Charles H Ruggiero

Piano (Chamber)

Tenor Attitudes, (Standard and Expanded Concert Versions), 2014 (Ruggiero Publishing Company)
Instrumentation, Program Notes

Tenor Attitudes, (Standard and Expanded Concert Versions), 2014 (Ruggiero Publishing Company)
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Instrumentation: T Sax, Pn

Duration: ca. 20 to 90 min.

TENOR ATTITUDES - for Tenor Saxophone and Piano (Standard and Expanded Concert Versions)

The Modular Form of this Work:
TENOR ATTITUDES consists of one fully notated composition in three movements for tenor saxophone and piano, as well as five shorter original jazz compositions (i.e., "head charts" like those found in such publications as The New Real Book) that may be performed by a tenor saxophonist with one or more other musicians who are skilled in the art of jazz improvisation. The five short jazz pieces are all related melodically or harmonically (although rather remotely, in some cases) and they are the basis of the longer three-movement composition. A jazz quintet (for example, trumpet, tenor sax, piano, bass, and drums) is one of many small traditional jazz "combos" that could be used to perform the five jazz "head charts" effectively, but no instrumentation is implied for these charts other than the use of tenor saxophone and piano (or tenor sax and some other keyboard instrument, guitar, etc.).

The "main module" (i.e., TENOR ATTITUDES, standard concert version or, simply, TENOR ATTITUDES) may be performed by itself, or it may be followed by a musical response: a mostly improvised performance of any one of the five jazz pieces.

An "expanded concert" performance of TENOR ATTITUDES would consist of a performance of the "main module" followed by an intermission. In the second half of the program, a jazz group would perform all five of the shorter TENOR ATTITUDES pieces.

Another option would be for a jazz group to play one or more of the shorter jazz "head charts" but not the main TENOR ATTITUDES module.

Movement and Section Titles of TENOR ATTITUDES (standard concert version):

1. Disciples
1a. Disciple of Prez and Bird Stan Getz ("The Sound")
1b. Disciple of Bird, the Two Sonny's, and Ornette Joe Henderson
2. Pathfinders
2a. Michael Brecker's Time
2b. Coltrane's Vision
3. Master Storytellers
3a. Blues 'n' Bop Gene Ammons ("Jug")
3b. Wit and Wisdom Dexter Gordon Jumps In
3c. Piano Interlude Get Set for Sonny
3d. Walter "Sonny" Rollins The Young Lion's Tale
3e. Reflections on Rollins with Monk
3f. The Elder Rollins Takes Charge
3g. Rollins Alone (Cadenza)

Titles of the Five Jazz Pieces (the TENOR ATTITUDES "head charts"):

1. It Simply Gets Beautiful
2. Michael's Time
3. Coltrane's Vision
4. Yoddsie Groove
5. The Elder Speaks

Durations:

TENOR ATTITUDES (standard concert version): ca. 20 min.
TENOR ATTITUDES (expanded concert version): ca. 60-90 min.

Program Notes

Whether you agree with Wynton Marsalis and others who have claimed that "jazz is America's classical music" or with dissenters like Jon Pareles (see New York Times, February 28, 1999) who are "skeptical" of such formulations and think jazz deserves "respect on its own very different terms," either way, you probably know or at least suspect that the language of improvised jazz, with its numerous dialects and offshoots, is richly varied with elements that are bold and forceful and others that are incredibly subtle and complex, many of which are not generally found in traditional European classical music or 21st-century avant-garde "art music" but have great potential for myriad kinds of musical expression.
Certainly not all classically trained musicians are familiar with or particularly interested in jazz, but many do have enough interest to want to perform some compositions that, to put it simply, "sound jazzy." And why not? Why should the emotionally and intellectually powerful jazz musical language be spoken exclusively by jazz specialists?
As composer who has listened to, studied, and performed jazz for much of my life, I've spent decades attempting to make some of the unique elements that are so closely associated with improvised jazz available for classically trained performers (who typically do not have the skills of even a journeyman jazz improviser) to explore in the practice room and make use of in the concert hall. I want to add some new jazz colors to the sound palettes that classically trained performers and composer may use with some degree of confidence and authenticity.
As a composer, I've been fascinated by both the opportunities and challenges of incorporating into my works jazz elements that are hard to pin down with traditional notation, and I feel that I have been successful in bringing some of these elements, particularly many subtle rhythms of improvised jazz, into my fully notated works in meaningful ways. While some of the most rhythmically complex passages in my music don't swing the way much of the jazz that I greatly admire does, these jazz-based rhythms contribute something unique to my compositions that many performers and listeners seem to find interesting and rewarding (even when they're rather challenging for both!).
In TENOR ATTITUDES I've tried to create an original composition that is inspired by and partly based on the improvisational "dialects" of seven jazz master improvisers who also were virtuoso tenor saxophonists: Gene Ammons, Michael Brecker, John Coltrane, Stan Getz, Dexter Gordon, Joe Henderson, and Sonny Rollins. This wonderful music was chosen as, in a general sense, source material for this composition not only because all of these musicians made important contributions to the development of jazz but also because they had (or have, in the case of Sonny Rollins) distinctly unique sounds, musical styles, and artistic approaches or attitudes that set them apart from other players and enabled them to expand, refine, and make more powerful the language of jazz. Please note, though, that other than a few short borrowings and two more extended quotes from recorded improvised solos, the 11 sections (organized in three movements) consist of music composed not so much in the styles of these artists, but in response to their styles. I respect the contributions of these jazz masters to the development of jazz; more importantly, even after decades of listening, I still find it very rewarding, moving, inspiring, invigorating, and sometimes even startling to listen to their recordings. And the best of this music, although recorded as much as 75 years ago still sounds fresh, up-to-date, hip, sophisticated, and very "relevant" to me. Consequently, I feel justified writing music that in a sense belongs both to the seven jazz masters and to me and is both of and for their time and mine.
Why focus on the tenor saxophone? "Why not?" could be a good enough response to the question, but the saxophone is the instrument that comes closest to what I feel is potentially the most refined and expressive of all instruments, the human voice. Like the human voice, the saxophone, especially the tenor sax in jazz, seems to be infinitely variable, with virtually unlimited modes and manners of expressionat least for me, it is the ultimate composer's palette.
Charles Ruggiero Aug. 15, 2013

Chobim - Six Jazz Compositions in Honor of Frederic Chopin and Antonio Carlos Jobim, Versions for Soprano Saxophone, Bassoon and Piano and for Flute, Bassoon and Piano, 2011, rev. 2012 (Ruggiero Publishing Company)
Instrumentation, Program Notes

Chobim - Six Jazz Compositions in Honor of Frederic Chopin and Antonio Carlos Jobim, Versions for Soprano Saxophone, Bassoon and Piano and for Flute, Bassoon and Piano, 2011, rev. 2012 (Ruggiero Publishing Company)
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Instrumentation: S Sax (or Fl), Bsn, Pn

Duration: ca. 24 min.

