PROJECT
Etler: A Portrait
THE PROJECT
A distinctive American modernist voice, waiting to be heard again.
Alvin Etler’s chamber music combines rhythmic intensity, contrapuntal clarity and a distinctive modernist voice. Yet much of this remarkable repertoire is rarely encountered in performance. Etler: A Portrait is a developing Resonance project exploring this music through performance, research and recording, and asking what it might reveal to listeners now.
THE MUSIC
Music of extraordinary energy and invention
Etler’s music combines rhythmic vitality, contrapuntal precision and a strikingly individual instrumental voice.
THE SEXTET · 1959
Six voices, two instrumental worlds
Three winds. Three strings. Etler’s Sextet brings oboe, clarinet and bassoon into conversation with violin, viola and cello — exploiting the contrast between the two families while repeatedly blurring it.
SELECTED REPERTOIRE
Further into Etler
Etler returned repeatedly to unusual instrumental combinations, exploring the relationships between winds, strings and individual voices.
Quintet No. 1 for Woodwind Instruments
1955 · FLUTE · OBOE · CLARINET · HORN · BASSOON
Quintet No. 2 for Woodwind Instruments
1957 · FLUTE · OBOE · CLARINET · HORN · BASSOON
Concerto for Violin and Wind Quintet
1958 · VIOLIN · FLUTE · OBOE · CLARINET · HORN · BASSOON
Sextet
1959 · OBOE · CLARINET · BASSOON · VIOLIN · VIOLA · CELLO
Suite for Flute, Oboe and Clarinet
1960 · FLUTE · OBOE · CLARINET
Quartet for Oboe, Clarinet, Viola and Bassoon
1949 · OBOE · CLARINET · VIOLA · BASSOON
THE PROJECT
Bringing Etler back into the room
Etler: A Portrait is not an exercise in rediscovery for its own sake. The project puts the music back on stands and asks what it has to say to performers and listeners now.
PERFORM
Music on stands
Bringing Etler’s chamber music back into rehearsal and performance, where its instrumental relationships can be heard and tested afresh.
RESEARCH
Following the repertoire
Tracing the scores, sources and performance history behind the music — and understanding how such distinctive work came to be so rarely heard.
RECORD
Making the case in sound
Recording selected works to give listeners a way into music that has too seldom had the opportunity to speak for itself.
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