Postcard From Heaven, by Susan Allen

Postcard From Heaven

by Susan Allen

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1.	In a Landscape 08:48	buy track
2.	Harmonium No. 3 04:33	buy track
3.	Four Diatonic Caprices: I. Animato 01:57	buy track
4.	Four Diatonic Caprices: II. Allegretto 01:31	buy track
5.	Four Diatonic Caprices: III. Lento 02:12	buy track
6.	Four Diatonic Caprices: IV. Allegro 01:12	buy track
7.	Perchance to Dream: I. Wer nie sein Brot mit Traenen Ass 05:48	buy track
8.	Perchance to Dream: II. Wer sich der Einsamkeit ergibt 06:09	buy track
9.	Perchance to Dream: III. An die Tueren Will Ich Schleichen 06:31	buy track
10.	Postcard From Heaven 15:29	buy track

about

|| Music of John Cage, James Tenney, Gloria Coates, and Alexander Tcherepnin ||

The harp is a strange and compelling instrument that in its technological ancientness beckons composers and listeners alike to bask in its heavenly aura. Like hand drums and acoustic guitars, the immediacy of a harp's sound production demands an intimate, one-on-one relationship between listener and instrument/performer. This intimacy is why composers of all stripes write music for harp－it strips away habit and affectation. Its limits are challenges that distill the essence of a composer's style and technique and reflect them back as if from a mirror.

John Cage (1912-1992) composed In a Landscape in 1948. The work's title is revealing: Cage places both sound and its hearing in an environment. Typical of Cage, his insight and his humor, the environment itself is left up to the choice of performer and/or listener, whether they realize it or not. There is no perspective imposed upon the music by composer or title, there is simply the fact of being in a landscape.

James Tenney's (1934-2006) Harmonium No. 3 (1980) brings three harps together in an ensemble that deceives the ear, sounding like a single instrument. Tenney achieves this effect by writing a single line that crosses all three parts. The need for three harps is created by the piece's unique tuning scheme.

Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) lived a musical life that spanned the globe. His music reflects his diverse experiences and the many cultures which he came in contact with during his life. Tcherepnin's Quatre Caprices Diatoniques (1977) are brief musical bonbons originally intended for the non-pedal Breton harp. They work equally well on modern pedal harps, as played here by Ms. Allen.

Gloria Coates' (b 1938) score for Perchance to Dream (2014) is deceptively simple. Her use of triadic harmonies and diatonic melody is modified by altering the tuning of the harp and the bowing of the vibraphone. These key characteristics create the piece's hallmark otherworldly quality.

Postcard From Heaven (1992), for 1 to 20 harps, was one of Cage's last works. The work consists of a collection of "ragas" (predetermined scale patterns featuring set pedal configurations for the harp), that the performers are free to choose how many and in which order they wish to play. Performers are instructed to begin and end the piece using e-bows, a magnetic device that causes steels strings to vibrate without being plucked. The e-bow creates a soft, sustained tone one would rather expect for a postcard from a destination such as heaven.

credits

released January 6, 2015

Susan Allen, solo harp; with Ellie Choate, Marilu Donovan, Jillian Risigari-Gai, Jaclyn Urlik, harps; & Colton Lytle, bowed vibraphone

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New World Records Brooklyn, New York

Anthology of Recorded Music, Inc., which records under the label New World Records, was founded in 1975.

We are dedicated to the documentation of American music that is largely ignored by the commercial recording companies.

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