Chobim - Six Jazz Compositions in Honor of Frederic Chopin and Antonio Carlos Jobim (2011, rev. 2012)

Dedication (see program notes)

Program Notes for the Soprano Saxophone, Bassoon, and Piano Version

I have enjoyed and been inspired by the music of Frederic Chopin and Antonio Carlos Jobim for more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, when I was first discovering the riches of classical music, I stumbled upon a performance of Chopin's "Heroic" Polonaise in A-flat Major by JosÃ© Iturbi that was included on an eclectic RCA Victor two-LP record album that my dad happened to bring home one day after work. In those days, it wasn't uncommon for department stores, grocery stores, and even gas stations to sell sampler albums at "giveaway prices" (for a couple of dollars, or less), presumably to get people interested in the catalogs of such leading record companies as RCA and Columbia. The RCA album containing Iturbi's "Heroic" performance, 60 Years of "Music America Loves Best," begins with Vest la giubba sung by Enrico Caruso and includes several other captivating performances, including Variations on Themes from "Carmen" played by Vladimir Horowitz, Sergei Rachmaninoff performing his Prelude in C-Sharp Minor, "Take the 'A' Train" played by the Duke Ellington band, a sizzling rendition of the Ritual Fire Dance by Artur Rubinstein, Mario Lana singing "Be My Love," Benny Goodman's classic recording of "And the Angles Sing," an NBC Symphony/Toscanini performance of the Prelude to Act III of Lohengrin, and much more! I remember playing the A-flat Polonaise over and over on my father's primitive record player, and I'm sure that Iturbi's passionate rendition of this piece, along with the other mysteriously powerful performances on the album, was an early factor that contributed to my decision to follow a career in music and to become a composer.

In the 1960s I bought and devoured an LP recording of the Chopin polonaises by Alexander Brailowsky, paying particular attention to the Polonaise in F-Sharp Minor, Op. 44. And years later, as an instructor of composition and music theory at Michigan State University, I would play and study some of Chopin's smaller works, particularly the preludes, mazurkas, and nocturnes, finding much to like and learn from.

I had heard some of Antonio Carlos Jobim's music before 1964, when the hit album Getz/Gilberto, which featured Jobim playing piano, was released in the United States, but I hadn't really paid much attention to it. Ever since Getz/Gilberto, my knowledge of and admiration for Jobim's creations has grown steadily. When I was active as a jazz performer, from time to time I would pick a Jobim piece to study, to try to better understand the unique elements of the composer's style. After studying "Insensatez" ("How Insensitive," is the English-language title), it became clear to me that some of Jobim's music is quite similar to some of Chopin's music. I sense both a musical (melodic and harmonic) and emotional connection between the music of these two masters.

With the 200th anniversary of Chopin's birth in 2010, which roughly coincided with the 50th anniversary of the "bossa nova craze" in America, I decided to write this composition in honor of these two wonderful composers, Chopin and Jobim.

In much of my music I synthesize ideas, techniques, and materials from Western classical compositions, avant-garde "art music" of the 20th century, and jazz. I've titled this work "six jazz compositions" because, more than in most of my other works from the past three decades, jazz elements are dominant in the six pieces of Chobim, making for a style that may be accurately characterized, I hope, as relatively accessible. But this is not to say that I intend for these pieces to be in a popular or "easy-listening" style. Jazz, unfortunately, is not at all a popular form of music today in any part of the world, and several of the six movements of Chobim are quite challenging for listeners (not to mention the challenges these pieces pose for performers!).

Although all six movements invoke the music of both composers, three movements (I, III, and V) are based specifically on pieces by Chopin:

Mvt. I. Dark Samba

Mvt. III. Bossa Nova Sentimental [Note: This is the Portuguese word, pronounced, approximately, sen-chee-men-tau.]

Mvt. V. Bossa Ã la Brubeck

The three even-numbered movements are particularly indebted to Jobim compositions:

Mvt. II. Nocturne-Etude - One Blue Note, Quietly (more or less)

Mvt. IV. Nocturne - Changing Topics: Jazz Conversations After Hours

Mvt. VI. Waltz - Three Souls in Perfect Time

Every movement of Chobim began, essentially, as an arrangement of the Chopin or Jobim composition that the movement is based upon. Each of these six "arrangements" then was used as a primary source of material (motivic ideas, rhythms, harmonies, textures, etc.) for each of the corresponding jazz compositions (i.e., movements) of Chobim. I used essentially the same compositional process for all six movements: the initial version of each movement evolved via hundreds (in several cases, thousands!) of developing drafts. In other words, I wrote at least several hundred different versions of each movement until I arrived at the fully evolved pieces included in the final score; consequently, in most (perhaps all) cases it is difficult to identify by ear (or even by studying the score) the Chopin or Jobim composition that provided the original seed of the movement. This is intended. While I hope that during performances traces of each movement's musical DNA will bubble up to the surface from time to time, I do not want the listener to hear these movements as arrangements, parodies, or variants of the Chopin and Jobim pieces, but rather as distinct and autonomous compositions with strong genetic links to the music of both composers.

Chobim, which was composed mostly during August of 2010, January and the last three months of 2011, and March of 2012, is dedicated to my very talented Michigan State University faculty colleagues, saxophonist Joseph Lulloff, bassoonist Michael Kroth, and pianist Deborah Moriarty. This work also is dedicated to my wife of 42 years, Pat, who I hope will enjoy these jazz pieces and forgive me for not always being the most enjoyable person to live with when I'm working intensely on a compositional project!

