A Master’s Composition Recital by

Kenneth L. Field

6:00 PM

Monday May 19th, 2003

Little Theater

California State University, Fullerton

_____________________Program_____________________

Kenneth L. Field

Master’s Composition Recital

Suite for Right Hand Piano (In the Phrygian Mode), 2000

I. Prelude
II. Chant
III. Dance

Ellen Golden, Piano

Passacaglia (For Harpsichord, String Quartet, and Bass Guitar), 2000

Nanako Urase, harpsichord
Daniel Noh, 1st violin
Katherine Paschal, 2nd violin
James Rhodes, viola
Hanna Kim, cello
Jon Brenner, bass guitar

Canon Fodder (For Two Guitars), 2003

Oliver Althoen, guitar
Dan Johnson, guitar

Meditation: Ex Nihilo (For Piano and String Quartet), 2001

Reiko Israel, piano
Daniel Noh, 1st violin
Katherine Paschal, 2nd violin
Ciprian Jivcu, viola
Hanna Kim, cello

Intermission

fifty seven one (Dedicated to the victims and survivors of 9/11), 2002

LaVista Silva, soprano; Scott Ziemann, bass
Betty Lee, alto; David Snedegar, tenor
Ben Planché, tenor; Amanda Hoyny, alto
Jason Halliday, bass; Cindy Stück, soprano
Hannah Baker, soprano; Josh Stansfield, bass
Devon Glenn, alto; Quang Le, tenor
Daniel Muñoz, tenor; Dzidzofe Avouglan, soprano
Ryan Demaree, bass

Nicole Baker, conducting

The Beatitudes (For Electronics), 2002
  —Music quoted: Beati Pauperes Spiritu, Adrian Willaert (1490-1562)

Rafaela Acevedo-Field, Spanish speaker
Kirsten Bersch, German speaker
Kenneth L. Field, English speaker
Ciprian Jivcu, Romanian speaker
Lloyd Rodgers, Latin speaker
Shinobu Yoshida, Japanese speaker

Three movements from “Mass for Choir and Percussion Ensemble”, 2003

Jack Mizutani, percussion
Brian Sayre, percussion
Susan Willmering, percussion
Younhee Bang, keyboard

Andrea Dodson, soprano; Mike Adkins, tenor
Emily Money, soprano; Bradley Evans, tenor
LaVista Silva, soprano; Sam Nuñez, tenor
Judi Elterman, alto; Ryan Demaree, bass
Devon Glenn, alto; Josh Stansfield, bass
Anna Hanson, alto; Scott Ziemann, bass
Douglas Law, alto

Lee Lee Truong, conducting

______________Program Notes______________

Kenneth L. Field (b. 1961) first studied composition in high school at Interlochen Arts Academy in Michigan. He has performed and written music for Lazarus, Altar, and Ars Nova - three rock bands from Michigan. He has accompanied church choirs, played piano for contemporary worship teams, and been a worship pastor for a small church in Pico Rivera. He as recorded a solo piano CD - Half a World Away - of his own material. He is currently completing his Master of Music degree at Cal State Fullerton after graduating from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a Ph.D. in linguistics in 1997. As a composer, he has been influenced by Krzysztof Penderecki, Henryk Górecki, John Tavener, and Arvo Pärt. He sees composition as a form of prayer — listening and then speaking the eternal Word in sound ikons or images

Suite for Right Hand Piano was written in the fall of 2000. This is a short three movement solo piano work for right hand only. The suite is unified by a head motive which appears at the beginning of each movement.

Prelude: A rhythmically charged prelude which slowly loops in new melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic ideas.

Chant: Initially, the rhythmically-free chant appears by itself. Another voice, a slow moving chorale, then appears below the chant. Next, the chorale appears above the chant. Then the upper and lower voices of the chorale appear together, almost overwhelming the chant. Suddenly, the chorale disappears and the chant emerges by itself again.

Dance: This celebratory dance is in binary form. The first section is a two voice canon at the 5th. The second section is an inversion of the first section.

Passacaglia for harpsichord, string quartet, and bass guitar was written in the fall of 2000. In the baroque era, the passacaglia was a set of variations written over a repeated bass line, called a ground bass. In this work, which is distinctly neo-Baroque in style, the harpsichord enters alone playing a ten measure phrase in F Dorian which includes the ground bass line. The work can be considered neo-baroque, rather than baroque, because the chord progression over the ground bass has clearly more in common with modern pop than with the17th century.

