<<  -- 9 --  Roderic Dunnett    LISZTIAN SPARKLE

Small has collaborated closely with several artists, notably the Japanese bassoonist Shigeru Ohta : 'I wrote this piece for Shigeru [this was Six Miniatures for bassoon and piano, a delightfully chirpy and varied collection of miniatures played by Small and Ohta on the 4TAY disc], and he invited me there in 1995 to perform it with him in Japan [October 2000 also saw the Japanese première of Small's Symphony for Solo Piano in Tokyo and Kanazawa]; then he said, "why don't you write something that involves flute?", as his wife is a flautist. As it happened I had already written a piece for bassoon, flute and piano, a fugue; so what I ended up doing was adding a Postlude -- hence Fugue and Postlude - for Shigeru and his wife. Several pieces came about in this way : I wrote Tweet for Two at a time when my daughter was studying oboe : as both her teacher and her teacher's spouse were oboists, I thought, why not?'

'Incidentally I'm also involved with another bassoonist, the Russian-born Arnold Irchai, assistant conductor and principal bassoonist with the Mount Vernon Orchestra : as part of the residency I'm writing a Double Concerto for Bassoon and Piano for him and me to perform together.

'That's for the end of the 2002-3 season. Actually before that, I've just finished recently a piece which is an ongoing piece, the first thing I've done as part of the residency which is a Suite in five movements entitled Really? The current orchestra season (2001-2) has five pairs of concerts, and the Music Director, Ulysses S James, felt it was a nifty thought if I would present a new movement each pair of concerts, adding one each time, so that by the final concert in June the audience would hear the entire work for the first time. Originally I thought of doing a series of just questions, and then as I asked the first question which was "Why?" I couldn't really conceive a way to continue in a question vein so the second became 'So what?' (apologies to Miles Davis, by the way : someone reminded me he wrote a piece with that title); and the third one was "Are you sure?"

'So there's a kind of little wavering philosophy, exploration about the titles. The fourth one which is the most recent one I've had performed, is "How did we come to be?" which is kind of the deep, cosmic question, and the final one is the title piece, "Oh, really?" -- as if to say, "Who cares?" They're all short, verging on snippets : The first's about three minutes long, the second just one minute, the third maybe, the fourth is three and a half, and the last just one. The whole thing lasts about eleven minutes. It's proved to be a lot of fun.'

Haskell Small, who is a Steinway Artist, is represented :

as a pianist, by :

Jane Music Management, Inc.
1060 Park Ave,
New York City 10128, USA
Tel: +1 (212) 534 6191 Fax: +1 (212) 534 6311
e-mail: Janemgt@aol.com

as a composer, by :

Jeffrey James Arts Consulting
316 Pacific Street, Massapequa Park
New York 11762, USA
Tel & Fax: +1 (516) 797 9166
e-mail: jamesarts@worldnet.att.net

Publishers:

Theodore Presser Co, Brixton Publications, Brazinmusikanta, Earnestly Music, MMB Music Recordings: Orion, Northeastern, Centaur, 4-Tay, Albany Records.