Chamber Music

Geoffrey Álvarez: chamber music

Piano Trio

This oneiric indulgence guided by the ebullient spirit of Fellini, is centred on the Austrian Empress, Archduchess Maria Theresa (1717-1780). The principle conceit is an impossible somatic experience of Beethoven’s celebrated Opus 97 B flat major Piano Trio written for the Archduke Rudolf (1788-1831) in 1811. As the Archduchess sinks into the arms of Morpheus, the darkest B flat minor moment from the trio of Beethoven’s Trio is heard slowed down and distorted, as might be expected from a somnolent recreation, resulting in an anxious turgid miasma. The body of Erhozhogintraumtrio is a fragmentary recollection of several themes from Beethoven’s work overlaid by her anxieties of ruling the Hapsburg Empire – identification with Montiverdi’s Poppea, (Montiverdi was born in Cremona, under Hapsburg rule until 1859), regret for the loss of the rich Spanish heritage in 1700 and her rejuvenation by the hot blooded spirit of Transylvania, at the opposite end of her empire. The work ends as she awakes refreshed with suitably energetic material, tonally a dominant in B flat major. Performance material here:

Archduchess Trio - Download Sheet Music PDF file (scoreexchange.com)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6NNrQiGsAY

Bassoon and Piano

La gigantona y el enano cabezon (youtube.com)

Based on Nicaraguan folk tunes celebrating La Gigantona -
available at Cayambis Music Press: Alvarez | La gigantona y el enano cabezon

La Gigantona, una tradición que lleva humor y picardía a las calles de Nicaragua - Infobae

1: Old Lace
2: Rice Pudding Passacaglia
3: The Judderman
4: Ice Rink

White Suite - Download Sheet Music PDF file (scoreexchange.com)
White Suite (youtube.com)

The cover photograph is by Phillip Costen.
The sculptures are ‘Conversation Piece’ by Muñoz in South Shields.

Accordion

A rhapsody on Ukrainian folk melodies for virtouso Bayan (Russian accordion) player Tatjana Bulava.

http://www.tabutbstudio.com/

Rhapsodie in Blau und Gelb (youtube.com)
https://www.scoreexchange.com/scores/rhapsodie-in-blau-und-gelb-625180.html

There are two other works containing accordion parts listed at the bottom of this webpage.

Solo Oboe

Alvarez | Stormy Daniel (cayambismusicpress.com)

In 1985 an Oboe Concerto was completed and performed at St John’s Smith Square, London with the soloist Nicholas Daniel conducted by the composer.

The association with this virtuoso was resumed with the emergence of Stormy Daniels in 2018, her name suggesting a turbulent wind piece for the oboist with a similar name expressed in an atonal idiom redolent of Varèse which resurfaces in later orchestral works by Álvarez such as ‘The brassic Fish Lass.’- the second movment of ‘A Sunderland Symphony’ (2023) halfway down this webpage .

This work is built on three themes: theme one is characterized by widely spaced accented figures and quintuple or sextuplet semiquaver flourishes elaborating an arabesque. Theme two is largely built on a hieratic triplet-crotchet motion with grace-notes accenting the snake-like writhing of the melody, a repeated single-note figure characterized by transitions to breathy notes at the end of each note, and an ascending multi-note acciaccatura. Theme three is linked to theme two with the latter ornament appearing with great frequency here and the introduction of a scooping motiv of two short notes linked to rapidly rising or falling to a longer concluding note and a single short note repeated once as a longer one. The development section begins at m. 61 with a statement of the quintuplets of the first theme, the listener alerted to this by a long, fairly high held note with a crescendo, later confirmed by an even longer held note on an even higher note. There is a brief recapitulation at m. 123, characterized initially by a return to the low notes of the opening.

Bass Clarinet and Marimba

Tres mundos para dos jugadores
for bass clarinet and marimba
duration 12′ 50″
written for the Dúo Antwerp

Alvarez | Tres mundos para dos jugadores (cayambismusicpress.com)

Piano Duet

A short fantasia dedicated to the memory of Sycamore Gap,
based on the following English folk song:

An English Overture (piano duet version) - PDF file (scoreexchange.com)
An English Overture (youtube.com)

Viola and pianoforte

A Fantasia on fiery themes by Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin.

