|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
LP
|
|
LOVE 125LP
|
Mary Jane Leach is a composer focused on the physicality of sound, its acoustic properties and how they interact with space. She has played an instrumental role in NYC's pioneering Downtown scene alongside Arthur Russell, Ellen Fullman, Peter Zummo, Philip Corner, and Arnold Dreyblatt, as well as devoting years to the preservation and reappraisal of Julius Eastman's work since his death in 1990, compiling Unjust Malaise (2005) and editing the book Gay Guerrilla: Julius Eastman and His Music (2015). Woodwind Multiples features four pieces for multiples of the same instrument: four bass flutes, nine oboes, nine clarinets, and seven bassoons. Each piece works closely with the unique sound of each instrument, combining pitches that create other, sometimes unexpected, tones, primarily combination and interference tones, as well as rhythmic patterns. What you hear is what happens naturally -- there is no processing or manipulation. 8B4 (1985/2022), played by Manuel Zurria, is for four bass flutes. It is a revision of 8x4, which was written in 1985 for the DownTown Ensemble and was only performed once, due to its unusual instrumentation: alto flute, English horn (originally bass oboe), clarinet, and voice. Xantippe's Rebuke (1993) was written for Libby Van Cleve, for eight taped oboes and one live, solo oboe. The eight taped parts are equal and dependent, while the solo part is meant to be a solo with the tape as accompaniment. The piece works with the unique sound of the oboe, starting with unison pitches that create the richest sound, building the piece from there. Pitches and rhythmic patterns that occur naturally are notated and then played later, which in turn create other pitches and rhythmic patterns. Charybdis (2020), played by Sam Dunscombe, is for solo clarinet and eight taped clarinets. It combines a somewhat obscured reference to Weep You No More, a John Dowland piece, which combines with the sound phenomena created from the melody and supporting chords of the Dowland. Feu de Joie (1992) was written for bassoonist Shannon Peet and is an homage to the bassoon and its wonderful sound. It is for seven parts -- six taped and one "live." The taped bassoons combine to create a bed of sound that exploits the unique qualities of the bassoon, creating combination and interference tones, starting off with unison pitches, creating a rich sound that builds from there. Most of the subsequent pitches and phrases occur naturally, and are then notated later on in the piece, which in turn creates other notes and phrases. Engineered by Manuel Zurria, Bryce Goggin, and Sam Dunscombe, mastered by Rashad Becker.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
LOVE 109LP
|
For Mary Jane Leach's Flute Songs, Modern Love is honored to bring together four pieces composed for flute and voice, spanning a period of over 30 years and triggered by a fascination with sound and performance. As Leach explains, "In the late 1970s I was practicing playing and singing with tapes that I had made of myself performing long sustained tones. It had started out as an exercise in intonation, and ended up with a fascination for sound phenomena: difference, combination, and interference tones. The first piece I wrote for an instrument that I couldn't play was Trio For Duo (1985), for live and taped alto flute and voice. I had noticed that my voice matched the sound of the bottom fifth of the alto flute, and so the voice in this piece is sung to sound as much like an alto flute as possible. By using glissandos, more 'extra-notated' sounds are created than appear on the page. Bruckstück (1989) was originally written for eight sopranos, but is played on flutes on this recording, using the same pitches, but sounding very different. The piece is polyphonic, with a lot of closely resolving intervals; primarily major and minor seconds. I initially wrote Dowland's Tears (2011) for nine flutes, thinking of it as a recording project and not a concert piece (it now has a 'solo' tenth part added), while Semper Dolens (2018) is for solo and six taped flutes, with sustained harmony and dissonance in mind". These four recordings feature noted Roman flutist Manuel Zurria, who has worked with some of the most important composers around the world. In 1990 he founded Alter Ego, a leading group for contemporary music in Italy. Numerous composers have written pieces for him, and he has expanded the repertoire even further by re-orchestrating compositions into pieces for multiple flutes, as heard on almost forty albums. Mary Jane Leach has played an instrumental role in NYC's pioneering Downtown avant-garde community since the 1970s, working alongside peers including Arthur Russell, Ellen Fullman, Peter Zummo, Philip Corner, and Arnold Dreyblatt, as well as devoting years to the preservation of Julius Eastman's legacy since his death in 1990. Her vinyl debut Pipe Dreams was issued via the Blume imprint (BLUME 011LP, 2017). Mastered and cut by Matt Colton.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