Charles Ruggiero - Mar. 16, 2012 (rev. June 1, 2012)

Additional Program Notes for the Flute, Bassoon, and Piano Version

Early on, before I had completed the first draft of any of the movements of Chobim, I decided to make two versions of the composition, the first for soprano saxophone, bassoon, and piano, and the second for flute with the same two other instruments. In these two versions of the work, the saxophone and flute parts are very similar except for a number of passages that are written an octave higher in the flute part and a few other differences intended to make each of the parts more idiomatic and effective. The bassoon and piano parts are virtually identical in both versions.

Throughout the periods when I was composing and revising this work, I kept in mind that the saxophone-flute part would have to work equally well for both instruments, and, happily, now that the composition is completed, I feel that that neither version of the part gives the impression that it has been adapted from the other. This is to say that I think of each version of Chobim as authentic and original, not as an arrangement of the other version.

The flute version of Chobim is dedicated to my son-in-law, the very talented Brazilian flutist, Danilo Mezzadri.

C. R. - Mar. 16, 2012

Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Large Chamber Ensemble, Boppish Blue Tinged, 2010 (Ruggiero Publishing Company)
Instrumentation, Program Notes

Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Large Chamber Ensemble, Boppish Blue Tinged, 2010 (Ruggiero Publishing Company)
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Instrumentation: One player per part: Fl, Ob, Bb Cl, T Sax (doubling Sop Sax), Bsn, Hrn, C Tpt, Trb, Tuba, Perc, Pn (doubling Cel), Harp, A Sax, Vln 1, Vln 2, Vla, Vlc, DB, Cond

Duration: ca. 19-20 min.

Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Large Chamber Ensemble - Boppish Blue Tinged (2009)

Dedicated to Joseph Lulloff and Raphael Jimenez

Program Notes

Boppish Blue Tinged

The title of this concerto, Boppish Blue Tinged, is meant to be suggestive rather than unambiguously descriptive. Tinged refers, in part, to trace influences from jazz and other twentieth-century American musical genres that may be heard throughout the concerto, but especially in the first movement. One of my goals for the chaconne-like opening movement is to create variable textures and composite rhythms that suggest some of those created by the inspired improvised interplay of the great jazz combos (like the piano-bass-drum trios lead by Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, etc., and the quartets and quintets of Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Gary Burton, and so many others.), but its not my intention for much of this composition to sound like traditional jazz or any other familiar style of music.

Although its not based on a blues form or harmonic progression, I hope the second movement, Blue, conveys the kinds of emotional meanings that often are such an important part of blues performances. If the attitude of the first movement morphs from something like confident energy to menacing force, then the blue mood of the second movement might be thought of as sorrowful or soulful or, perhaps more accurately, seeking solace and enlightenmentbut such linguistic translations of musical phenomena, I feel, always must be taken with a grain of salt.

Boppish, the last movement, like much of the music of the tragically self-destructive Charlie Parker and other troubled bebop masters, is intended to be infectiously animated and life affirming. Although little melodic or rhythmic material is shared among the different movements of Boppish Blue Tinged, and each movement is more-or-less complete in itself, the third movement is, nevertheless, intimately connected with the music and emotions of the previous two movements of the concerto. All three movements, in fact, are based on the same fundamental musical foundations and form a three-movement emotional arch.

To suggest some of the emotional meanings (a vague choice of words, to be sure) of this concerto, I have fashioned several questions for each movement.

Tinged: Tinged with what? Why does desire often lead to pain? Why do vitality and power sometimes overwhelm our better selves? Is the purpose of certain truth too often intolerance?

Blue: When and why do weeping for joy and weeping to wash away our pain meet?

Boppish: Why boppish? Why not the march or the hip-hop beat? Where (to what spiritual dimension or level of enlightenment) does the Parker train lead us? (March 3, 2010)

Dig 2: From Tunes My Grandmother Heard, for large chamber ensemble (17 players), 2009
Instrumentation, Program Notes

Dig 2: From Tunes My Grandmother Heard, for large chamber ensemble (17 players), 2009
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Instrumentation: One player per part: Fl (doubling Picc), Ob, Bb Cl (doubling B Cl), A Sax (doubling Bari Sax), Bsn, Hrn, C Tpt, Trb, Tuba, Perc, Pn (doubling Cel), Harp, Vln 1, Vln 2, Vla, Vlc, DB, cond

Duration: ca. 25:00 min.

Dig 2: From Tunes My Grandmother Heard (2009)

Dedicated to Susan Richardson Cook Wyllie (1893-1972)
Program Notes

Why, you might ask, would a serious composer writing in 2008 choose to base a new composition on American popular music from the period of 1902 to 1918? There are several reasons I've done this. First, this composition, Dig 2, is part of an ongoing project that began with my trio, Collage-1912, and continued with my saxophone quartet, Dig, in which I explore the relationships between twin interests of mine, arranging and composing. Each of these three compositions (which, with equal validity, could be thought of as elaborate and fanciful arrangements) includes borrowed material that is presented in a more-or-less straightforward manner (i.e., arranged for a particular instrumental ensemble) but also transformed, in some cases so radically that connections with the source material are very much obscured. The process of moving from arrangement to composition (and back) in these works fascinates me.

Another reason Ive used popular songs and instrumental pieces from the first two decades in Dig 2 is that this music provides a means (or so I believe) to connect and explore in my work two vast bodies of musical literature that I very much admire: music of some early 20th-century avant-garde composers (Debussy, Ives, Ravel, Stravinsky, and others) and the jazz of the first half of the same century, much of which borrowed heavily both from early 20th-century popular music and contemporaneous European art music.

Finally, I simply like much of the American popular music of the first few decades of the 20th century, and developing compositional projects that involve this literature gives me a good excuse to study it, play it, and play with it.

