas of instruments of the time, played with the techniques that work on these lighter
instruments. The first movement opening with three F’s and three C’s seems quite tonal, as does the second and last (of five). He uses the instruments as a full ensemble and in contrasting smaller ensembles as a Baroque concerto would. Though there are many changing meters and non-metric patterns there are also sections with clear beats and meters. The third and fourth movements are a contrast, softer, less clear in beat and meter. The third has a sighing motif that is not only in the instruments but also vocalized by the performers. I find this movement especially intriguing. I’m excited about hearing the work again on Sunday. (Feb. 2, 3 pm, First Presbyterian Church)
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As Virginia Woolf reported amusingly about the early 20th
century, somewhere around 2008, it became the 21st century.
I'll bet if you asked 10 contemporary composers and artists,
they’d reply that something big did change. I don't think we
quite know what it was. Obviously it has to do with technology,
with the artist and her audience, and with the really global
world.
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My students now bring in their pieces on their phones, some of
them, and they're pretty amazing.
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We get to work with sensational students at Duke. It's really
gratifying to see them develop and then go out and do music.
But even the ones that finished around 2000, 2002 have
witnessed immense sea changes. The sea changes come from the
more tenuous links to the classical musical tradition (or for that
matter to jazz traditions or other traditions that require depth
of exposure.) Classical music, growing up in America today, is a
genre, among hip-hop, Motown, and Indie rock.
• So, essentially, what it means is that we have this absolutely great
tradition and great abundance of incredible literature in which all the questions about things like proportion, weights and balances have
been so beautifully covered. But to be honest, every generation has to discover those treasures anew. They give you some answers, and they give you probably the best answers we have, but they don't give all the answers for our own time.
• So, our privilege is often to say, "Have you considered looking at this composer, or that one? Have you considered how Ravel did that in the piece 'Three Poems of Stephane Mallarmé' — a beautiful work — in which he was responding to Arnold Schoenberg?" and their eyes
answer with, "Oh that's really interesting," even if it might not apply directly to working with beats or sound waves.
• Glass is “one of the most commercially successful, and critically reviled, composers of his generation,” according to Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Focusing on the works being performed in Carolina
Performing Arts' Glass at 80 concerts in February 2017, we will study this prolific composer of music in all classical genres, including some he invented himself. Philip Glass says that he was influenced as much by East Asia and by drama, dance, art, and cinema as he was by music (though he does have very thorough training in Western classical
music). So, he invented new ways of conceiving music, and his music was a surprise to musicians. Classes will guide all listeners into Glass's world of music and will include guest lecturers on the CPA series, cinema, and drama. We'll also glance at the other composers whose careers
started out with minimalism: Terry Riley, Steve Reich, and John Adams. • Mondays, 3:15-4:45
