Yo Picasso (1997) for clarinet, viola, cello and piano

by Thomas Oboe Lee

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PadraigC As a visual artist I love when a release such as this pops up on my recommended. I've always found the intersection of art and music to be so interesting and enjoyable. This release is a perfect example of that - lively, engaging and colourful. I can't pick a favourite track. I loved reading the release notes, eloquent and informative.

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	1.	Blue Period ... The Absinthe Drinker 04:32
	2.	Rose Period ... The Acrobat Family 02:51
	3.	Les Demoiselles d'Avignon 03:46
	4.	Cubism ... Botteille de Bass 01:54
	5.	Guernica 01:43

about

When Nancy Braithwaite Wiersdma and the Arto Ensemble asked me to write a piece for their 1997-98 season, I immediately thought the name “Arto” could be the source of some musical ideas for the piece. Music inspired by the visual art is not something new. Mussorgsky composed his infamous “Pictures at an Exhibition” after viewing a memorial exhibition of paintings and drawings by Victor Alexandrovich Hartmann. Gunther Schuller, my teacher and mentor, composed one of his most memorable orchestral pieces entitled, “Six Studies on Themes by Paul Klee.” Last spring as I was searching for ideas for this composition, I came upon a two-volume book on Picasso. In looking through these volumes I discovered that his work is very evocative of mood, atmosphere and drama. I thought I could easily translate into music what he does with color, harmony and texture. The instrumentation of the “Arto” - Bb clarinet, viola, cello, and piano, which is essentially dark and low - also seems to reflect the moody, melancholic, and brooding atmosphere of Picasso's work. Conveniently, Picasso’s work falls into very distinctive periods which allows me to conjure up a series of movements which mirrors these stylistic changes in his career.

The movements are:

I. For that haunting La buveuse d'absinthe or "The Absinthe Drinker" (Paris, 1901) from the Blue Period, some atmospheric music that could be described as withdrawn, sullen, and deliriously drunk.

II. From the Rose Period, Famille d'acrobates avec singe or "The Acrobat's Family with a Monkey" (Paris, 1905) inspired a crazy waltz that could have been played by a circus band. The cascading falling runs are for the “Monkey” ...

III. Les Demoiselles D'Avignon (Paris, 1907) inspired some sensuous, sexy, dreamy "bordello" music from way, ... way down south of the border.

IV. Cubism is visual art going ultra-modern, intellectual and abstract. For Bouteille de Bass, clarinette, guitare, violon, journal, as de trèfle or "Bottle of Bass, Clarinet, Guitar, Violin, Newspaper, Ace of Clubs" (Paris, 1913) an "abstract" movement punctuated by disjointed riffs and slam-dunks for Bb clarinet, viola and piano against a cello walking a jazz bass-line that refuses to join in ...

V. Art and politics finally join hands in the Picasso masterpiece, Guernica (Paris, 1937). What could be more appropriate than a little martial music that is "macho," brutal and relentlessly brutal?

credits

released August 27, 2018

Rietveld Ensemble
Nancy Braithwaite, clarinet
Richard Wolfe, viola
Matthias Naegele, cello
Ernst Munneke, piano

Music by Thomas Oboe Lee

Recorded at Westvest kerk in Schiedam, the Netherlands
June 29, 2018

Peter Arts, recording engineer and editor

© Departed Feathers Music, Inc. - BMI

YouTube link: youtu.be/GtJNs_yYU9Q

Photo credit: Thomas Oboe Lee, detail from a Picasso work in the Harvard Art Museums.

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about

Thomas Oboe Lee Cambridge, Massachusetts

Thomas Oboe Lee was born in China in 1945. He lived in São Paulo, Brazil, for six years before coming to the United States in 1966. After graduating from the University of Pittsburgh, he studied composition at the New England Conservatory and Harvard University. He has been a member of the music faculty at Boston College since 1990. ... more

thomasoboelee.com

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