The Movements

Each movement of Dig 2 is based almost entirely on two songs or instrumental pieces (Dig 2 could be described as an "entertainment in four double arrangements"), and each movement is dedicated to one or more individuals or groups. Any printed programs distributed for performances of Dig 2 should include the movement titles; the titles, dates, and composers names of the source compositions for each movement; and, the dedications for both the entire composition and each movement.

Movement 1: Afterthoughts and Reminiscences

Based on Somebody Sole My Gal (1918) by Leo Wood and After Youve Gone (1918) by (Henry) Creamer & (Turner) Layton

Dedicated to Charles Ives, Creamer & Layton, and Gil Evans

Duration: ca. 4:10

Movement 2: Set to Rag

Based on Tiger Rag (1917?) attributed to Nick La Rocca and Alexanders Ragtime Band (1911) by Irving Berlin

Dedicated to Michigan State Universitys Musique 21 Ensemble

Duration: ca. 4:40

Movement 3: Melancholia

Based on Poor Butterfly by Raymond Hubbell (1916 and My Melancholy Baby (1912) by Ernie Burnett

Dedicated to Dr. Andreas Sidiropoulos

Duration: ca. 3:50

Movement 4: Thank You, Mr. Handy

Based on The St. Louis Blues by W(illiam) C(hristopher) Handy (1914) and The Memphis Blues by W. C. Handy (1909, 1912 & 1913)

Dedicated to Professor Raphael Jimenez

Duration: ca. 6:25

Duration of the Entire Composition: ca. 20 minutes

About Susan Richardson Cook Wyllie

Few people have had a greater influence on my development than my maternal grandmother, Susan Richardson Cook Wyllie (1893-1972). For much of my childhood, Grandma Wyllie lived with my family in Fairfield, Connecticut, near where she, my mother, and I were born and raised. For many years, while she was living with us, I thought of my grandmother as a unique combination of grandma, second mother, teacher, babysitter, playmate, and co-conspirator (when my parents werent home, we often broke the house rules together).

Grandma Wyllie was one of the sharpest persons Ive ever met; she was resourceful, energetic, quick-witted, and full of basic wisdom. Although she was forced to leave elementary school at an early age, never to return, she did eventually teach herself how to read (as an adult, reading was something she enjoyed doing), but throughout her life, Grandma Wyllie regretted her lack of formal education and was self-conscious about not being able to write much more than her name.

Both of Grandma Wyllies parents came to America from Scotland, and despite being born in Connecticut, my grandmothers speech would often slip into a distinctly Scottish brogue, especially when she would get excited about something (which was often). Her mother, Margaret Richardson, died in childbirth when my grandmother was only two years old. After that, Grandma Wyllies childhood was traumatic. Her coal-miner father, Charles Cook, apparently an alcoholic, was not able to provide for his large family, some 13 children (I dont think there ever have been any coal mines in Connecticut!), and the family decided that my grandmother would have to leave school after the third grade, to work. By the age of 10, Grandma Wyllie found herself working in a soap factory from six AM to six PM, six days a week, earning literally pennies a day. These early years certainly took their toll on her, but Grandma Wyllie wasnt a fundamentally dour or bitter person; to the contrary, she often was a fun-loving ball-of-fire, at least she seemed so to me at times.

Grandma Wyllie had no musical training, but she loved to sing, especially when she was young, and she claimed to have had a very good voice and to have performed in church-sponsored operettas when she was a young woman. At dances and parties that she attended when she was a teenager and young adult, surely she would have heard many of the pieces that this composition, Dig 2, is based on.

I think one of the reasons I fell in love with my wife, Pat, is that she got along so well with my grandmother and even shares some of her qualities and mannerisms. In honor of my grandmother, my wife and I named two of our four children after her, Charles Cook Ruggiero and Susan Elizabeth Ruggiero.

Intimate Recollections, for violin, viola, cello, and piano, 2008
Instrumentation, Program Notes

Intimate Recollections, for violin, viola, cello, and piano, 2008
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Instrumentation: Vln, Vla, Vlc, Pn

Duration: ca. 12:00 min.

INTIMATE RECOLLECTIONS was commissioned by the Atlantic Ensemble and is dedicated to its members: Wei Tsun Chang, Violin; Seanad Dunigan Chang, Viola; Kirsten Cassel, Cello; and, Leah Bowes, Piano
* * *
Intimate Recollections (2008)

Program Notes

In 2005, the Atlantic Ensembles leader, violinist Wei Tsun Chang, invited me to compose a quartet for the Ensemble. Although in 2005 I had not yet heard the Atlantic Ensemble, I was delighted to accept this commission, knowing that Wei Tsun is an exceptionally talented and accomplished performer who seems to have an ear for my music, based on his response to a work I composed for the Verdehr Trio, Collage-1912. Walter Verdehr, a co-founder of the Verdehr Trio, was Wei Tsuns violin teacher at Michigan State University.

* * *

Intimate Recollections is a very personal and intensely felt work. The title is meant to be suggestive and somewhat vague. Recollections of what? Although the music of Intimate Recollections is quite varied in mood and style, with some passages that must be performed with great emotional intensity and others that are lighter (even playful) in nature, this work is essentially serious and reflective. Parts of Intimate Recollections are meant to have qualities that might be described as nostalgic, sorrowful, and even emotionally wrenched. In experiencing a performance of this composition, I hope the listener will sense that the intimate recollections explored in this work (and which, ideally, the listener will partially construct and experience for him- or herself) are renewed and made more vivid through this music. Musical recollections (or hints of Western art music from earlier centuries) are pervasive in Intimate Recollections, but no specific composition is quoted in this quartetat least not consciously!

Charles Ruggiero September 18, 2008

Variations On and By, for flute, oboe, and piano, 2006
Instrumentation, Program Notes

Variations On and By, for flute, oboe, and piano, 2006
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Instrumentation: Fl, Ob, Pn

Duration: ca. 12:00 min.

