Kontrapunktus for Japanese Drums and Orchestra Op. 52 (1996) c. 15'00"

(2+1.2+1.2+1.2+1/4.3.3.1/timp/perc(4)/5 solo daiko drums/strings)

Commissioned by the Kalamazoo Symphony in honor of their 75th Anniversary

First performed on February 22nd, 1977 at Kalamazoo, Michigan by members of the Kodo Ensemble and the Kalamazoo Symphony conducted by Yoshimi Takeda

ABOUT

The Kontrapunktus Opus 52 for five Japanese Drums and Orchestra was commissioned by the Kalamazoo Symphony to celebrate their 75th anniversary and honor the retirement of Music Director Yoshimi Takeda.  The work is dedicated to Maestro Takeda.

I must credit the Kalamazoo Symphony's Managing Director, John Forsythe, with the novel idea of combining the forces of the KODO Ensemble with a traditional western orchestra for this commission, a concept which I became excited and enthused by after hearing KODO give one of their typically thrilling and visceral performances at Carnegie Hall.  (This performance took place on February 22nd,  coincidentally the date of both my birthday and the eventual premiere of the work exactly one year later.)

The title "Kontrapunktus" (literally, "Counterpoint,")  refers not only to the counterpoint created by juxtaposing a traditional eastern ensemble with a traditional western one, but also to the counterpoint created by two formal concepts operating simultaneously: an ever accumulating rhythmic etude in the former ensemble against a rigid theme and variation concept in the latter.  The sum effect of the two parts is a long dynamic and rhythmic crescendo somewhat akin to Ravel's Bolero.  The title also refers to certain materials inherent in the work's thematic treatment.  A twelve-note row plays an important function in the work's formal structure.  It contains a motivic "seed" which is in fact a transposed version of the famous B - A - C - H  motive (B-flat, A, C, B-natural) and which finds its culmination in the final pages of the work which explicitly quote the last, incomplete fugue of Bach's "Art of the Fugue."

Apart from the five solo drums,  the work is scored for a large orchestra consisting of piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, english horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon,  4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, strings and 4 percussionists playing cymbals, anvil, slapstick, bass drum, xylophone, vibraphone, celesta, large gong, tubular bells and flexatone.

REVIEWS

“The Liebermann piece is a fascinating work, both new sounding and yet accessible and almost familiar in its contrapuntal interplay of Eastern and Western sound and in the embroidery of orchestra against the gradually intensifying bass line provided by drumming…the Liebermann work was the evening’s highlight.”
Kalamazoo Gazette