Mark Alburger, Works: March 1999

Wednesday, March 10, 1999

Animal Farm, Op.76

Op. 76 ANIMAL FARM

(March 10, 1999; New Music, 1999)

Grand Zoological Fantasy-Variations for Chamber Orchestra

(1111 1111, 1 perc, pf, strings)

A. Cold-Blooded

I. Wasps

II. Flies

III. Spiders

IV. Crabs

V. Sharks

VI. Frogs

VII. Turtles

VIII. Snakes

B. Birds

IX. Penguins

X. Seagulls

XI. Ducks

XII. Swans

XIII. Eagles

XIV. Chickens

XV. Nightingales

XVI. Cuckoos

C. Mammals I

XVII. Platypusses

XVIII. Kangaroos

XIX. Mice

XX. Chipmunks

XXI. Whales

XXII. Bears

XXIII. Cats

XXIV. Lions

D. Mammals II

XXV. Dogs

XXVI. Wolves

XXVII. Skunks

XXVIII. Elephants

XXIX. Horses

XXX. Donkeys

XXXI. Pigs

XXXII. Sheep

Score:

https://imslp.org/wiki/Animal_Farm%2C_Op.76_(Alburger%2C_Mark)

Program Note:

The 32 Grand Zoological Fantasy-Variations of Animal Farm take for its subject the structure of Leslie Bricusse's Talk to the Animals, with each variant as four eight-bar phrases, plus a four-measure coda (36 total). The four variational subsets are in a biological progression derived from the work of Carolus Linnaeus as A. Cold-Blooded, B. Birds, C. Mammals I, and D. Mammals II. Variations have been premiered in Philadelphia, PA; Surrey, ME; and Tacoma, WA -- and the entire work, with videos, is online at the DrMarkAlburger channel on YouTube. The music is ideally paired with a coda of The Four Temperaments -- a quartet of human pieces on the same subject. Musical gene-splicing may be heard in Cold-Blooded from Ralph Vaughan Williams's The Wasps and Tuba Concerto, F.J. Haydn's Symphony No. 94 ("Surprise"), Sergei Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4, Gilles Binchois's L'homme arme (treated as crab and mensuration canons a la Guillaume Dufay and Josquin des Pres), Camille Saint-Saens's Carnival of the Animals, John Williams's Jaws, Alburger's Mice and Men, Peter Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, Oliver Wallace's Alice in Wonderland, and Igor Stravinsky's The Flood.

Performances:

May 7-8, 1999

Mark Alburger, Piano

Susan Hess Dance Studio, Philadelphia, PA

December 15, 2001

The Surrey Ensemble, Thom Wubbenhorst

The Surrey School, Surrey, ME

December 18, 2001

The Annie Wright School Tacoma, WA

December 1, 2005

Tritone Orchestra
Diablo Valley College Music Technology Center
Pleasant Hill, CA

April 26, 2007
Tritone Orchestra
Diablo Valley College Music Technology Center
Pleasant Hill, CA

April 18, 2008
Tritone Orchestra
Diablo Valley College Music Technology Center

Pleasant Hill, CA

September 25, 2010

San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra

Old First Church, San Francisco, CA

April 27, 2019

The Opus Project presents Spirit of Opus 75-76

Diablo Valley College Music Building, Pleasant Hill, CA

Recordings / Videos

ANIMAL FARM (New Music, 2008)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2PtpXz5pAs&list=PL376F718839ABC13E

A. Cold-Blooded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kygVUFe-BWo&list=PL376F718839ABC13E&index=32

I. Wasps

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2PtpXz5pAs

II. Flies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHxvR7QJ3pw

III. Spiders