Salamander - Download Sheet Music PDF file scoreexchange.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo_mFHBcKgY&feature=youtu.be

The Song of Songs

שִׁ֥יר הַשִּׁירִ֖ים - Download Sheet Music PDF file (scoreexchange.com)
שִׁיר הַשִּׁירִים (youtube.com)

The motivs from this set of variations are taken from two versions of the Song of Songs, (1) read in Hebrew with Ashkenazi Nigun by Rabbi Moshe Weisblum PhD transcribed by Geoffrey Álvarez Song of Songs reading Hebrew Ashkenaz Rabbi Weisblum שיר השירים פסח נוסח אשכנז (youtube.com) and (2) from the transcription of the Yemenite version by Professor Eigatures Werner from Hebräische Musik-vol.20 of Das Musikwerk. Darmstadt, 1961.

The illustration shows „Das Hohenlied Salomos“ Nr.11 from the Bilderzyklus by the German Artist Egon Tschirch*22. Juni 1889 Rostock, Germany). His heir Wolfgang Adler provided a permission to publish all his works under the licence Cc-y-sa-3.0-de

sex carmina: linguis six - Download Music PDF file (scoreexchange.com)
sex carmina (youtube.com)

This collection of six songs by Geoffrey Álvarez was a response to Wolfgang Wölfer's request for something for the combination of instruments envisaged for this project and is a heterogenous ‘Ensalada’ in differing styles and languages, from the poetry of Victorian Englishman Ernest Dowson to a setting of an early French recipe for Bechamel sauce and a transcription of a folk song by the greatest living Maltese writer, Joseph Vella Bondin,featuring in the opera, Dawk lifuq l-iġfna jbaħħru

Piano Solo

sample score • premiere by Matthew Schellhorn • duration 13′ 17″

Premiered in the 10 x 10 Recital (alvarezchamberorchestra.com)
hosted by the Alvarez Chamber Orchestra and Markson Pianos

The Cradle an the Mill –
a meditation on two Galician folk songs

for solo piano

score • digital realisation • duration

“O neniño” y “Muiñeira” The Cradle and the Mill

“O neniño” is based on a traditional Galician lullaby,
a “canción de cuna” or “arrorró” seldom heard nowadays.

Text of original song

O neniñoo... que el ven o cocon, a comer os nenos que non dormen non.
O neniñoo... e ten pai quen e, a virgin do Carmen e mais San Jose. Ooo, oo...

English Translation

Oh, little baby, The bogeyman is coming to eat up the children if they don't go to sleep Oh little baby, who is your father? The Virgin of Carmen and also Saint Joseph.

This version of the arrorró was sung by Manuela Lema Sánchez in Corcubión, November 23, 1962, recorded by Alan Lomax.

“Muiñeira” is a Mill dance.

version for piano duet

String Quartets

Quarternity (youtube.com)
Quarternity - Download Music PDF file (scoreexchange.com)

This Quartettsatz is structured according to the Jungian concept of the Quarternity. This archetype expands the traditional doctrine of the Trinity by the addition of the feminine, the Virgin. He places the Virgin at one end of a horizontal axis balancing the Holy Spirit at the other end. A vertical axis with God at the top and Jesus at bottom completes the picture. The instrumentation of the work reflects this structure: God is the viola, Jesus the violoncello whilst the violins are the Virgin and the Holy Spirit. The thematic working and pairing of instruments reflects the concept. © Copyright Geoffrey Alvarez 2015

Superstring Quartet - Download Sheet Music PDF file (scoreexchange.com)
Superstring Quartet (youtube.com)

The Superstring Quartet explores musically some concepts within Superstring Theory: bar 169, for instance, is a ten part canon expressed in only four voices; an analogy of the the dimensions that superstrings oscillate in, only four being observable, the others vibrating tightly curled in a six dimensional Calabi-Yau manifold* (reproduced above).
Duration circa 8' 30"

The piece is dedicated to scientific consultant and musicologist Eila Bannister.
*Professor Andrew Hanson’s visualisation of a Calabi-Yau manifold has been reproduced with his permission. http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~hanson/

Fun-key
for piano duet

sample score • digital realisation • duration 7′ 23″ Lute El primer olor for baritone and lute

peruse and purchase score • duration circa 2′

Also in The Lute Society of America Quarterly Volume XXXIII, 1998
Issue No. 4 A Plaine and Easy Introduction to New Lute Musicke – Parte One, by Betsy Small

Teares and Lamentations – Six Sundry Sighs
for ten course lute

sample score • duration 13′ 17″

Edition Published by the Lute Society ISBN 0 905655 32 X

Alisimon’s Pursuit Lady Luckett’s Lachrimae: a dolorous Dumpe
Doctor Foster’s Fancy
Father Fazackerley’s Pestilence
St. Andrew’s Complainte
Mistress Gillie Johnson’s Goodnight

Sith that dear Voice... Is reft from Earth to tune those spheres above, What art thou now but a harbinger of woe? Thy pleasing notes by pleasing notes no more, But Orphan wailings to the fainting ear, Each stop a sigh, each sound draw forth a tear...

