ONCE Group - Roger Reynolds

Roger Reynolds

Roger Reynolds (b. 1934) returned to Ann Arbor after completing a degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Michigan and then working in Los Angeles as a systems development engineer in the missile industry. Reynolds was not exposed to music at all during his childhood, but became fascinated and inspired by music during his undergraduate by pianist William Doppmann and musicologist and performer Sherman Van Solkema. Reynolds realized in Los Angeles that he was enjoying spending his time as a pianist in the evenings more than his time as an engineer during the day, so he returned to Ann Arbor to study music and ultimately composition with Finney. Among his contributions to the ONCE Festival include:

Epigram and Evolution (1960), for piano solo, was Reynolds’s first piece performed at ONCE and the second piece he composed. The composition is crafted around a three-measure epigram containing “an upward flourish, a downward slur, an explosive low-register sforzando and a pair of almost simultaneous dyads.” The epigram contains, on a micro-organizational level, four distinct “sonic circumstances” or musical motive. In the evolution section, each motive expands to comprise a variation movement, each of which is associated with a particular character trait.

Wedge (1961), for piano, two flutes, two trumpets, two trombones, tuba, double bass, and percussion, is a study in metrical, timbral, and textural contrasts. The piece is composed of two overlapping musical layers, one “serene and proportioned” (winds and double bass) and the other made up of “dynamic and varied blocks of sound” (percussion). The name Wedge comes from the fact that each layer is “a wedge-shaped entity in a field which had pitch as its vertical axis and time as its horizontal one.” Reynolds used numerical ratios to define the structure of the layers, manage pitch by tetrachordal aggregates, and employ a technique he learned from Gerhard called “horizon-tone” numbering. Reynolds’s intent was “to create a situation in which time moves at different rates and with different sorts of momentum simultaneously.”

Mosaic (1962) is a set of variations—without a theme—for flute and piano. The piece introduces a rich array of new sounds for the flute, including key slaps, tone bending, breath tones, and flutter tongue, while the pianist is required to use knuckles on the keys, play glissandi inside the instrument, and place paper inside of the instrument to create a buzzing sound. Reynolds explains that he paid a new level of attention to “instrumental ‘color’ and the shaping influence of the texture.” In the manuscript, Reynolds even includes “rudimentary linear drawings” among his sketches, trying to evoke particular characters and texture.

A Portrait of Vanzetti (1962–63), for narrator, two flutes, two French horns, trumpet, clarinet, trombone, percussion, and electroacoustic sounds consists of edited letters from Italian anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti, who emigrated to the U.S. and was convicted of two murders in 1921. Although another man confessed to the crime, Vanzetti was executed in 1927. The work is an extension of Reynolds’s use of text in some of his compositions and reflects his interest in cutting-edge electronic sounds. A Portrait of Vanzetti represents a newly defined socio-political influence in Reynolds’s compositions. The piece is eerie and disturbing, the wind and percussion sounds heightening the narrator’s seemingly calm vocal style.

Reynolds’s duet Continuum is for violin and cello and is modeled off of the traditional early music four-movement sonata tempo structure: slow, fast, slow, fast. Continuum is clearly contemporary, however, and exhibits Reynolds’s interest in direct manipulation of sounds. The motives of each movement are defined by dynamics, rather than a melodic phrase. In his notes that precede the score published in Generation magazine, Reynolds makes clear that his compositional goal in Continuum was to “exploit dynamics as more than an adjunct to traditional habits of expressivity.” Reynolds is negotiating with sound directly and exploring alternative methods of achieving emotional affect to make an old structure contemporary and personal.