The structure of this work is relatively simple. All in all there are 21 repetitions (or variations) of the ten bar chord progression/ground bass line. Tuttis - where everyone is playing - and solos alternate in groups of three. Each instrument has its own solo section and later each instrument plays a combo (or duet) with another instrument.

After the solo harpsichord plays the first rendition of the ten bar phrase, the strings follow with the cello doubling the ground bass. The bass guitar, definitely not a baroque instrument, enters next with a rhythmic transformation of ground bass line. This rhythmic motive propels the work as it moves from one variation to the next, giving it a jazzy feel as well as a nice groove.

The first set of solos begins with the 1st violin playing fancy baroque-like figure. The cello follows, playing a very lyrical melody. The harpsichord rounds out the first group of solos with a flourish. During the next group of tutti sections, the work modulates to the relative major, A flat. The ground bass line has been transposed to A flat major, but the basic form of the ground bass line has remained the same. The accompanying chordal progression, however, has been transformed to A flat major.

The next group of solos begins with a shift from duple to triple time. The outcome is a Baroque shuffle! The 2nd violin starts off with a virtuosic solo (treating everyone equally is my motto!) followed by the viola playing a more melodic rather than virtuosic line. The bass guitar solo is a walking bass line up into the high registers of the bass. The next set of tuttis brings back the original key, F Dorian, and then back to the original duple time.

The next section is a set of three combos (or duets). The first puts the 1st and 2nd violins together with the cello carrying the ground bass. The second combo sets the viola and bass guitar together against the cello. The third combo consists of the cello and harpsichord playing together while the bass guitar carries the ground bass. In this last combo, the right hand of the harpsichord and the cello are playing the same figure, except that the harpsichord is playing it twice as fast!

The work ends with 3 tutti sections which serve as a sort of recapitulation. The final tutti consists of the harpsichord playing an accented quarter note figuration on the first beat while everyone else plays the rhythmic version of the ground bass in unison. This brings the work to an exciting close.

Canon Fodder, the most recent work on the program, was written in April and May of 2003. Structured in an ABACA format, the concept of this short work is a fairly simple one. The first guitar starts the piece and one measure later, the second guitar enters, playing exactly the same thing as the first guitar has just played. Listen and see if you can hear the second guitar echoing the first guitar!

Meditation: Ex Nihilo was written during the spring of 2001. As the title suggests, Meditation is a more reflective work. In fact, it is best understood as a form of prayer. The original content of the work was based on a 25 minute piano improvisation. This original improvisation was then “orchestrated” for piano and string quartet. However, the string quartet is treated more like a single instrument in conversation with the piano rather than four separate entities.

The texture of the work is very thin. Often there is only one or two instruments playing at a time. On the piano, both hands never play at the same time. In addition, there is no polyphony in the work. Melodic lines are bounced from one instrument to the other, or played in unisons or octaves. Harmonic passages, mostly in fourths and fifths, resemble organum from the middle ages. There are also passages which give the impression of music played in a great hall that keeps echoing and reverberating off the grand arched ceilings.

The form of the work emerges from the original improvisation. The most salient feature is the low E flat - B flat fifth which keeps coming back in the piano. Played at varying dynamic levels, each time this motto returns, it signals the beginning of a new improvisatory section. In addition, almost every section either begins or ends in silence.

The tempo in this work is not strict. In fact, the rhythmic notation is only meant as a guide. There is an ebb and flow with each phrase, a continual moving forward and sliding back. The piano marks off each section of the work by lifting the sustain at the end of a section and depressing it for the opening of a section. The string players are to sit as closely as possible to the fully opened piano lid so the piano will catch the sounds of the string players.

The work is a meditation on the Genesis creation account. Each section has an assigned verse from Genesis chapters 1 and the first part of chapter 2. The music is not meant to be descriptive. Rather, it is meant to open the heart to the truths that are contained in these verses. This is similar to the concept in the Orthodox Tradition where icons are used to facilitate and encourage prayer. The icon is like a window into heaven. It is not meant to be an exact representation but a tool which opens up the heart to the divine. This work is meant in that way.

The work begins where it ends: in silence. The piano depresses the sustain pedal and we wait and listen. After a long meditative silence, the second violin enters ex nihilo, literally “out of nothing.” Just as the universe came into being out of nothing, the sound of the 2nd violin touches the ear as almost imperceptible, then growing in strength. The cello, the viola, and finally the 1st violin all enter in unison on E flat with the 2nd violin. The piano, in the meantime, though not playing, still has the sustain pedal depressed. The sounds of the strings echo inside the piano.