Variations On and By - for Flute, Oboe and Piano (2006)
The Ruggiero bass is part of a melodic-harmonic formula that was very popular among Italian musicians during the 16th and 17th centuries. The Grove Music Online dictionary lists more than 30 renaissance and early baroque composers who wrote vocal or instrumental pieces on the Ruggiero formula. In the late 1960s, upon reading about the Ruggiero bass, I decided that someday I would compose a set of variations on itnot thinking, of course, that it would be some 27 years before I would begin and complete the project!
The most characteristic form of the Ruggiero bass is an eight-measure diatonic melody in G major, but for Variations On and By, I have used a Mixolydian version of the bass. The Ruggiero-bass theme is not stated literally at any point in this composition; hence, the beginning of the work is labeled Variation 1. But anyone familiar with the Ruggiero bass will recognize fragments of it in each of the 12 variations. Those listeners who do not know the theme will (I hope) mentally construct a version of it as they hear a performance of the composition. Variations 1 and 11, both of which are hockets (i.e., pieces based on what is sometimes described as a musical hiccupping effect), serve as bookends for the composition. In the final variation, parts of several earlier variations are reprised.
Many of the techniques used in Variations On and By come from medieval and renaissance music (hocket, canon, etc.), but a few of the variations are fashioned primarily by the manipulation of pitch-class sets that have been derived from the Ruggiero bass. I hope, however, that the listener will perceive Variations On and By as a unified and stylistically consistent whole, despite its mix of ancient and modern elements. (July 30, 2006)

Night Songs and Flights of Fancy, for alto saxophone and piano, 2005
Samples, Instrumentation, Program Notes

Night Songs and Flights of Fancy, for alto saxophone and piano, 2005
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Samples:
Excerpt - Ruggiero's NIGHT SONGS AND FLIGHTS OF FANCY, Mvt. 1
From - Faculty Recital
Joseph Lulloff, alto saxophone, Jun Okada, piano
(Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication is not permitted.)

Excerpt - Ruggiero's NIGHT SONGS AND FLIGHTS OF FANCY, Mvt. 2
From - Faculty Recital
Joseph Lulloff, alto saxophone, Jun Okada, piano
(Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication is not permitted.)

Excerpt - Ruggiero's NIGHT SONGS AND FLIGHTS OF FANCY, Mvt. 3
From - Faculty Recital
Joseph Lulloff, alto saxophone, Jun Okada, piano
(Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication is not permitted.)

Excerpt - Ruggiero's NIGHT SONGS AND FLIGHTS OF FANCY, Mvt. 4
From - Faculty Recital
Joseph Lulloff, alto saxophone, Jun Okada, piano
(Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication is not permitted.)

Instrumentation: A Sax, Pn

Duration: ca. 20:00 min.

Night Songs and Flights of Fancy - for Alto Saxophone and Piano (2005)
Night Songs and Flights of Fancy was written for Joseph Lulloff and Jun Okada, two immensely talented performers with whom I have had the good fortune to collaborate several times during the past two decades. In the music Ive written for Joe and Jun, I have tried to exploit and enhance their unique synergy, especially the rhythmic energy and momentum that some of their best performances have.
Night Songs and Flights of Fancy is inspired by four songs and short instrumental pieces from the vast repertoire of American popular music and jazz of the 1930s and 40smusic that Ive been interested in for most of my life and that continues to provide me with much enjoyment, especially when performed by masterful jazz improvisers. While the listener need not recognize hints of the four source works to comprehend and enjoy this composition, for those who are familiar with these mid twentieth-century popular songs and instrumental pieces, Nights Songs and Flights of Fancy may contain enriching associations, connections, and layers of meaning.
Each of the four movements of Night Songs and Flights of Fancy begins with more or less song-like material and is followed by freer and more complex music that develops the opening material but also introduces contrasting ideas, sometimes in ways that may seem fanciful, surprising, or even mildly perplexing.

Fantasy on a Theme by Ravel, for clarinet and piano, 2004-2009
Samples, Instrumentation, Program Notes

Fantasy on a Theme by Ravel, for clarinet and piano, 2004-2009
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Instrumentation: Bb Cl, Pn

Duration: ca. 10:05 min.

Fantasy on a Theme by Ravel - for Clarinet and Piano (2004)

I had admired the music of Maurice Ravel years before I began my composition lessons at the New England Conservatory in the mid 1960s. As a teenager, I remember spending hours listening to a Boston Symphony Orchestra recording of Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe; certainly, that listening experience helped shape my concept of what the power of music could be. But it wasn't until 2002, when I gave a composition seminar in the music of Ravel at Michigan State University, that I developed a deeper understanding of the French master's art.

I had not yet given the Ravel seminar at MSU, when the talented clarinetist, Suzanne Tirk, asked me to write something for clarinet and piano. I agreed to accept Suzanne's invitation, having, at first, no intention to incorporate anything Ravelian into the new piece. But by the time the composition was started, I felt almost compelled to draw upon my studies of Ravel's music in writing this duo for clarinet and piano. I'm not sure why, but I feel that the timbres of the clarinet are particularly well suited to articulate some of Ravel's melodic ideas.

Soon after I had decided to base my composition for clarinet and piano on melodic material by Ravel, I settled upon the main theme from the recapitulation of the first movement of Ravel's string quartet. Although Ravel's theme never appears verbatim, it is the basis for almost everything in my duo. And although I have not tried to "quote" elements of Ravel's style in Fantasy on a Theme by Ravel, much of this composition's harmony, texture, rhythm, etc. is indebted to Ravel's music. Fantasy is, then, offered in homage to the master, but offered with the hope that both the performer and listener will find in it more than just an attempt to mimic a well-known style. (June 2004)

Collage-1912, for clarinet, violin, and piano, 2001 (Subito Music Corp., Verona, NJ 07044)
Samples, Instrumentation, Program Notes

Collage-1912, for clarinet, violin, and piano, 2001 (Subito Music Corp., Verona, NJ 07044)
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Samples:
Excerpt - Ruggiero's COLLAGE, Mvts. at 280 and 360
From - COLLAGE, Crystal Records CD947
The Verdehre Trio: Walter Verdehr, violin, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, clarinet, Silvia Roederer, piano
(Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication is not permitted.)

Instrumentation: Vln, Bb Cl, Pn

Duration: ca. 9:40 min.