From To His Lute’ by William Drummond of Hawthornden (1585-1649)
Illustration: Hendrick ter Brugghen (1588 - 1629)
Lute player 1624 National Gallery, London. No. 6347

KerbCrawling
ballet for ten instruments

KerbCrawling.pdf (dropbox.com) • duration 20′

Flute/Piccolo, Oboe/Cor Anglais, Clarinet in A, Horn in F,
Pianoforte, 2 Violins, Viola, Violoncello, Double Bass.

Perfomances:

Anemone, York Festival, 1989
Nottingham University (1989)
Oxford University Sinfonia, (1998)

Obsessions

for flute, viola and harp • details

susurritos sonrosados

for flutes, clarinets, soprano and percussion • details

Songs My Parrot Taught Me:
a Carnival of Domestic Animals

soprano, alto, tenor, clarinet, violin, violoncello and pianoforte • details

Horn Trio

The Cimmerian Sybil

score • duration circa 20′

Painting of the Cimmerian Sybil by Guercino (1591 -1666)

Beyond the Black Sea
In the frozen northern wastes
beyond the the Caucasus
Dwells the Cimmerian Sibyl.

Apollo descends
to receive the plentiful blessings
from her cornucopia.

Bran’s Singing Head:

for soprano, clarinet and harp • details

Orchestral material available for hire or
purchase from Geoffrey Alvarez

Strings

sample score • digital realisation • duration 14′ 13″

Quarternity - Download Sheet Music PDF file (scoreexchange.com)

The Camomile Pillow

for cello ensemble • details

Sonata

for violoncello and pianoforte

first performance 1985 by Susan Hargreaves – violoncello,
Dominic Saunders – piano, University of York.

sample score • digital realisation • duration 17′ 19″

Wind & Brass

King Solomon’s Monsters:

for two clarinets and bassoon
view and purchase • duration 17′ 19″

Spinning Night
for trombone and piano

peruse and purchase • duration 20′

Alan Tomlinson, trombone; Geoffrey Álvarez, piano

British Music Information Centre. March 25 1997
University of Oxford
Contemporary Music Society, 1998
British Trombone Society 13th Annual Festival,
November 15 1998

A virtuoso exploitation of the unique talents of trombonist Alan Tomlinson drawing on the symbolism of the longest night of the year: the trombonist exorcises the dark spirits of the dying year by literally spinning to ensure the world returns to the light.

Reed Bed
clarinet choir • details

The Travelling Musicians
wind quintet • details

The Laughing Lotus
wind quintet • details

Brass Etchings
for brass quintet • details

The following two works were commissioned by FILUM Musikschule for the Bundeswettbewerb Jugend musiziert, 2023. As a result, they are not currently available for sale or performance outside of the institution. However, permission has been obtained to program Tzimtzum for a professional development course in Gipfel in the Autumn of 2024, so it is possible that similar arrangements can be made for other occassions - however anyone interested should initially contact Geoffrey Alvarez who will in turn make an application to FILUM with any suggestion for events scheduled before summer 2026. All sample videos are computer realisations of unperformed earlier versions of the pieces due to similar restrictions.

Tzimtzum

Tzimtzum entwickelt Material aus drei jüdischen Themen: Yedid Nephesh (Idelsohn, Abraham Z., Hebräisch-Orientalischer Melodienschatz Bd. X: Gesange der Chassidim (Leipzig: Friedrich Hofmeister, 1932) Nr. 363. Elu veelu modim (Idelsohn, Hebräisch-Orientalischer Melodienschatz Bd. IV: Gesange der Orientalischen Sefardim (Jerusalem - Berlin - Wien: Benjamin Harz Verlag, 1923) Nr. 179. und Rebbins nigun, ebd. Nr. 168. Der Titel ist dem kabblistischen Begriff für den Raum entnommen von G-tt zugewiesen, damit die Schöpfung aus den Schriften stattfinden kann des palästinensischen Neomystikers Isaac Luria. Sein Schüler Eleasar Azkari komponierte das Gedicht, das durch die erste Melodie veredelt wird in
diesem Werk aus der Transkription des Musikethnologen Abraham Z. Idelsohn in der oben genannten Veröffentlichung Wie Idelsohn in Jewish Music: Its Historic Development feststellt, (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1929), S. 411: „Diese Melodien [beziehen sich im vorliegenden Fall auf Yedid Nephesh] haben einen Geschmack von Überirdischem - wie
ein wogender Nebel, der sich ins Unendliche (en sof) verliert." Beauftragt von die Musikschule der Stadt Filderstadt - FILUM

Tzimtzum (youtube.com)

Boum!

