for soprano, woodwind quintet and piano

Scoring

soprano, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano

Duration 16 Minutes

Movements

1. White Pillars

2. I’ll Never Understand

3. A Little Girl

4. Dear Frank

5. I Walk Out

Recordings

Album Title

Breath in a Ram’s Horn

Label

Summit Records [product id: DCD336]

Album Title

Daniel Asia: Songs From The Page Of Swords

Label

Summit Records [product id: DCD257]

Sound Files

I. White Pillars

III. A Little Girl

Commissioned by

Oberlin College in honor of its sesquicentennial celebration

Performances

MAY 1991
NEW YORK, NY
Quintet of the Americas
Merkin Hall
at the Kaufman Center
129 W. 67th Street
New York, NY
General Information: 212-501-3303
Box Office: 212-501-3340

JANUARY 1991
TALLAHASSEE, FL

FEBRUARY 1990
Baltimore Chamber Music Society

JANUARY 1990
University of Chicago Contemporary Chamber Players
Ralph Shapey, conductor

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 1989
SAN FRANCISCO, CA
San Francisco Contemporary Chamber Players
Green Room
Veterans War Memorial
401 Van Ness
San Francisco, CA

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 1988
NEW YORK, NY
Musical Elements
Jane Manning, soprano
Daniel Asia, conductor
92nd Street Y
New York, NY

TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1988
LONDON, ENGLAND
Lontano
Odaline de la Martinez, Music Director
Jane Manning, soprano
Recorded by the BBC
Queen Elizabeth Hall
London, England

MONDAY, MARCH 7, 1988
LONDON, ENGLAND
Endymion Ensemble
Linda Hirst, mezzo-soprano

1986
HOUSTON, TX
Cimmaron Wind Quintet

TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1983
WORLD PREMIERE
Oberlin Woodwind Quintet
Marlene Ralis Rosen, soprano
Sanford Margolis, piano
Program Notes

Music by Daniel Asia
Texts by Paul Pines
c 1988

Pines Songs is a song cycle of five poems and two fantasy interludes. This version is based upon the piano and voice piece of the same title, however the interludes were written specially for this version; it was commissioned by the Oberlin Woodwind Quintet, in honor of the sesquicentennial celebration of Oberlin College.

The texts are by the writer/poet Paul Pines. He and I first met at the MacDowell Colony, an artist’s retreat in Peterborough, New Hampshire. We became close friends, partly as the result of a shared ferocity brought to the game of table tennis. I requested books of poetry. I have so far written four works based on his writings. The poems seem to bring together very disparate worlds, uniting a wealth of emotional perspectives. The imagery ranges from Ecclesiastics to the Blues, stating something universal that is culled from the simple and mundane. At the core of the work is man’s uneasy place in the universe; that of a curious bystander to his own inner world, living in a physical world he also hardly understands. How these interior and exterior worlds meet and interact is the enigma at the center of these poems. However it is an enigma that is often imbued with a wry and delicate sense of humor.

Like Pines’ poetry, the music is of a somewhat eclectic nature. Its language is that of a broadly extended tonality, that allows for the most simple, as well as the most complex sonorities. The result is a rather personal expression of a post-serial impressionism, but whose rhythmic sense is, I think, purely American. The piano sonorities of the earlier version have been broadened, enriched, and “colored”. The vocal line is alternately declamatory or freely melismatic, with accents often being placed like in popular music. The fantasy interludes freely develop both materials that have already been heard, as well as materials that appear only in later songs, thus leaving a somewhat mystifying impression, that is only resolved at the conclusion of the cycle.

Reviews

T. PFAFF, SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER
Pines Songs favors a freely tonal idiom with a strong melodic profile.

L. CAVALLARO, NEW HAVEN REGISTER
Pines Songs captured the many moods imaginatively, whether conveying gloom, mirth, pessimism, or surreality. ‘White Pillars’ reflected the strangeness effectively in both solo part and accompaniment, while the ending of ‘I Walk Out To The End’ had some lovely tonal colors.

J. ROCKWELL, NEW YORK TIMES
The concert ended with Mr. Asia’s 25-minute “Pines Songs” (1984), which consists of five settings of poems by Paul Pines and two optional instrumental interludes, played on Tuesday for the first time in this country. It sounded appealing, in its Impressionistic way.

B. CREDITOR, QUINTESSENCE
Larry McDonald (of the Oberlin Woodwind Quintet) agrees with this writer that Pines Songs should be a major work in the wind quintet repertoire–a serious and well-crafted piece.