PROGRAM NOTES
Floral Fantasy (2021) Ruth Anfinson Bures (1945) is a retired music educator and still performs with her husband casually. Bures has taught music at all age levels from kindergarten to collegiate, and has written a children’s book, a novel based off a string quartet, and a lesson book of children’s songs. She even developed an app for music education called Fuzzy Little Caterpillar that targets music literacy but is also cross-curricular with math and science. Her husband is a retired dermatologist, but they are both clarinettists and perform together on casual occasions. Floral Fantasy was a national finalist in The American Prize in Composition—instrumental chamber music (professional division), 2024. Unfortunately, there isn’t much information or research on why Floral Fantasy was composed. In my own opinion, it could be an attempt using her love for pedagogy to make clarinet repertoire more accessible. This could be a clarinettists first “fantasy” or multi-movement piece. Although simple in appearance, Bures still demands a good amount of skill from the performer. There are jagged rhythms, difficult articulations, and even an opportunity for improvisation. This is remarkably accessible to a less mature player but still challenges a more experienced player.
Concerto in A Minor (1904) Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) grew up in an environment where music was an activity but not a profession. His father was a successful lawyer and wanted the same thing for his son. He let Charles perform and take lessons in violin, piano, and organ. Charles’ father accepted his music career upon receiving an organ scholarship to Queens’ College at Cambridge. Stanford proved to be well rounded in performing, conducting, composing, At the young age of 35 Stanford started to gain a reputation by teaching well-known composers such as Coolridge-Taylor, Vaugh Williams, and Ireland. Especially as a teacher, Stanford was notorious for being ill-tempered, and overall difficult to work with. Multiple critics suggest that Stanford’s work “lacked passion”, especially in the opera medium. Romantic music is typically thought of as expressive, to say the least. Clarinet Concerto in A minor, Op 80 may “lack passion”, but on the other hand, this allows the performer to emphasize other elements like color and overall musicality. This is Stanford’s second attempt at writing for the clarinet. This concerto stands out for multiple reasons: It sounds like one movement rather than three distinct movements; and the performer has to switch instruments. Stanford originally wrote this “one movement” concerto for Richard MühIfeld, but he refused. Stanford settled for Charles Draper, who was a student at Cambridge at the time of the premiere in 1904. This concerto feels programmatic. This is contextualized by the tension and release that happens in typically shorter phrases.
SWAN SONG (2004) Katherine Ann Murdock (1952) is a remarkable composer, and former professor. She has background in piano, voice, music theory, musical theater, and opera. Being both well-rounded, she’s also well-traveled. Murdock has been all over the US, and her work has been performed internationally. Murdock is the founder and director of the Wichita State University Contemporary Music Festival. “I think that the unifying element in my music is drama, not in a programmatic, storytelling sense, but in how it moves the listener through time. Elements of tension and release create a sense of forward momentum. There is a beginning, a middle, and an end. I rely heavily on gesture, rather than system (Katherine Murdock)”. Murdock composed Swan Song in 2004 for her colleague, W. James Jones for his final performance as faculty at Wichita State University. Being unaccompanied, there’s rhythmic freedom, and the performer becomes a percussionist and plays crotales. Jones (commissioner and performer) requested the title. The intervallic motives are seconds or thirds, but Murdock includes the full range of the clarinet. I personally think of this motif as a swan transitioning from floating on a body of water to flying through the air, or vice versa. Swans are also used in fables and poems to signify gracefulness, and transformation among other qualities.