This is my Senior Recital in Classical Guitar from UC Santa Cruz on April 18, 1999.
Soren Goodman
classical guitar
This is my Senior Recital in Classical Guitar from UC Santa Cruz on April 18, 1999.
Everything was performed soley by me on a Ramirez Classical Guitar except:
Dance of the Blue Devil was performed with Matt Carrington on Violin.
Contours was performed by the UCSC Guitar Quartet; Soren Goodman, Rob Watson, Keith Wyffels and Kelsey Damas.
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PLEASE NOTE: For best sound quality and smallest file size, please download the ogg files. Ogg Vorbis is a free open source format that sounds better and with a smaller filesize than mp3. |
| 1) Robert DeVisee - Suite in D minor - 9:33 | ogg (8.3M) | mp3 (12.3) |
| 2) Mauro Giuliani - Sonata in C Major Op. 15 - 18:19 | ogg (15.5M) | mp3 (23.9M) |
| 3) Heitor Villa-Lobos - Preludes 1, 3 and 4 - 16:12 | ogg (13.4M) | mp3 (21.1M) |
| 4) Leo Brouwer - Elogio de la Danza - 5:51 | ogg (4.9M) | mp3 (7.6M) |
| 5) Bryan Johanson - Mortua Dolce Cano - 3:37 | ogg (3.1M) | mp3 (4.8M) |
| 6) Bryan Johanson - Dance of the Blue Devil - 4:02 | ogg (3.7M) | mp3 (5.7M) |
| 7) Soren Goodman - Contours - 5:04 View Score | ogg (4.2M) | mp3 (6.6M) |
| 8) Soren Goodman - Period - 5:32 View Score | ogg (4.5M) | mp3 (7.2M) |
Although spanning a period of a little over 300 years, from the Baroque music of Robert DeVisée, to the music of Bryan Johanson, to my own compositions written a few months ago, all of the pieces on this program share a common thread: they were all composed by guitarists.
Robert de Visee (1650-1725) was a musician at the court of Louis XIV. He wrote and performed music for the baroque guitar, a 5 string precursor to the modern 6 string guitar. His Suite in D minor was written in 1686.
Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) was a well known guitar virtuoso in Vienna during his lifetime. He gained the interest of other famous composer/performers such as Beethoven, and has written an exhaustive amount of music for the guitar, over 200 works. His Sonata in C Major was written around 1808.
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) lived in Brazil most of his life, and spent the early part of his life as a street musician. Although he has been a very prolific composer, writing for many different instruments, his guitar works are some of the most well known, and are standards in guitar literature. He wrote his 5 Preludes (of which I play 3) in 1940.
Leo Brouwer (1939- ) was born in Havana and would likely be a famous performer if not for a wrist problem that limits the amount he can play on one sitting. Although there are recordings of Brouwer playing the guitar, there are many more recordings of other guitarists playing his music, as he has written a very extensive amount of music for the guitar as well as over 40 film scores.Elogio de la Danza, "Elegy to the Dance" was written in 1964.
Moving into the current decade comes yet another guitarist/composer, Bryan Johanson (1951- ). He didn't start writing music until 1976, when he decided to try his hand writing a piece for guitar, Spring, op.1. He wrote Mortua Dolce Cano, "In Death I Sweetly Sing," in 1989, based on the inscription from an Elizabethan Lute
I was alive in the forest
I was cut by the cruel axe.
In life I was silent
In death I sweetly sing.
I was fortunate enough to be able to study with Bryan over the summer of '97, and subsequently purchased a CD of his, The Secret Guitar. This CD was filled with chamber music for guitar and other instruments, with Bryan playing the guitar parts. The first track, Dance of the Blue Devil, stood out to me, and I decided I wanted to learn it for my recital. Since it hadn't been published, Bryan was kind enough to send me a copy of his handwritten score. Like Mortua Dolce Cano, Dance of the Blue Devil is true to it's title, "a rapid-fire scherzo that propels the two instruments forward through new and often unpredictable terrain." (From liner notes to The Secret Guitar, Gagliano Recordings).
Finally, moving into 1999, we get my own works for guitar quartet and guitar solo. Continuing this tradition of composer/performer, I wrote two pieces for this recital that are a bit unique in how they were constructed. Both Contours and Period originated as graphical/textural timelines that I sketched out, with some specific ideas as to sound/texture, but nothing specific as to rhythm or pitch. Since I tried to capture this graphical score when composing the music into notation, I will give a general description of these graphic outlines.
Contours alternates between repeating single points and large blocks of sound. The large blocks try to break out of the static, steady repetition by moving around, but they're a bit sluggish. Eventually a chord breaks out and different layers emerge above and below this repeated chord. The alternation between points/large blocks, and single layer/multiple layers, eventually explodes and falls away in a stream of dots.
Period was written in a sort of embedded AA' form. A series of alternating dots begin to tremble, eventually losing it's bindings and spreading out. The dots then reunite and come back together to form a sort of steady barrier. This whole section is repeated, with a bit more tremble this time, but never fully losing it's bindings, only a few random notes lost above the trembling line. This tension then builds up into the third section. Now there is an alternation of 4 different blocks/chords, which then also begin to tremble and lose their binding, coming back together to form another steady barrier. Finally, this alternation repeats again, and again there is more tremble to the chords but this time they explode. The aftermath of this explosion is a stream of a single repeated block, with some leftover dust from the explosion hanging overhead, which eventually solidifies.