“British Invasion” Program Notes
William Kanengiser and the Eclipse String Quartet
In tonight’s program, William Kanengiser and the Eclipse String Quartet pay tribute to a group of English musicians who conquered the musical world with their revolutionary explorations. From the Elizabethan lutenist John Dowland to the pop/rock icons Sting, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, these artists made a lasting impact far from the shores of their small island. Their music served as inspiration for a set of compositions for guitar and string quartet by some of the most talented composers writing today, and it is especially appropriate that the guitar sits squarely at the center of these works, as the plucked string was the primary musical voice of these British innovators.
Born in Havana in 1939, Léo Brouwer is now regarded as the preeminent contemporary composer for the guitar, although he has also written extensively for orchestra, choir and chamber ensembles, and has composed over 50 film scores. Coming of age in post-Revolutionary Cuba, he was entranced not only by classical and avant-garde music, but also by the popular music of the day; The Beatles, in particular, were an important influence on his musical personality. When a Cuban Minister of Culture undertook a program of avoiding “Western” influence, Léo found his music, as well as his beloved Beatles, banned in his homeland. As a reaction, he arranged seven Beatles classics in 1987, grouping them as “Beatlerianas”, which have been scored for guitar duo, guitar with chamber orchestra, and the present version for guitar and string quartet.
Eclipse and Kanengiser have chosen three of these settings, all of which contain enough new and extrapolated material to straddle the distinction between pure arrangement and new composition. The three pieces also share a commonality in theme: they all are pieces that John Lennon (1940-1980) and Paul McCartney (b. 1942) wrote in their mature period, capturing memories of their early years growing up in Liverpool. Eleanor Rigby is a heart-breaking character study of the loneliness of anonymity and old age, and Brouwer interjects brisk passagework and a quasi-fugal exposition of the tune before the more familiar setting emerges. She’s Leaving Home captures the poignant moment of a daughter leaving the nest, from both her and her mother’s perspective; Brouwer begins it with a fluid introduction and a swinging coda in his delicate treatment. And Penny Lane gives a vivid portrait of a day in the life on the bustling streets of Liverpool; Brouwer captures the energy of the scene with a vibrant syncopated introduction and crisp rhythmic countermelodies to the jaunty tune.
John Dowland (1563-1626) was the undisputed master of the Elizabethan lute, and through his vast catalogue of compositions and frequent travels abroad, could be said to be one of the first “rock stars” of the plucked string. One of his most popular pieces is his “Frog Galliard”, which may have been written in reference to one of Elizabeth I’s French suitors, the Duc d’Alençon; Dowland also set the piece to text in his lute song “Now, O Now, I Needs Must Part”. (The triple meter and cyclical harmony of the piece have suggested to some that Herr Pachelbel might have lifted it for his famous “Canon in D” theme.) The contemporary composer Ian Krouse (b. 1956) used this theme as a springboard for a major work, first written for two guitars under the title “Portrait of a Young Woman”, and then re-cast for solo guitar and string quartet (it was later re-arranged for four guitars and recorded by William Kanengiser’s group the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet on their “New Renaissance” album).
Ian Krouse is a Distinguished Professor of Composition at UCLA and a prolific and lauded composer of symphonies, chamber works and song cycles (he is most recognized for his magnum opus, Armenian Requiem, op. 66). But as a guitarist himself, he is most associated with that instrument, and particularly through his long and fruitful collaboration with LAGQ. In setting the Frog Galliard, Krouse created a two-part work that deconstructs, reconstructs, and reimagines the theme both melodically and harmonically. Krouse also used the conceit of limiting himself to the seven notes of the key of E Major, to see how much contrast and formal development could be achieved within that constraint: hence the title Music in Four Sharps. The first half of the piece owes a debt to Benjamin Britten’s masterwork for solo guitar, Nocturnal after John Dowland, op 70, which also happens to be a setting of a Dowland theme (Come, Heavy Sleep); like the Nocturnal, Music in Four Sharps presents a set of variations that reveals the theme at the end, rather than at the outset. While the statement of the theme was the endpoint for Britten’s setting, for Krouse it marks the middle point. From then on, the piece becomes a quasi-minimalistic fracturing and rhythmic overlay of snippets of the tune that gradually builds to a searing climax. As the dust settles, the theme returns as a faint echo, fading out a niente.
