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Guitar Solos
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
“This CD contains a collection of mid to late twentieth-century compositions by composers of the Americas. Though most of the compositions are well-known guitar staples…some spice is thrown in, as in Ian Krouse’s Variations on a Moldavian Hora. Those of us in college and playing competitions in the early 90’s will remember this piece well, but it’s well worth another listen. The piece is difficult, but the fine playing allows one to see that behind this mask is a well-designed, interesting piece.” Andrew Hill, GUITARRA MAGAZINE, Spring, 2007
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. Published by Ian Krouse Music.
Score $8.00Program notes and performance history:
Air is the earliest in a series of pieces inspired by traditional Irish music. Though many are decidedly neo-Celtic, this, the first, sounds fairly authentic. Though originally conceived for performance 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 performed in arrangements for flute and guitar, and flute and harp.
Transcriptions for solo guitar
Johann Christian Bach Minuetto in D-major
J.S. Bach:
Aria in e-minor
Minuet in G-major
Partita in a-minor(original for flute in a-minor)
Partita in e-minor(original for flute in a-minor)
Two Little PreludesFrançois Couperin: Three Harpsichord Pieces
Alexander Scriabin: Prelude, Op. 16, No.4 (original for piano)
Roderick Usher’s ‘Phantasmion’ (Grand Sonata ‘Quasi una fantasia’) Op. 25, 1836Written for Scott Tennant who gave the world premiere of the original version on Wednesday, May 6, at Schoenberg Hall, UCLA.
Published by Ian Krouse Music.
Score: $18.00
Program notes and performance history:
- The Haunted Palace
- Dirge – Quasi una Passacaglia
- Impromptu Brilliante ‘Quasi Valser’ (on a theme of Von Webber)
Roderick Usher’s ‘Phantasmion’ was the result of one of my earliest ideas: I recall clearly coming under the spell of Edgar Allen Poe sometime in elementary school. I was particularly struck by Poe’s account of the mad English guitarist Roderick Usher (The Fall of the House of Usher). Having just begun the serious study of the guitar myself,I immediately began improvising the sorts of weird dirges that Poe so vividly describes in the story. Among other things, I tried detuning the guitar at random, and scraping my nails on the strings to aid my quest for the sorts of strange “unheard” harmonies that I imagined, and though this may have produced a bit of spontaneous, blissful microtonal cacophony (!) I never felt that I came even close to the wonderful music that Poe’s words conjured up. After all, at that time I was far more interested in the Beatles and had hardly heard a note of Bartok or Stravinsky. And so nothing came of the project at that time. I at least had the sense to know that this was a task far beyond the technical and artistic capacity of my thirteen-year-old self. Cut to the future: I am now friends with one of the pre-eminent guitar virtuosos of our time, Scott Tennant. With his encouragement I threw myself back into the eerie world of Poe’s bleak mid-nineteenth century England with s kind of frenzy, and simply allowed myself, once again, to be swept up in Poe’s wonderful musical imagery. It was passages like the following that made this such an easy and enjoyable task:
“I listened, as if in a dream, to the wild improvisations of his speaking guitar…I bear painfully in mind a singular perversion and amplification of the last waltz of Von Webber.”
The first version of this – a wildly undisciplined and over-the-top concoction (even for me!) – was gamely and frighteningly well played by Scott Tennant, with spooky lighting and assisted by a mute actress dressed in a gauzy, flowing gown. Still, we realized that the piece needed some taming before it should be heard from again. This all took place about sixteen years ago, and the piece has lain dormant ever since. I plundered some of the second movement for use in my Piano Murmurs (for clarinet, violin, cello and piano) knowing that at least some of the music that I ‘borrowed’ would likely be cut from the guitar piece at some point. Hopefully, now that the piece has been pruned and refined it will find its way into the hearts, minds and fingers of guitarists and fans of adventurous repertoire.
Trois Tableaux d’Andersen
Written for the Annual Guitar Composition Competition conducted by Radio France in 1981, and dedicated to Agnes Narciso, who premiered the work during her European tour in 1989.
Published by Ian Krouse Music
Score: $16.00 (includes optional narrations)
Duration: [30’ with narrations]
Program notes and performance history:
Trois Tableaux d’Andersen (1982) was one of my earliest extended pieces for solo guitar. Each of the three movements of Trois Tableaux d’Andersen is a tone poem in miniature, inspired by a well-known fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen. The work was written for the annual competition for new guitar works sponsored by Radio France. Although it was a finalist and not the winner, I was consoled by the fact that, had it not been for that opportunity, I might not have faced the daunting task of writing it at all. Even though I am a guitarist myself, and perhaps because of it, to this day composing for the solo guitar remains an intimidating prospect. The work is not strictly programmatic but rather a set of lingering impressions of these wonderful stories. The first piece, ‘Le Rossignol,’ (the nightingale), juxtaposes fast, busy sections which conjure up images of the hustle and bustle of the court of the mythical Chinese emperor, with lyrical episodes and murmuring cadenzas depicting the elusive beauty of the nightingale. In the second movement, ‘La Petite Fille aux Allumettes,’ (the little match girl), eerie pianissimo tremolos evoke the dying little girl’s futile efforts to warm herself with her few remaining matches. At the very end of the piece one can hear the last one flicker and then suddenly go out, leaving nothing but the freezing darkness of the night of New Year’s Eve. The final movement, ‘Les Souliers Rouges,’ (the red shoes), starts with a mysterious cadenza in which sounds of hymn singing and church bells soon give way to a macabre waltz, whose dynamic momentum dominates the rest of the movement. Agnes Narciso, to whom the work is dedicated, premiered the work in Holland in May, 1987, and championed the work in the late eighties and early nineties to great acclaim. Though originally written for six-string guitar the pieces were specially adapted for Ms. Narciso’s eight-string instrument. In performance she preceded each movement with a brief synopsis of the story, the text for which is included in the published score.
Review:
One of the most interesting items in her programme was “Trois Tableaux d’Andersen” by Ian Krouse, who dedicated it to her. The work was written in 1982 for the annual competition for new guitar music sponsored by Radio, France, where it became one of the finalists. Although he has written major works for the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, this is his only completed work for solo guitar. Each of its three movements is a tone poem in miniature, inspired by a well-known fairy tale of Hans Christian Andersen. The work is not strictly programmatic but rather a set of lingering impressions of these wonderful stories. The first piece, ‘Le Rossignol,’ (the nightingale), juxtaposes fast, busy sections which conjure up images of the hustle and bustle of the court of the mythical Chinese emperor, with lyrical episodes and murmuring cadenzas depicting the elusive beauty of the nightingale. In the second movement, ‘La Petite Fille aux Allumettes,’ (the little match girl), eerie pianissimo tremolos evoke the dying little girl’s futile efforts to warm herself with her few remaining matches. At the very end of the piece one can hear the last one flicker and then suddenly go out, leaving nothing but the freezing darkness of the night of New Year’s Eve. The final movement, ‘Les Souliers Rouges,’ (the red shoes), starts with a mysterious cadenza in which sounds of hymn singing and church bells soon give way to a macabre waltz, whose dynamic momentum dominates the rest of the movement. These pieces were originally written for six-string guitar but have been adapted for Agnes Narciso’s eight-string instrument. Usually Miss Narciso narrates the tales when she plays them in concert, and combined with her fairy-like appearance she knows how to create an atmosphere of delicate intimacy. It is one of the most formidable guitar pieces in the repertoire, both because of its epic musical scope and its relentless virtuosity.”
Bauke Oosterhout, CLASSICAL GUITAR, March, 1989