Collage-1912 (2001)

Several times during the 1990s Walter Verdehr, my Michigan State University colleague, invited me to write a piece for the renowned Verdehr Trio, the clarinet-violin-piano trio that he founded with his wife, Elsa Ludewig-Verdehr, in 1972 (just one year, coincidentally, before I joined the MSU faculty). I regret that it took me so long to compose something for the Verdehrs, but the delay wasn't due to lack of interest. I've been a great admirer of Elsa and Walter as solo performers and of their superb trio for many years, and I'm honored that they asked me to contribute to the distinctive repertoire that their talents and hard work have brought to life during the past three decades, but a variety of other exigent projects during the 1990s prevented me from working on a piece for the Verdehr Trio until the fall of 2001.

For years now both Elsa and Walter have been attracted to the paintings of my daughter Maria Fiorenza Ruggiero Sidiropoulos. Not only have the Verdehrs purchased several of Maria's paintings for their home, but they also have used a few of her images on Verdehr Trio posters and as part of their website. Every now and then, when I'd run into Walter in the halls of MSU's School of Music or chat with him after one of the trio's summer performances at MSU's Wharton Center, he would say something like, "About that piece we'd like you to write, . . . wouldn't it be wonderful if you could tie it in with some of Maria's paintings." And at one point Walter suggested that it would be delightful to have a number of Maria's paintings exhibited at the site of the premiere of my composition for the Verdehr Trio.

I liked Walter's idea that I relate my composition in some way to my daughter's work, but I did not want to write a "pictures-at-an-exhibition" type of piece. And I especially did not want to try to convey my impressions of Maria's depiction of some idyllic landscape located in a region of the world I'd never set foot in. After considerable thought I decided to try to develop a musical composition using techniques or procedures analogous to those Maria has been using in some of her recent (2000-2001) paintings.

Collage-1912 isn't based on any particular painting or paintings, nor is it intended to impart my musical impressions of, or responses to, the things and places represented in any of Maria's paintings; rather, this musical composition was created using steps analogous to those my daughter has used to transform some of her smaller still-life paintings into larger, more abstract landscapes. Maria's still-life paintings, like many traditional still-lifes, are representations of more-or-less common household objects-glasses, dishes, candlesticks, vases, pieces of fruit, etc.-arranged in a very "artificial" manner. That's to say, arranged not as they would be if someone were preparing for a dinner party, but arranged as a composition of shapes, colors, shadings, etc. Quite often in Maria's still-life paintings compositional motifs take precedence over "reality." For example, in one painting the pattern of a tablecloth is imprinted upon objects that sit on top of the cloth instead of being obscured by them. Although these small still-life paintings are already somewhat abstract, a more marked abstraction takes place in the next phase of the process, where various elements from some of these still-life paintings are used in the development of enlarged companion works.

Maria has produced a series of works in which she has attempted, quite successfully I believe, to transform original but somewhat conventional still-life paintings into bold landscapes that can (should?) be viewed in multiple ways. For example, a large piece might be perceived as an autonomous, rather loose, rhythmic, and intense post-impressionistic landscape and simultaneously seen as a radical permutation of the still-life painting with which it is paired.

How did the creation of Collage-1912 relate to the process outlined above? I started my piece for the Verdehr Trio by fashioning a musical still-life of sorts. I snipped many passages from a dozen compositions (all of which were either composed or published in 1911 or 1912-hence the title) and rather "artificially" arranged them into a musical "still-life." This part of the process took about two months-much more time than I had anticipated! In the next step of the compositional process, I modified the musical still-life by rearranging, supplementing, subtracting from, distorting, overlapping, fusing, etc. the snippets to create the final composition.

Every measure of Collage-1912 is based on one or more snippets (including a few fairly substantial excerpts) taken from one composition by each of the following twelve composers: Béla Bartók, Irving Berlin, Claude Debussy, W.C. Handy, Charles Ives, Gustav Mahler, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg, James Scott, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, and Joaquín Turina. A diverse group of snippets, to be sure, but perhaps not as diverse as one might guess from reading any standard college textbook on the history of Western music! The use of existing music to create a new work is, of course, nothing new. Not only were numerous European medieval, renaissance, and baroque pieces constructed with borrowed materials, but many twentieth-century composers, including some of the twelve composers whose music is used in Collage-1912 (particularly Ives and Stravinsky), have quoted and parodied music from various sources extensively in certain compositions.

Collage-1912, which is approximately eleven minutes in duration, consists of two parts that are performed with no pause between them. This work is dedicated to the Verdehr Trio, to my daughter Maria, and to all twelve of the composers whose raw materials I mined for the "still-life" and consequent collage (or "abstract musical landscape") by which, I must admit, I've attempted to depict a significant chunk of the Western music world circa 1912. (November 29, 2001)

Strayhorn, for alto saxophone and piano, 1999-2000 (concert arrangement, published by RGM, Eau Claire, Wisconsin)
Samples, Instrumentation, Program Notes

Strayhorn, for alto saxophone and piano, 1999-2000 (concert arrangement, published by RGM, Eau Claire, Wisconsin)
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Instrumentation: A Sax, Pn

Duration: ca. 14:00 min.

STRAYHORN - A Concert Arrangement of Billy Strayhorn Compositions for Alto Saxophone and Piano (2000)

STRAYHORN was written for my friends Joseph Lulloff and Jun Okadaduring the seven days from December 26, 1999, to New Year's Day, 2000. Although I hadn't planned on spending that week writing music, when Joe asked me (late in November) to arrange "some jazz" for his appearance at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on January 26, 2000, I just couldn't say no. The sponsors of Joe's recital, the New York Pro Musicis association, had suggested that he include some jazz on his program, and when Joe contacted me I immediately proposed an extended concert arrangement based on several songs and instrumental pieces of Billy Strayhorn. The choice of Strayhorn's music was easy; it was stimulated in part by my interest in Strayhorn's compositions and in part by Joe's admiration for the distinctive alto saxophone playing of Johnny Hodges, one of Strayhorn's colleagues in the Duke Ellington enterprise. (The attentive listener may recognize a brief reference to Strayhorn's musical tribute to Hodges, "Johnny Come Lately," at the very end of the arrangement.)