Sting (b. 1951, né Gordon Sumner) has re-defined what a pop artist can be over his multifaceted career; he is a rock star, a jazz musician, a world-music advocate, an early music aficionado, an actor, and now, a Broadway playwright and headliner in his musical The Last Ship. Along the way, he created a catalogue of songs that have become anthems for a whole generation. The contemporary Serbian composer Dusan Bogdanovic (b. 1955) undertook the project of setting six of Sting’s tunes into “Prism: Six Songs by Sting” for solo guitar and string quartet in 2013. The genesis of the collaboration was through Sting’s exploration into Elizabethan lute and the music of John Dowland in his project Songs from the Labyrinth. There he worked with the Croatian lutenist Edin Karamozov, who is a frequent performer of Dusan’s music. Edin commissioned Dusan to set the songs, and with Sting’s blessing, the pieces have been performed and recorded. Tonight’s performance will mark the North American premiere of the set.
Bogdanovic chose six songs that highlight the stylistic and emotional range of Sting’s songwriting, in adaptations are even more extrapolated and re-composed than the aforementioned Beatles settings by Brouwer. Dusan’s iconic style comes through clearly, with a penchant for odd-meters, rich harmonies, polymeter and jazz textures, making it a perfect foil to Sting’s pop-infused multistylistic approach. The simplest of the settings is Every Breath You Take, with the time signature set to a more Balkan 7/8, and a cello ostinato reminiscent of the Prelude of Bach’s Cello Suite #1. Next is Message in a Bottle, churning with an African-inspired polyrhythm, which climaxes in a highly syncopated 12/8 groove. Shape of My Heart is a duet for cello and guitar, with a mournful, bluesy setting of this lovely ballad. Fields of Gold is a dialogue between guitar and the string quartet, with luscious harmonies over the hymnlike melody. Next is the rock anthem Roxanne, here set as a passacaglia that becomes increasingly complex, polytonal and polyrhythmic, culminating in a frenetic post-modern be-bop coda. Concluding the set, Desert Rose begins with a short guitar solo in a North African style, which unfolds into the ostinato of the tune, again re-imagined in 7/8.
John Duarte (1919-2004) was a respected guitarist, pedagogue, arranger, musicologist, author and composer from Great Britain. Perhaps best remembered for his hundreds of liner notes and polemic articles in guitar journals, he left a large catalogue of finely crafted compositions, often inspired by music of distinct world cultures. He turned to the traditional music of his homeland in his English Suite op.31, which carries the dedication: “To Andres Segovia and his wife on the occasion of their marriage”. Based on completely original themes, the piece nonetheless captures the essence of English folk music, while also serving as a musical portrait of a joyous wedding celebration in the countryside. The Prelude begins with a stately theme for the wedding party’s processional, and features a contrasting middle section introducing the bride and groom. The lyrical Folk Song movement can be seen as a poignant exchange of vows, and the raucous Round Dance serves as a finale for the post-nuptial festivities.
As a companion piece to Ian Krouse’s “Labyrinth on a Theme of Led Zeppelin” (see below), Kanengiser presents a solo work as an homage to one of England’s most innovative guitarists, Jimmy Page. Ian wrote DADGAD for the talented young guitarist Henry Johnson in 2012. The title refers to the actual tuning of the guitar, a standard open tuning favored by Celtic musicians. But the piece is inspired by Jimmy Page’s version of the traditional folk tune “Black Mountain Side”, and explores the folk, blues, and rock elements that informed the music of Zeppelin and their contemporaries.