LP
|
|
BLUME 011LP
|
Milan based imprint Blume offer two incredible archival works from the 1980s American composer Mary Jane Leach, never before released. Mary Jane Leach is a definitive model of the American avant-garde and experimental composer -- creatively brilliant, tragically underrecognized, yet always there, rigorously plumbing the depths, issuing challenges, venturing toward the unknown. Leach's creative practice began at the crossroads of the modern and post-modern -- with the death of the American dream, its hegemonic point of view, and with the irreconcilable reductive legacies of their predecessors, the minimalists. Leach pursued the physicality of sound and acoustic phenomena -- investigating their properties, and interactions with space. Despite being incredibly active, during the 1970s and '80s Leach failed to offer a single commercial release. She instead instigated a singular body of work which is conceptually centered around live acoustic phenomena and performance. In effect, there are two dynamic components of her work -- the notes, structures, and relationships which make up a composition, and a secondary series of difference, combination, and interference tones, generated by a work's relationship to the space in which it is conceived and performed. Pipe Dreams represents a turning of the tide -- a means through which to offer the composer the attention she has always righty deserved. Comprised of two incredible works -- "4BC" and "Pipe Dreams" -- this LP is a brilliant entry point into Mary Jane Leach's sprawling body of composition and investigatory work. Like all of her efforts, they are temporal snapshots, incapable of being fully reproduced. They are singular and unique. "4BC" is a work for four bass clarinets, recorded during 1984. It is part of Leach's large body of compositions which employs long tones (drone) within a constrained tonal palette. "Pipe Dreams", written for, and recorded on, the organ in St. Peter's in Köln, Germany, during 1989, was realized by, and as a direct response to, the unique environment for which it was made. St. Peter's organ has two sets of pipes at opposite ends of the church, each having separate sounds and stops that can generate microtonal intervals. The work is a structured improvisation, exploring antiphony and the specific sounds of that organ, extra-musical as well as musical. These pieces help illuminate Leach as one of the most important voices in her generation.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
XI 107CD
|
1993 release. The works of Mary Jane Leach explore the physicality of sound, working very carefully with the timbres of instruments, creating combination, difference, and interference tones. Space is also an important concern: how sound changes when it is moved around a room. "Either enmasse or in antiphonal clusters, Ms. Leach's slow-paced and soothing music seemed intent on filling this high-ceilinged space with different densities of sound" --Bernard Holland, The New York Times. Celestial Fires features the New York Treble Singers (Virginia Davidson, conductor) performing four eight-part pieces for a capella women's voices; Shannon Peet performing "Feu de Joie" for seven bassoons; and Barbara Held and Ms. Leach performing "Trio for Duo" for alto flute and voice.
|
|
|
Artist |
Title |
Format |
Label |
Catalog # |
|
|
CD
|
|
NW 80525CD
|
New York Treble Singers; Cassatt String Quartet; The Rooke Chapel Choir; Libby Van Cleve, oboe; Patrick Burton, clarinet; Klyph Johnson, bassoon; David Lee Echeland, tenor, countertenor. "Mary Jane Leach (b. 1949) explores the physicality of sound, working very carefully with the timbres of instruments, creating combination, difference, and interference tones. The use of sound phenomena, however, is only a means to an end, the ultimate goal being musicality. Early music, with its imitative polyphony and modal harmonies, is the primary source of inspiration for the compositions on this disc, four of which are part of an ongoing project focusing on the myth of Ariadne -- 'Ariadne's Lament' (for a cappella women's chorus), 'Song Of Sorrows' (for mixed choir), 'O Magna Vasti Creta' (for women's chorus and string quartet), and 'Call Of The Dance' (for a cappella women's chorus). Two of the pieces draw their material directly from Renaissance works: 'Ariadne's Lament' from Monteverdi's 'Lamento d'Arianna,' and 'Tricky Pan' (for solo countertenor and tape) from the 14th-century poet and composer Solage. The languages Leach sets -- early Italian and French, Ancient Greek, and Cretan -- also evoke a sense of connection to a remote past. In contrast to most of her contemporaries, Leach's music is from the aesthetic which favors prolongation, resonance, long statements of subtly varied persistence. In that sense, her music is both easy to follow and mellifluously unpredictable. She has a careful ear for pacing and structural unfolding, often building her pieces to ardent expressive arrivals. Past and present meld in a music of ethereal and limpid beauty."
|
|
|
|