„Boum!“ geht auf verschiedene Weise mit diesem vergangenen Erbe um, von der fast vollständigen Auslöschung der Geschichte zu Beginn des Werks bis zur Akzeptanz am Ende. Mal werden die historischen Vorbilder harmonisch verzerrt, wie beim Auftakt, mal wird die Phraseologie erweitert (Probenbuchstabe E). Boum! ist eine Hommage an die letzten fünfhundert Jahre traditioneller und populärer französischer Lieder und Tänze. Das Werk beginnt mit einem Verweis auf Pierre Attaingnants Basse Dance La Magdelena P.B. aus seinen „Dixhuit Basse Dances, 1529“ mit einer Anspielung auf Monteverdi und endet mit einer Galliarde aus „La Garde“, einer 1571 von Pierre Phalèse herausgegebenen Sammlung neuere Anspielungen auf der Chanson Boum! von Charles Trenet aus dem Jahr 1938, das in der Mitte des Stücks vorkommt, Fragmente auch an anderer Stelle häufig vorkommen, gesehen mit den Augen von Monteverdi oder Vivaldi. Zwei traditionelle Volkslieder, ein Vogelhochzeitslied Lou Coucu e l' Hirondelo und ein Wiegenlied Le chat à Jeanette werden unterschiedlichen Transformationen unterzogen, wobei ersteres mit einer russischen Wendung versehen wurde, die auf Strawinskys eigene Hochzeitsmusik Les Noces anspielt, und die beiden gleichtaktigen Rhythmen des letzteren nun zu einem Dreiertakt werden, um den Schwung zu betonen einschläfernde Wirkung des Wiegenlieds, die durch eine belebende Behandlung der Galliarde kontrastiert wird, die mit einem Klarinetten-Diskont bekränzt ist, in dem der Jazz-Klarinettist Benny Goodman hereinplatzt Französisches Gericht. Diese Studienpartitur enthält die vollständige Notation der Akkorde in der linken Hand der Akkordeonstimme nach dem Stradella-System.

Boum (youtube.com)

You Lan

,You Lan‘ - die ‚Solitary Orchid‘ des Titels dieses Stücks wird durch die Gegenüberstellung zweier alter chinesischer Meditationsmelodien symbolisiert: 碣石調幽蘭: ‚A Solitary Orchid in the Stone Mode‘ für古琴 guqin, die chinesische Zither, und ‚Elegant Music‘ für die chinesische Mundharmonika Sheng, ersteres Werk, das erste notierte Stück fernöstlicher Musik aus dem 6. Jahrhundert, letzteres aus einer ähnlichen antiken Epoche Der meditative Charakter dieser Themen steht im Kontrast zu dem lebhaften ,Aufhängen der roten Laterne' aus der Provinz Shangdong: Die Orchidee ist allein, während die eujahrsfeierlichkeiten um sie herum stattfinden. Das Sheng wird im Chinesischen mit zwei übereinander liegenden Schriftzeichen angezeigt – 笙 das oberste bedeutet „Bambus“ und das untere bedeutet „Leben“ – geeignet, um der Orchidee, die von der Guqin gespielt wird, Existenz zu verleihen. Für das vorliegende Werk wurde das Sheng durch das Akkordeon ersetzt, das selbst ein Nachkomme des edlen chinesischen Vorfahren ist, das 1777 von dem Jesuiten Joseph Marie Amiot in Wien eingeführt wurde. Die chromatische Stimmung des modernen Akkordeonsermöglicht die Tonleiter des Sheng , das auf D basiert, um einen Ton auf C
abgesenkt werden, um mit der Tonalität der Sheng-Melodie zu harmonieren: C D E Fis G A B H Beauftragt von die Musikschule der Stadt Filderstadt - FILUM.

Youlan (youtube.com)

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