Led Zeppelin still stands as one of the most emblematic and innovative rock groups in history, and the guitar stylings of Jimmy Page puts him firmly in the pantheon of “Guitar Gods” alongside Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton. But while they’re most known for their commercial hits Stairway to Heaven and Whole Lotta Love, they experimented quite a bit with world-music elements, complex rhythms and innovative structure, redefining what rock music could be. A “deep track” from their Led Zeppelin 3release was Friends, a Moroccan-inspired blues filled with odd meters, bent pitches, and exotic scales. This tune served as the starting point for one of Ian Krouse’s most ambitious works, Labyrinth on a Theme of Led Zeppelin. Originally composed for LAGQ in 1994, it was rearranged for solo guitar and string quartet in 2019 expressly for this British Invasion project.
The piece begins with a note-for-note transcription of the original Friends track, complete with strummed open-tuned chords on the steel-string guitar and microtonal bends evoking Robert Plant’s bluesy vocal line. After a rousing cadence, the texture becomes ominous, with rapid string passagework punctuated by a bottle-neck slide statement of the theme. This gives way to a furious exposition of the octatonic scale, in a “call-and-response” blues form, culminating in a chorale-like recapitulation of the theme. Part 3 begins by introducing an up-tempo rock-style blues, which become increasingly raucous and is punctuated by an improvised slide guitar solo. Without warning, a sudden stop ushers in Part 4, a slow and haunting passacaglia over the blues progression. The cello then begins Part 5 with an austere statement of the theme, as the subject of what will become a full-blown fugal exposition. Previous elements interrupt the imitative texture with increasing intensity, until the opening theme returns, this time informed by the transfigurations of the previous material. A final swelling crescendo erupts in the finale, as the Labyrinth returns to the open C major chord where it began.
ECLIPSE QUARTET
Winners of a 2025 Koussevitsky Commission from the Koussevitsky Foundation in the Library of Congress and four 2023-24 San Francisco Classical Voice Audience Awards, the Eclipse Quartet is an ensemble dedicated to the music of twentieth century and present day composers. The scope of their repertoire spans works from John Cage and Morton Subotnick to collaborations with the singers Beck and Caetano Veloso. Eclipse has the versatility to cross genres from works that include electronics and computer processing to the jazz compositions of Grammy award winning pianist Billy Childs. The Quartet has performed frequently on both coasts and has participated in festivals such as the Look and Listen Festival in NYC, the Festival for New American Music in Sacramento, the Scarlatti Festival in Naples, Italy, the Martha’s Vineyard Chamber Music Festival, the Angel City Jazz Festival and the Hear and Now Festival in Los Angeles.
The repertoire of Eclipse contains works by such dynamic composers as Roger Reynolds, Julia Wolfe, Ben Johnston, Errollyn Wallen, Ruth Crawford Seeger, Annie Gosfield, John Zorn, Ali Can Puskulcu, Philip Glass, John King, Gabriela Ortiz and Lois V. Vierk. They have premiered new works by Sarah Gibson, Zeena Parkins, Carla Kihlstedt, Justin Haynes, Gernot Wolfgang, Alisson Krussmma and Bill Alves and Fred Frith.
Eclipse has recorded the string quartets of Zeena Parkins for the Tzadik label and Morton Feldman’s epic Piano And String Quartet piece with pianist Vicki Ray on Bridge Records. In 2013 Eclipse released a disc of three works for percussion and string quartet with percussionist William Winant on New World Records as recipients of the Aaron Copland Fund for Music Recording Grant. In 2014 the MicroFest label released Ruminations featuring Eclipse’s recording of Ben Johnston’s Revised Standards. In 2019 Cold Blue released Separations Songs, a concert length piece by Matt Sargent for double quartet.
Eclipse Quartet have been Artists in Residence at Mills College in Oakland, California, the historic artists’ retreat Villa Aurora in Los Angeles, University of California, Davis, and the Vermont College of Fine Arts Residency at Cal Arts.