Although their emotional expressiveness and melodic beauty are quite captivating, it is the harmonic sophistication of Billy Strayhorn's compositions that is most intriguing to me. As José Hosiasson states in The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, Strayhorn's "ballads . . . are harmonically and structurally among the most sophisticated in jazz." This sophistication is not surprising, considering the excellent early musical training that Strayhorn received, his intellectual curiosity, and his extraordinary gift for composition.

After spending nearly three decades as Duke Ellington's closest musical collaborator, Billy Strayhorn died somewhat in the shadow of jazz's greatest composer and bandleader. During his lifetime, some of Strayhorn's music, like the well-known theme song of Ellington's band, "Take the 'A' Train," was assumed by many to be Duke's work. But recently a number of performers and scholars have begun to better understand the significance of Strayhorn's contributions to Ellington's output and to reappraise Strayhorn's independent work.

This arrangement for alto saxophone and piano of Strayhorn works is intended to pay homage to Billy Strayhorn by helping to bring his music to the recital stage. It's my hope that in this piece two different performance practices (one involving improvisation, the other not) are blended effectively, resulting in a work that can be presented convincingly by musicians who are at ease with fully notated "art music" but not averse to improvisation. This approach seems appropriate, since Strayhorn was rooted in the traditions of both jazz and European "classical" music.

He was my listener, my most dependable appraiser, and as a critic he would be the most clinical, but his background--both classical and modern--was an accessory to his own good taste and understanding, so what came back to me was in perfect balance.

Duke Ellington (from his autobiography, Music Is My Mistress)

STRAYHORN is based on the following compositions (listed in order of their appearance in the arrangement):

Day Dream (Ellington/Strayhorn, 1941)

Rain Check (Strayhorn, 1942)

A Flower Is a Lovesome Thing (Strayhorn, 1941)

Blood Count (Strayhorn, 1967)

Upper Manhattan Medical Group--also known as "U.M.M.G." (Strayhorn, 1956)

Take the "A" Train (Strayhorn, 1941)

Johnny Come Lately (Strayhorn, 1942)
(December, 2000)

Interplay, for soprano saxophone and piano, 1988 (Dorn Publications, Inc.)
Samples, Instrumentation, Program Notes

Interplay, for soprano saxophone and piano, 1988 (Dorn Publications, Inc.)
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Samples:
Excerpt - Ruggiero's INTERPLAY, Mvt. 1, 'Octaves'
From - INTERPLAY, Channel Crossing CD CCS 10497
Joseph Lulloff, soprano saxophone, Philip Hosford, piano
(Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication is not permitted.)

Instrumentation: S Sax, Pn

Duration: ca. 19:00 min.

Interplay - for Soprano Saxophone and Piano (1988)

This composition for soprano saxophone and piano was written during the period of July 1987 through April 1988 and was one of three works commissioned by saxophonists Joseph Lulloff, Allen Rippe, and Cynthia Sikes as part of a 1987-89 National Endowment for the Arts Consortium Commissioning Project sponsored by Tulane University. William Russo and Ralph Shapey, the two other composers who participated in the project, were commissioned to write compositions that feature the alto saxophone.

* * *

Interplay is in three movements: "Octaves," "Night Song," and "Departures." The title "Interplay" refers to the sometimes playful, sometimes combative, interactions that occur between the saxophone and piano parts throughout the composition, but especially in the work's outer movements.

In the first and second movements of Interplay two essentially distinct sets of musical materials are presented; in the third movement these two sets of materials are synthesized and transformed. The use, in the first two movements, of certain stylistic models and materials borrowed from modern jazz is confirmed in the final movement as it departs from its opening style and moves toward a blatantly boppish idiom.

"Octaves" is organized into seven main sections. Passages consisting of spun-out generative lines in octaves (i.e., with perfect octave or multiple-octave doublings between the saxophone and piano parts and between the two hands of the piano part) occur three times over the course of the movement and collectively serve as a source of materials for the movement's other sections.

Both perfect octaves and augmented octaves figure conspicuously in the melodic and harmonic palette of the first movement, and "Octaves" begins and ends with a juxtaposition of these two intervals. In the second and the sixth sections of the movement, perfect octaves are used prominently in the eighteenth-century derived accompaniment figures of the piano part. The classical keyboard style of these two sections serves as a foil to the volatile jazz "comping" that dominates the middle of the movement.

"Night Song" is an atmospheric "after-hours tune" in a harmonic style that is more explicitly tonal than that of "Octaves." Jazz-like pitch and timbre inflections, which for the most part are absent from the first movement, are introduced in "Night Song" and then are used more prominently in "Departures," the final movement of the work.

The form of "Departures" is the result of a process in which tempos, textures, repetitive figurations, harmonic progressions, etc. are established and then negated in ways so as to set up arrival points at new musical territories. "Departures" might be thought of as a voyage that ultimately takes the listener back to the two primary musical environments out of which were generated the materials of the first two movements: namely, the milieu of modern jazz (especially bop and bop-related jazz), and that of the neoclassic music of Igor Stravinsky. (June 6, 1989)

Dances and Other Movements, for violin, alto saxophone, and piano, 1983, rev. 1984 (Dorn Publications, Inc.)
Samples, Instrumentation, Program Notes

Dances and Other Movements, for violin, alto saxophone, and piano, 1983, rev. 1984 (Dorn Publications, Inc.)
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Samples:
Excerpt - Ruggiero's DANCES AND OTHER MOVEMENTS, Mvt. 9, 'Finale'
From - Faculty Recital
I-Fu Wang, violin, James Forger, alto saxophone, Deborah Moriarty, piano
(Used by permission. Unauthorized duplication is not permitted.)

Instrumentation: Vln, A Sax, Pn

Duration: ca. 25:00 min.

Dances and Other Movements - for Violin, Alto Saxophone, and Piano (1983)

Dances . . . is a suite of nine short movements three of which are solos: "Soliloquy" (for saxophone), "Interlude" (for piano), and "Violin Tune" (featuring, of course, violin). In several of the movements, especially in the dances, simple ostinatos and more-or-less familiar meters and rhythms are employed. In the last movement, "Finale," motives, themes, and other elements of the first eight movements are juxtaposed and further developed.

