Arbor Vitæ (2 × CD) Track listing detail
Arbor Vitæ
James Tenney
- Year of composition: 2006
- Duration: 13:10
- Instrumentation: string quartet
- Commission: Quatuor Bozzini, with support from the CCA
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810124
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
Premiere
- December 10, 2006, Concert, CalArts, Valencia (California, USA)
Saxony
James Tenney
- Year of composition: 1978-84
- Duration: 23:54
- Instrumentation: string quartet and delay
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810125
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
Stochastic String Quartet
James Tenney
- Year of composition: 1963
- Duration: 2:48
- Instrumentation: string quartet
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810126
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
This was my first effort to use the computer in the process of composition (as distinct from sound-generation) for a piece of instrumental music, using conventional notation. It is fairly short, having originally been intended as a kind of demonstration of possible musical uses of the computer, but its harmonic and rhythmic complexities are such that it had received only one public performance before the Quatuor Bozzini made it a part of their regular repertoire. How times do change!
String Quartet in One Movement
James Tenney
- Year of composition: 1955
- Duration: 3:30
- Instrumentation: string quartet
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810127
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
The String Quartet in One Movement is very much a work from Tenney’s youth: he was 21 when he wrote it. Tenney rediscovered it recently in a pile of scores and the work received its premiere in november 2004 by the Quatuor Bozzini — after almost 50 years! It is certainly a very accomplished student work. Tenney was clearly under the influence of Bartók — as the motives, harmony and especially the rhythmic energy demonstrate. And the string writing is beautiful, which is a harbinger of things to come.
Michael Pisaro
Premiere
- November 11, 2004, James Tenney — 70 ans, REDCAT, Los Angeles (California, USA)
Koan for String Quartet
James Tenney
- Year of composition: 1984
- Duration: 18:38
- Instrumentation: string quartet
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810128
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
In 1971 I wrote a piece called Koan for solo violin which was concerned with the perceptual effects of an absolutely linear and predictable formal process — involving a bowed tremolo progressing through a series of microtonal intervals on progressively higher pairs of strings. The first violin part in this Koan for string quartet is essentially the same as that earlier piece, but here the other instruments of the quartet are used to provide a harmonic context — and thus a harmonic “Meaning” — for each of those microtonal intervals, within a fairly complex, just tuning system. The resultant sonorities might be conceived as a complex “chord progression” on various different roots or fundamentals. Some of these sonorities will be quite familiar to the Western ear; others are rather more “exotic”. But they are all derived by a simple extrapolation from traditional harmonic relationships
Cognate Canons
James Tenney
- Year of composition: 1993
- Duration: 24:58
- Instrumentation: string quartet and percussion
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810129
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
Diaphonic Study
James Tenney
- Year of composition: 1997
- Duration: 18:25
- Instrumentation: string quartet and piano
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810130
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
Quintext I-V: Five Textures
James Tenney
- Year of composition: 1972
- Duration: 30:33
- Instrumentation: string quartet and double bass
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810131
Quintext I-V: Five Textures, 1: Some Recent Thoughts for Morton Feldman
James Tenney
- Duration: 9:47
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810132
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
Quintext I-V: Five Textures, 2: Clouds for Iannis Xenakis
James Tenney
- Duration: 2:36
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810133
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
Quintext I-V: Five Textures, 3: A Choir of Angels for Carl Ruggles
James Tenney
- Duration: 3:57
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810134
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
Quintext I-V: Five Textures, 4: Parabolas and Hyperbolas for Edgard Varèse
James Tenney
- Duration: 4:59
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810135
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits
Quintext I-V: Five Textures, 5: Spectra for Harry Partch
James Tenney
- Duration: 9:14
Stereo
ISRC CAA4J0810136
- 44,1 kHz, 16 bits