The work starts slow with shorter phrases. There is a continual ebb and flow of phrases. There are also chant-like melodies echoing alongside organum. As the work progresses, the phrases get longer, the notes get faster, and the texture becomes more dense - a reflection of the increasing complexity in the Genesis creation account. The work finally comes to a close with the piano playing E flat in two different octaves quietly as the strings fade off into the silence playing harmonics up into the stratosphere - God rested on the seventh day. The work ends as it begins - in silence.

The work’s title fifty-seven one is a Biblical reference to the Psalm 57, verse 1. Just as the referent of the title is unclear, the presentation of the text is such that there is only one spot in the work where the text is clearly understandable and this is shouted in Greek at the climax. The impetus for this work came from the 9/11 tragedy, but the concept of the work had been with me for months. The basic idea was to treat the choir more like an orchestra, where there are many timbres and many solo instruments. I scored the work for 16 voices arranged in 4 SATB quartets mirrored in a semi-circle arrangement. Each voice has its own part.

I chose to use the phonemes of English (plus a few others) as my color palette. The work begins with the weakest sounds, fricatives. One of the weakest fricatives, the interdental fricative ‘th,’ starts the piece, barely audible. The sound spreads from the center of the choir outward in both directions and returns to the center. The next gestures are similar but the fricatives used are ‘s,’ then ‘sh’, each wedge growing in intensity and dynamic. The next section uses waves of voiceless fricatives, like an ocean, pounding at a beach. Finally, out of the ocean, emerge voiced sounds. Pitches are determined by a simple pitch class set (starting pitch, minor second up, major second down, minor third up) and the inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversions of this set. The waves still pound until everything is voiced This section ends with an explosion of stopped consonants.

In the following section, quartets of nasal sounds enter in canon style. Eventually, after the nasals die out in small explosions, vowels enter into the fray but they form no words. Tonally a large octave cluster is built, but this falls apart with hints of consonant intervals emerging as voices fall away. The next section sees the emergence of more complex structures, which in fact are the syllables of kyrie eleison ‘Lord, have mercy’ stratified by phoneme. This moves quickly to kyrie eleison being whispered in canon by all sixteen voices. This builds in dynamic and tempo until everyone is yelling in uncoordinated chaos. After a grand pause, the climax is reached, everyone shouting kyrie eleison in unison with short pauses between each syllable.

Once the climax is passed, the work reverses itself in the way it was built up. The rest of the text (in English now) is approached the same way as the Greek text, with the phonemes of each syllable stratified against each other in unison making the text indistinguishable. The pieces ends as it begins as vowels move on to nasals which move on to voiced fricatives which move on to voiceless fricatives which die out into silence.

This work makes use of symbolic language to communicate eternal truths. There are grand sweeping waves of sound that emerge from silence, pounding on the beach of time. From this ocean of voiceless fricatives (which are basically organized noise) emerge voiced fricatives (which are still noisy but more organized). After a grand pause, the nasals emerge out of silence (these are even more organized) but die away in mini explosions. Vowels (the most organized of the vocal sounds) enter next out of the background noise left behind by the nasals. The vowels cover the entire vowel space and the pitches cover all 12 tones. Eventually syllables, then words appear. Basically, the whole piece is one huge evolutionary wave building up to the climax where everyone shouts kyrie eleison in unison. After that the direction reverses and LOGOS returns to the ocean of silence.

The Beatitudes is a work for electronics. This work was created using a digital processing program called Pro Tools. The source or input data for this work came from recorded speech of six speakers each reading the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) in their own language. This recorded speech data was then manipulated using Pro Tools and an off-board digital signal processor. Everything that you hear is derived from spoken text, even the short choral rendition of Adrian Willaert’s Beati Pauperes Spiritu - a motet for five voices - is entirely derived from spoken text that has been shortened, elongated, reversed, altered in pitch, or any number of other processes. This work is meant to be experienced, not just listened to! Enjoy!

