Interlude '96 - "The Four B's" - Program Notes</ TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY><BR> <B>Program Notes</b><p> Were he alive today, <B>Leonard Bernstein</b> would be celebrating his 78th birthday. No other American musician has done as much as Bernstein to popularize American music. A composer (classical and popular), conductor, performer, and educator, he touched the lives of millions as the first classical musician to use the medium of television to bring classical music to the general public.<p> Bernstein's "Clarinet Sonata" is his first published work. It was written for his clarinetist friend, David Oppenheim, who went on to a long career in the recording industry. The first movement shows influences of Hindemith, but also of the Broadway composer to come. The second movement opens with a slow introduction (which contains the famous chords from "Somewhere" of "West Side Story"), then proceeds to a vigorous 5/8 section of jazzy rhythmic vitality. A slow interlude evolves back into the 5/8 music, and an ever accelerating coda brings the sonata to a close.<p> <B>Allan Blank</b> was born in New York City in 1925. His early musical training was on the violin. He attended the High School of Music and Art in New York, where an interest in conducting and composition was fostered. Further studies were at the Juilliard School, Washington Square College, University of Minnesota, and University of Iowa. He was a violinist with the Pittsburgh Symphony (1950-52), and has taught at a number of schools and universities. Currently he is Professor Emeritus at Virginia Commonwealth University.<p> Recent awards include First Prize in the George Eastman Competition, the Eric Satie Mostly Tonal Award, and the Chautauqua Chamber Singers Annual Choral Composition Contest. He has received commission grants from the National Endowment Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Virginia Shakespeare Festival, The Virginia Music Teachers Association, and the Roxbury Chamber Players.<p> "Links" was written for the 1988 International Clarinet Society conference held at VCU in Richmond. The work is in nine sections, with an Introduction that supplies many of the ideas elaborated on later. The groupings of the three instruments are arranged in shifting patterns of trios, duos, and solos, which unfold a wide expressive palette.<p> <B>Luciano Berio</b> studied music with his father, an organist, and at the Milan Conservatory. He studied conducting with Giulini and composition with Ghedini. In 1952, Berio received a Koussevitzky Foundation Fellowship which allowed him to study at Tanglewood with Dallapiccola, after which he returned to Italy to join the Italian radio staff. At this time Berio founded the Studiodi Fonoglia Musicale for experimentation with acoustics. His many works cover the entire range of twentieth century styles and ideas, and represent chamber music, orchestral music, and electronic music.<p> In 1970, the Dorian Wind Quintet offered a commission to Berio, who was so busy that he would require several years to complete it. However, he mentioned that he had written a work in 1951 for woodwind quartet and narrator, that it had never been performed, and that he was willing to rewrite it for woodwind quintet, which he did. This requires the performers to develop a new technique of fast alternating between speaking and playing (both undertaken by members of the quintet) - a whole new type of coordination. As Barry Benjamin, the Dorian Quintet's horn player, put it: "You have to be careful to speak into the audience and blow into your instrument...not vice versa!"<p> <A HREF="beriotxt.html"> Opus Number Zoo