Although Dances and Other Movements is partially based on a 12-tone set, the style of this composition is indebted primarily to such diverse sources as the music of Bartok and Stravinsky, Latin-American popular music, traditional and modern jazz, and Eastern-European folk music.

The 12-tone set of Dances . . . is derived from part of the melody of a well-known jazz "standard"; this borrowing is a hidden tribute to one of the leading creative forces of modern jazz.

In Dances and Other Movements I have explored and tried to integrate contrasting rhythmic styles. Extensive portions of this composition are notated in "traditional" meters . . . , and the beat in these passages is often very easily distinguishable. In several movements, however, the beat is sometimes obscured by a variety of non-traditional rhythmic techniques and notational devices. It is hoped that the listener will hear transformations or "modulations" from one rhythmic style to another in certain passages; the most extended example of rhythmic transformation in this work can be heard in "Finale."

The basic 12-tone set of Dances and Other Movements is rotated (i.e., systematically reordered) and otherwise used rather freely throughout the composition. Less primitive than the 12-tone structure of this work is its use of registral and timbral constants as prime referential elements. Pitch classes tend to be associated with only one or two specific octave locations in each of the three instruments. It is hoped that the listener will perceive and, without much special effort, aurally remember the registral locations of pitch classes and that this will enhance the listener's understanding and enjoyment of the work. (1983)

Hocket Variations, for piano and prepared piano, 1978
Samples, Instrumentation, Program Notes

Hocket Variations, for piano and prepared piano, 1978
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Instrumentation: Pn, Prepared Pn

Duration: ca. 30:00 min.

Hocket Variations - for Piano and Prepared Piano (1978)

"Hocket Variations for Two Pianos" was commissioned by the Michigan Music Teachers Association and was composed during August and September, 1978.

Although no theme is stated at any point in the composition, certain rhythmic, melodic, harmonic, textural, and formal elements are introduced, repeated, and varied throughout. Some of the more important of these elements are: hocket (a compositional device perfected in the middle ages consisting of the rapid alternation of two or more voices or instruments with single notes or groups of notes) and pointillism (a twentieth-century manner of composition in which single notes or small groups of notes are separated or isolated by musical space, timbre, dynamics, rests, etc.)-the two of which should be regarded as closely related in this composition; the opening chords of Variation 1 (which, incidentally, is only one measure in duration); the long series of pitches which is first stated in Variation 2; repeated notes and chords played accelerando (first found at the end of Variation 2) . . . ; the melodic and harmonic material first stated in Variation 3; the pitch class B-natural and the E major triad; and, trills and grace notes (first stated in Variation 6). It is hoped that even on first hearing a careful listener will recognize most of these elements much of the time when they are present in the work. As a successful performance of this composition unfolds, a creative and sensitive listener should intuitively or subconsciously construct an abstract "theme" (i.e., collection of compositional constants). So this work is, in a sense, a theme and variations.

Most of the variations are for two pianos, Piano I being "prepared" (i.e., physically modified, in this case by placing plastic screw anchors between the wires of all of the double and triple strings) to help clarify the hocket passages and provide timbral richness. Of the 20 variations three (5, 10, and 16) are for one piano. These solo variations not only provide some timbral and textural contrast, but also serve to introduce and recapitulate materials for two groups of variations.

In homage to the Goldberg Variations Variations 11, 14, and part of 15 of "Hocket Variations" are canons. However, the canons in Variations 11 and 15 are unmetered, and all three canons are as much timbral-textural-rhythmic "effects" as examples of strict counterpoint. (October, 1978)

Now Welcome, Somer, with Thy Sunne Softe, for chorus and percussion, 1978
Samples, Instrumentation, Program Notes

Now Welcome, Somer, with Thy Sunne Softe, for chorus and percussion, 1978
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Instrumentation: Chorus consisting of S (I-IV, 14 singers), A (I-II, 9 singers), T (4 to 6 singers), B (6 to 10 singers), Perc (8 Chrotale parts that may be performed by percussionists or non-singing members of the chorus), Pn (2 players), cond
Duration: ca. 10:00 min.

Now Welcome, Somer, With Thy Sunne Softe - for Chorus, 8 Crotales, and Piano (1979)

Now Welcome, Somer, With Thy Sunne Soft is a composition for chorus, percussion, and piano, based on a roundel by Geoffrey Chaucer. "Roundel" is a Middle English word which identifies the poetic form often called "rondeau," one of the formes fixes.

The composition is constructed in two large sections. In both of these sections, the first 17 members of the harmonic series on G unfold.

The work is based on two medieval musical ideas: "music of the spheres" and isorhythm. The former, a philosophical concept developed by ancient Greek philosophers and promulgated by medieval musical authorities, links musical harmony, as reflected in the proper tuning of musical intervals, with the harmony of the universe (i.e., the proper organization and workings of the planets, stars, days, seasons, etc.). The latter, isorhythm, is a compositional technique which was used during Chaucer's lifetime. In isorhythmic structure, a repeating rhythmic pattern, the talea, is applied to a repeating pitch pattern, the color. Generally, the talea is shorter than the color.

Chaucer's roundel welcomes the return of summer and reminds us of the eternal rotation of the seasons. Early in my creative process, the poem stimulated thoughts that led to the establishment of the following goal: to express musically the unity in such seeming opposities as timelessness and flowing time, permanence and flux, and eternity and temporality. This aesthetic goal accounts for the treatment of materials in the composition. Textural, dynamic, and rhythmic changes throughout create constantly fluctuating tension levels, but tonally, the composition is completely static.

The text of Chaucer's poem provides the main timbral resources of this work. Eleven vowels and 21 consonants have been isolated from the roundel and arranged into two ordered sets; these sets, comparable to the talea and color respectively, are linked in a manner analogous to isorhythm. Furthermore, the movement of the soprano and alto melodic lines is governed by a contour set. This set limits the directions in which a melodic line may move from one vowel to the next. For example, in the highest soprano part, the pitch of the vowel "e" always must be approached from below.

The length of the composition is determined by the isorhythmic plan. After 21 statements of the vowel set, the work ends.

This composition is dedicated to H. Owen Reed. (1979)

Compositions and Arrangements