Over the course of my study at California State University, Fullerton, I have come to an understanding that I see my compositions as ikons. The Orthodox Tradition of Christianity sees ikons as windows into heaven, objects where the sacred or transcendent intersect our present world and time. Both John Tavener and Arvo Pärt see there own musical oeuvre in a similar manner. Because of this, it is essential in my own work that it reflect my spiritual outlook, which is rooted in Christianity, but is able to draw freely from the Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox Traditions. In addition to this spiritual influence, my choral works have been influenced by my linguistic background. Because of my understanding of the structures present in language and phonetics, I find these valuable organization tools for texted works.

Thus, for my Master’s thesis project, I have written a Mass for choir and percussion ensemble. This is five movement work lasting approximately twenty minutes when performed in full. (Only the last three movements are being performed tonight.) The movements and texts follow along traditional lines: Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. The percussion ensemble is large, requiring five players in the first movement, four in the second, three in the third, two in the fourth, and finally only one in the last movement playing the tubular bells. The work is conceptual in that the choir initially must cry out to God through the noise and chaos of the percussion ensemble. As the work proceeds, the voice of the choir gradually overcomes the din of the percussion ensemble. The work concludes with the voice of the choir arriving in a transformed spiritual state.

Harmonically, the work is modal in nature. The Kyrie is in A Phrygian, the Gloria is in Bb Lydian, the Credo is in C Mixolydian, the Sanctus is in D Aeolian, and the Agnus Dei returns to Phrygian, but now in E. This harmonic upward progression is also a picture of the spiritual journey upward.

Thematically, there is a cantus firmus which serves to unify the piece. The cantus firmus is most clearly heard in the last movement, Agnus Dei, where it is the chorale accompaniment to the chant figure. (The Agnus Dei is based upon the second movement “Chant” from Suite for Right Hand Piano - see above.) This cantus firmus also appears in each of the other movements in different guises, for example, in the Kyrie, the marimba and vibraphone are playing the cantus firmus in phase to each other while the xylophone is playing it in an elongated manner.

I have approached the texts from the Gloria and Credo in a different manner than the texts from the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. The Gloria and the Credo contain the longest texts and are usually declaimed in a syllabic manner. I decided to add another level of interest to the text, namely what one might call from a linguistic point of view syllable weight. Once these rules have been applied to the entire texts of the Gloria and Credo, each syllable carries a particular syllable weight. This syllable weight is realized musically in the Gloria and Credo as duration, although the duration of the mora may change from phrase to phrase, e.g. within a given phrase the mora may equal a sixteenth note or an eighth note or any other value, but the chosen value remains constant throughout the phrase. This allows freedom to speed up and slow down entire phrases when needed.

____________Text and Translation___________

Kyrie eleison (Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me), for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. Psalm 57:1.

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. Matthew 5:3-12.

III. CREDO
Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem,
factorem caeli et terrae,
visibilium omnium et invisibilium.
Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum,
Filium Dei unigenitum.
Et ex Patre natum ante omnia saecula.
Deum de Deo, lumen de lumine, Deum verum de Deo vero.
Genitum, non factum, consubstantialem Patri:
per quem omnia facta sunt.
Qui propter nos homines, et propter nostram salutem
descendit de caelis.
Et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine:
et homo factus est.
Crucifixus etiam pro nobis sub Pontio Pilato:
passus, et sepultus est.
Et resurrexit tertia die, secundum Scripturas.
Et ascendit in caelum: sedet ad dexteram Patris.
Et iterum venturus est cum gloria judicare vivos
et mortuos: cujus regni non erit finis.
Et in Spiritum Sanctum Dominum, et vivificantem:
qui ex Patre, Filioque procedit.
Qui cum Patre, et Filio simul adoratur,
et conglorificatur: qui locutus est per Prophetas.
Et unam, sanctam, catholicam et apostolicam Ecclesiam.
Confiteor unam baptisma in remissionem peccatorum.
Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum.
Et vitam venturi saeculi.
Amen.

I believe in one God, the almighty Father, maker of heaven and earth, maker of all things visible and invisible. I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son of God, born of the Father before time began; God from God, light from light, true God from true God; begotten, not made, one in essence with the Father; through whom all things were made. He for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit from the virgin Mary; and was made man. For our sake too, under Pontius Pilate, he was crucified, suffered death, and was buried. And the third day he rose from death, as the scriptures had foretold. And he ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, and of his reign there will be no end. I believe in the Holy Spirit, Lord and life-giver, who proceeds from the Father and the Son; who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified; who spoke through the prophets. I believe in one holy catholic, and apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins. And I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Holy, holy, holy, art thou, Lord God of hosts. Thy glory fills all heaven and earth. Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!

Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.