Rolf Schulte, violin

Fred Sherry, cello

Paul Dunkel, flute

Virgil Blackwell, piano

Ursula Oppens, piano

Richard Fitz, percussion

Donald Palma, bass

‍

Speculum Musicae (A Musical Mirror) was a winner of the 1972 Naumburg Chamber Music Award. The ensemble's mission was dedicated to the pursuance of excellence in the performance of music of the 20th century. The first several concerts in 1971 at the Public Theater in downtown New York were so successful that Speculum Musicae was engaged to perform throughout the summer at the Dartmouth Festival of the Arts in New Hampshire and at the Berkshire Festival in Tanglewood, followed by a Town Hall concert under the auspices of Young Concert Artists.

Naumburg Concert, May 8, 1972, Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center

Speculum Musicae, 1972 Chamber Music Award

Rolf Schulte, violin; Fred Sherry, cello; Paul Dunkel, flute; Virgil Blackwell, piano; Ursula Oppens, piano; Richard Fitz, percussion

Donald Palma, bass

Program

Wolpe: Piece for Two Instrumental Units (1962)

Stravinsky: Three Songs of William Shakespeare (1953)

Sollberger: The Two and The One, World premiere, Naumburg commission

Stravinsky: Concertino (1920)

Martino: Trio (1959)

Wuorinen: Canzona (1971)

As part of their Naumburg prize, Speculum Musicae was awarded three commissioned works -- The Two and the One by Harvey Sollberger, Notturno by Donald Martino (the winner of a 1974 Pulitzer Prize), and Speculum Speculiu by Charles Wuorinen. Harvey Sollberger's The Two and the One received its world premiere performed by Speculum Musicae on their Naumburg concert that took place on May 8, 1972 in Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

Program Notes

Donald Martino's Notturno, a 20-minute chamber work for flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano was the winner of a 1974 Pulitzer Prize. Boston Globe critic Michael Steinberg called it "nocturnal theater of the soul." Notturno is one of Martino's best known works. He describes this highly dramatic, colorful work as "sort of 'night music' descriptive of the moments before I go to sleep, when I'm reviewing the day, when all the miseries and the beauties come together in a kind of chaotic swirl without pattern. It's about the diversity of feeling that I undergo daily when I contemplate my life that moment before sleep." The work received its premiere performance by the ensemble on May 15, 1973 in Alice Tully Hall, Lincoln Center.

Speculum Speculi (1972) was written, as its title indicates, for the then newly formed New York ensemble, Speculum Musicae, a second generation descendant of Wuorinen's own ensemble, The Group for Contemporary Music. Speculum Speculi ("Mirror of the Mirror") was first presented on January 14, 1973 in Grand Forks, N.D. during a Speculum Musicae tour. Speculum Speculi is a mixed instrument sextet for flute, oboe, bass clarinet, contrabass, piano and percussion (vibraphone, 4 drums, and 3 gongs).

For the original Nonesuch recording Wuorinen wrote the following:

Speculum Speculi is a singele, sectionally divided continuity. But it is not "symmetrically" arranged: rather each successive section of the work transforms all of what has gone before...The piece begins with a slow monophonic statement of its twelve-tone set in which the time-intervals between successive notes are in direct proportion to the pitch intervals that also separate them. For a second variation, a related set-form is added to a speeded-up transformation of the opening, so that a two-voiced, more rapid music is produced. The third variation transforms both the first and the second, adjoining further material as well: every new section transforms all that has gone on before it. Thus the work (albeit in a non-linear way) grows ever denser, and ever faster, as more and more materials is necessarily compressed to fit it into a reasonable time frame. But each new transformation, since it always returns for its matter to the very beginning of the piece, preserves a distinct vestige of the single-line opening, whose pitch and rhythmic nature through recurring at different speeds -- remain clearly recognizable."

Wuorinen goes on to write "The foregoing, however, is meant only to provide an initial entry into the work, for I do not propose that it be heard only as a recurring set of transformations...the listener, in his response to the music, must ultimately assume active responsibility for what it means to him. Once a work has left its maker, it follows its own life." - Howard Stokar

Critical acclaim for Wuorinen's Speculum Speculi

The New York Times, February 23, 1973

"Speculum, Speculi" the piece given its first New York performance by Speculum Musicae...made so forceful an impression that it could hardly be ignored even by those who do not are for contemporary music..This work for flue, oboe, bass clarinet, piano, double bass and percussion is full of energy and has an urgency about it that simply cannot be ignored..its jots and jolts of woodwind colors and drum beats, melodic fragments, contrasts of register and many other elements come together in vivid musical fabric that insists, quite successfully, on the integrity of its form and the importance of its existence." - Allan Hughes

The New York Times, January 31, 1973

Speculum Musicae Eloquent in Playing Pieces to Entertain

"Speculum Musicae is a wonder...each member is a brilliant performer and together they have thoroughly digested the contemporary idiom..since these musicians have mastered he notes with such superb technical virtuosity, full attention can be paid to realizing each composition's special musical character - and the 20th century composer could not possibly have more eloquent interpreters. - Peter G. Davis

‍