CD53

Burdick & Harbison Horn Quartets
1) Burdick, Richard: Horn Quartet No. 8, Op. 305 (2021)
2) Harbison, John: French horn suite (2007)
3) Burdick, Richard: Horn Quartet No. 7, Op. 299 (2020)
4) Burdick, Richard: Quintet "The Greats" for English horn      with horn quartet, Op. 303
5) Variations on a Theme, Op. 81
6) Burdick, Richard: Free Quartet No. 1 "Glacier", Op.197
7) Burdick, Richard: Cantaria, Op. 162

Released: March 6, 2021

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Program Notes:

From the Composer:

RB: "This CD was recorded in the time the the Regina Symphony was shut down because of the risk of spreading the virus. We played in October and November of 2020, but then we were shut down until March 2021. This most of this CD was recorded from December 2020 to Mid February 2021. It was quite cold in February, so every time I put my horn down for a minute, I had to warm it up and check pitch, this slowed down the process, but I am very happy with the result.

About the Music:

The CD originally had Horn Quartet No. 6, Op. 303 as the first four tracks. I love that work and was including it even though it's also on CD52. Because of the double release, it was rejected by download services around the world. So, in early April I wrote Horn Quartet No. 8, Op. 305 to replace Op. 303. This new work has one brand-new movement, and arrangements of three older works. Movement one & two have been arranged from my piano solo The Eleven Major Pairs, Op. 142c (M.1 from "The Eleven Major Pairs for solo piano, Op. 142c: I. Major Pairs in C and G Major, M.2 from "The Eleven Major Pairs for solo piano, Op. 142c: IX. Major Pairs in C and F Major.) The third movement titled: Intermezzo is from Huber Suite Duo for horn & 'cello (1977.) The fourth movement is brand new and is based on I Ching Hexagram No. 24-52 "Beholding."

The idea behind this CD really started when the Regina Symphony Orchestra chamber players rehearsed John Harbison's wind quintet. I looked up Harbison and found he had written a horn quartet. I got a copy of John's work through inter-library loan from the public library. I didn't want to pay the $100cad that it would have cost to buy and import the music.

The Harbison is described as "sort of like one player tries to imitate another player but just can't do it." It's like the game telephone. The tonalities change and overlap in a dissonant way. One movement is marked for two of the horns play out of tune by a half step, and it seems this is for no reason; and I think it makes the horn players look or sound bad. An other devious thing; maybe playful thing he did was write a movement to be played off-stage after the on-stage performance. I think this is sort of un-necessary and standard performance practice is to end strong, not to end then re-start off stage. There was one chord that I loved in his work. A Bb/D third overlapping a B/D minor third. I loved this.

I wrote my Horn Quartet No. 7, Op. 299 in response to John's quartet. I used the Bb/D & B/D "chord" to start my work. I used the idea of quarter-tones in the slow movement, using the 7th 11th and 13th partials instead of John’s idea of just tune half the horns out a quarter-step. My works alway are written with the harmonic series in mind, and I think the simple use of these "out-of-tune" partials is effective.

The writing of the two horn quartets and the quintet that I recently wrote really started with my Duet for horn and ‘cello, Op. 295 where I wrote a 24 bar section of music and re-worked it to develop the whole work. Changing it to a slow movement, a movement in 3 and adding a motive to it in the final. The whole work is based on the one section. I think the work is very effective and is an interesting fun and quick way to compose. I used this ideal composition form as a starting point for the three newer works.

Quintet "The Greats" for English horn with horn quartet, Op. 303 was written after I wrote A Walk with Giants for 12 similar micro-tuneable instruments, Op. 300, which will be on CD56. I used the “rips” from Op. 300 that corresponded to the three I Ching that have the word "great" in the title: IC 20-56 Great Actions - - + + - +, IC 64-34 Great Power + + + + - - , & IC 37-42 Great Growth + - - - ++. I find it very interesting when listening to this work that it seems calm overall when I was going for big and massive and instead got something like the power of a river that slowly erodes the rocks.

The other works on this CD are smaller works I wrote for horn quartet.

Variations on a Theme, Op. 81 was written in 1994 The theme is the music from an old original space adventure TV series, but it never quite gets to the original. I was exploring the use of symmetrical inversions quite a bit in this piece,as a matter of fact, I don't know another piece that the use of inversions quite so prominent & prevalent.

Free Quartet No. 1 “Glacier”, Op. 197 Written in June 2013 while in Glacier National Park. Was written using an artistic looking “free” notation, where some of the actual pitches are specified, but most of the work is just a suggestion of shape (high or low etc.) and things like play after someone else does something. A lot of this work is very effective; and it becomes more interesting if you were to hear repeat performances to get a sense of the difference, sort of like the same mountain but in different seasons.

Underground with Rays of Light for horn quartet, Op. 198a is a simple graphic notation piece written for my students at the 2013 University of Regina Summer Band Camp. Premiered August 2nd 2013. We played the piece fully three times and did not play the final major chord.

Cantaria, Op. 162 written in December 2009 was written for my "horn class" and designed as a performance piece and a work that should help the group play in tune better and to practice long tone swells. This work is also in a graphic notation style.

You can find my first five horn quartets on CD40 “Retrospectives II.”

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About the Recording:

This CD was recorded from December 2020 to Mid February 2021. It was quite cold in February, so every time I put my horn down for a minute, I had to warm it up and check pitch, this slowed down the process, but I am very happy with the result.

Cover Photo : Sunrift Gorge Going to the sun road underpass in Glacier National Park Montana by R Burdick

About the Performer:

Richard Burdick as a musician:
French hornist: Richard O. Burdick is the first horn of Regina Symphony Orchestra and the Regina Symphony Chamber Players in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He is a prolific composer.

His move to Canada in 2003, with his wife Rebecca and his two boys, marked the start of the fourth major period in his musical Career.

In the 1980’s Richard was first Horn of Napa Symphony, a member of a San Francisco based theater orchestra and played lots of chamber music as manager of Trinity Chamber Concerts, a chamber music series in Berkeley California.

Starting in 1990 he played fourth Horn full-time for Sacramento Symphony, which went bankrupt in 1996. He then won auditions for Fresno Philharmonic, Napa & North State Symphonies and played in Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.

He is a prolific composer and has many self produced CD’s of his own compositions, Bach, his classical natural horn playing and multi-track performances of many of his favorite pieces.

He performs on a variety of horns, a baroque natural horn (1720), a classical era natural horn (1800), a romantic era (1840's) natural horn, a single F horn from the 1880's, his main symphony horn is a Brendan Model Finke triple horn.

He has also done many music related jobs such as arranger for Sacramento Symphony, librarian and personal manager for Sacramento Philharmonic, and manager of Trinity Chamber Concerts (chamber music series) in Berkeley, California for 19 years starting in 1984.

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Bar codes:

UPC-12-728488426098-CD53

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