Variations On A Moldavian Hora (1992)    [7’]
Dror Yikro (1992)   [6’]
Air  (1977)   [4’]
 
 
 

Variations On A Moldavian Hora (1992)    [7’]

Commissioned by the Guitar Foundation of America as the set piece for the 1992 guitar competition.

First recording by Jason Vieaux, ‘Laureate Series – Guitar’, Naxos 8.553449, released December, 1996.

Published by Peer-Southern Music.

Reviews:

"The North American composer Ian Krouse’s "Variations On A Moldavian Hora" was commissioned as a competition piece by the Guitar Foundation of America.  The competition winner Jason Vieaux has elected to include this impressive work here.  The guitar repertoire is further enriched by works of this quality…"

Andy Daly, CLASSICAL CD REVIEWS, March, 1999
 

"Variations On A Moldavian Hora has rightfully earned its way into the repertoire beyond its role as the 1992 Guitar Foundation of America set piece.  Vieaux calls this piece one of the most challenging pieces he has ever performed, yet here these challenges are never evident, as the music flows with grace and fluidity."

William Clements, GFA SOUNDBOARD, Summer, 1998
 

"The apparent ‘misfit’ is the work by Ian Krouse, far removed from Latin America, but why should music of this quality be excluded for whatever reason?  It is included for the best of reasons, because the performer loves it and is right to do so.  The theme is Moldavian and the language of the imaginative and technically punishing variations matches it."

John Duarte, GRAMOPHONE, November, 1997
 

Program notes and performance history:

The Variations On A Moldavian Hora was commissioned by the Guitar Foundation of America in 1992 as a competition set-piece.  As such it was premiered by four young competitors, including the winner, Canadian guitarist, Jason Vieaux, who described the piece as "one of the most challenging pieces I have ever performed."  The theme, taken from a collection of klezmer melodies, is embellished with rarely used harmonics, florid accompaniments underneath the melody (an unusual texture for the guitar), and simultaneous double trills for the left and right hands.  Many such set-pieces are forgotten, but the Variations has begun to establish itself in the repertoire and has been championed by Gordon O’Brien, Harold Micay and Randall Avers, among others.  It has been recorded three times.
 
 

Dror Yikro (1992)       [6’]

Commissioned and premiered by William Kanengiser, Schoenberg Auditorium, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, May, 1992.

First recording by William Kanengiser, ‘Echoes of the Old World’, GSP 1006CD, released Spring, 1993.

Published by Peer-Southern Music.

Reviews:

"…he achieves a great depth of emotion and wonderful sonorities with his ersatz cantorial keening, based on a 10th century Hassidic song."

John Schneider, GFA SOUNDBOARD, Winter, 1995
 

Program notes and performance history:

In December of 1991, my friend William Kanengiser asked me to consider writing a piece for his CD "Echoes of the Old World."  He felt that a program dedicated to Near-Eastern folk music would be incomplete without at least one piece drawn from the rich heritage of Ashkenazic Jewish musical tradition.  I hesitated to accept the commission immediately, for the simple reason that I was not sure I was the right person for the task.  However, I promised him that I would give it my serious attention. My first step was to pick the minds (and hearts) of my many Jewish friends.  They graciously opened their files of scores, tapes and books, and soon I had embarked upon a four-month odyssey through the world of Eastern European Jewish folk music.  My search led me to the extensive collection of folk music housed at the UCLA Music Library.  It was there that I found several pieces that intrigued me.  One of these, Dror Yikro, came to be the piece I wrote for Bill.  Another, a Moldavian Hora, would serve me a year later when I was commissioned by the Guitar Foundation of America for a set piece for the 1992 guitar competition in New Orleans.

Dror Yikro, or "Song of Freedom," is freely based upon an Chassidic song whose text dates from the tenth century.  If, in hearing this brief piece, the listener finds himself imagining a charismatic rabbi engaged in a passionate discussion with his followers, or, perhaps, the inspiring voice of a cantor leading the men of the village in bursts of spontaneous song, then I will have succeeded in communicating something of the images that fed my musical imagination when I was composing Dror Yikro.
 
 

Air  (1977)   [4’]

Premiered by Scott Tennant, Fret House, Los Angeles, California ------?

First recording by Scott Tennant, ‘Wild Mountain Thyme’, Delos, DE 3207, released February, 1998.

Score available from the composer. P.O. Box 117, 23705 Vanowen Street, West Hills, CA 91307

Score       $8.00

Program notes and performance history:

Written for the composer’s first wife Laurie Jeffs, the Air draws two of its most important mottos from the letters of her name.  Though it was intended ideally to be played by an Irish band, it has most often been performed in an arrangement for solo guitar, and, in that form, has been championed by guitarist Scott Tennant.  It is also available in an arrangement for flute and guitar.