Track Listing & Audio Samples
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		C. P. First
	1.	Tantrum (8:01)     Listen: RealAudio or MP3
		Dimitris Marinos, mandolin
		Paul Paccione
	2.	...like spring (12:17)
		Jane Walker, flute
		Dyann K. Scheele, flute
		Cindy Annice Cox
	3.	Four Studies of Light and Dark (13:38)
		Cindy Annice Cox, piano
		Kay Stonefelt, percussion
		Edward Mattila
	4.	Primordius (8:25)
		Curt Veeneman
	5.	The Wiry Concord (9:45)
		Susan Werner, five-string banjo
		Forrest Covington, hammered dulcimer/cimbalon
		Georganne Assat, harp
		Donald Martin Jenni, harpsichord (keyboard)
		Mark Johnson, harpsichord (inside)
		Barbara Phillips Farley, piano (keyboards)
		James Austin, piano (inside)
		Marta Soderberg, viola
		James Knutson, percussion
		Patrick Doyle, percussion
		James Popejoy, percussion
		Steven Butters, percussion
		Michael Geary, conductor

 

All Recordings by the
Society of Composers, Inc.

Mélange	CPS-8755
Mood Shifts	CPS-8748
Soundscapes	CPS-8741
Cornucopia	CPS-8725
Sonic Images	CPS-8712
Milestones	CPS-8701
Inspirations	CPS-8690
Cultivated Choruses	CPS-8674
Inner Visions	CPS-8670
Connections	CPS-8660
Transcendencies	CPS-8656
Chamber Works	CPS-8651
Illuminations	CPS-8643
Grand Designs	CPS-8639
Intimate Thoughts	CPS-8632
Evocations	CPS-8631
Extended Resources	CPS-8626
Songfest	CPS-8618
Contra-Punctus	CPS-8615
America Sings!	CPS-8613
Potpourri	CPS-8609
View from the Keyboard	CPS-8606

 

Related Links
• Society of Composers, Inc.

 

Reviews

The Music Connoisseur - Volume 4, Number 2 - by B.L.C. (with P.K.)

"Except for Mr. Mattila (b. 1927), all of the composers here are middle generation, well trained, already accomplished and, typically, doing their thing, albeit with many of the currently popular tools of composition. C.P. First ( l960), a teacher at Northwestern University, found inspiration in the extraordinary virtuosity of mandolinist Djmitris Marinos. He has composed a multiphonic work using taped mandolin samples against which the performer plays an incessant 32nd-note rhythm and relentless tremolo articulation." This is furious music all right, and the playing is impressive.

Mr. Paccione (b. 1952) relied on two prerecorded and overdubbed flutes with tape to produce a minimalist piece in a very broad tempo. The clashing of live flute overtones with electronics often generates a fuzzy veil which envelopes the simple sonority and adds a mystical element to the whole. The piece has some subtle development. Nonetheless, 12 minutes may be just too long to tell us that spring has sprung. Paccione is a professor at Western Illinois University.

Both Cox and Veeneman shun electronic manipulation in their compositions, though they both create unusual effects with the piano soundboard. (The former actually assigns a player exclusively to the soundboard.) Ms. Cox's studies are for piano and percussion (she and Kay Stonefelt), and are framed by an identical prologue and epilogue. The percussionist's part sometimes calls for "rock and roll" improvisation, and Stonefelt responds with an electrifying performance. The musical content is always interesting and occasionally reminiscent of Bartok's rhythmically harsh and complex early efforts. Cox is an Assistant Professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Stonefelt is now a Fulbright Scholar Researcher in Ghana.

Mr. Veeneman's opus calls for 13 players, with some often grotesque instrumental sounds (for example, piano strings played with a bow). At one time or another all of the instrumentalists become percussionists. The musical content is maximally serial and thus highly mathematical, with a scheme based on a prime intervalic series (1-11-3-7-5). Despite the often adventurous sonority, this offering is unfortunately steeped in the halls of academe. But Veeneman is a composer with ideas, and we read that he has worked hard for new music by organizing a concert series at the University of the Pacific at Stockton, CA -- called "Pacific Market." Our curiosity about his other work is therefore aroused.

That leaves the relatively venerable Mr. Mattila's work for computer-generated tape, and it turns out to be the most enthralling selection on the disc. The composer's very keen and selective ear has led to careful choosing and ordering of sonics with a lot of murkiness. Conjuring up a sense of evolving nature. Mattila has the advantage of hindsight over his younger colleagues, and so is able to assess all of the good and bad experiences of so-called musique concrete. He is currently Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Kansas where he also directs the Electronic Music Studio. He has produced a program in that town for a number of years now broadcast over National Public Radio.

Once again, Capstone has turned out a CD which, if not consistently high in inspiration_, shows the label now is fully committed to interesting new music, well recorded."