listen to complete piece
	II	The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Babylonia [Iraq]; 689 BC)
	III	The Statue of Zeus in the Great Temple of the Sacred Grove (Olympia, Greece; 437 BC)
	IV	The Colossus of Rhodes (Rhodes, Greece; 280 BC)

composer	David A. Jaffe (b. 1955)
performers	Andrew Schloss, Boie/Mathews Radio Drum-performed Disklavier grand piano Mark Davis, guitar Jan Urke, bass Marianne le Mentec, harp Susan Greenway, harmonium Tim Rawlings, percussion Brent van Dusen, percussion Marolyn Mair, mandolin Robert Aitken, conductor
publisher	Terra Non Firma (BMI)http://www.jaffe.com
label	Well-Tempered Productions 5181
duration	31:42

about the music

Commissioned by a National Endowment for the Arts Collaborative Fellowship, The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World involved a collaboration between composer David A. Jaffe and percussionist Andrew Schloss. The two worked as Resident Artists at the Banff Centre for the Arts between 1992-1996. David A. Jaffe:

"'I have gazed on the walls of impregnable Babylon, along which chariots may race, and on the Zeus by the banks of the Alphaeus. I have seen the Hanging Gardens and the Colossus of Helios, the great man-made mountains of the lofty pyramids, and the gigantic tomb of Mausolus. But when I saw the sacred house of Artemis that towers to the clouds, the others were placed in the shade, for the sun himself has never looked upon its equal outside Olympus.' -- Antipater, Greece, 130 BC

"Two statues, a temple, a rooftop garden, two tombs and a lighthouse. We can only guess at the effect this extraordinary collection of monuments must have had on the people of the time, as all but the Pyramids were destroyed, either by Nature or at the hands of human marauders.

"Taken as a whole, they reveal a crosshatch of parallels and oppositions: two deal with death -- the Pyramids and the Mausoleum. The Hanging Gardens glorify cultivated nature, while Artemis is the goddess of wilderness and wild animals. The two statues depict the heavens -- Zeus, the god of thunder and rain; and the sun god of the Colossus of Rhodes.

"How can the essence of these monuments be conveyed in music? In searching for an answer, I felt a need to push beyond the technological limits of conventional musical instruments, much the way the Wonders themselves challenged the practical constraints of their day. Although I could have used electronic sound, its disembodied quality seemed singularly inappropriate. Instead, I chose to collaborate with Andrew Schloss to create a new purely-acoustic musical instrument and found myself nourished by the wonderful creative tension that emerges when the impulse to transcend known boundaries is forced to confront the laws of physics. This sense of dynamic balance offers, perhaps, a glimpse into the inspiration of those who created the great Wonders of the past.

"The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is a piano concerto performed by a percussionist. It is the premier work for a new hybrid acoustic instrument, the 'Radio Drum-driven Disklavier', which allows the gestural vocabulary of a percussionist to speak with the voice of an acoustic grand piano. The sound of this new instrument is massive and grand, even monumental, giving a new sense to the word pianistic, and is further extended by a unique ensemble of acoustic plucked string and percussion instruments. All sound is entirely acoustic and performed as it would be in a concert setting --there are no loudspeakers, electronic sounds or overdubbing."

[Notes on the particular movements included here:]

"II. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Babylon, Iraq; 689 BC), built by the king Nebuchadnezzar for one of his wives in hopes of quieting her pining for her homeland, inspired this music suspended on a simple plaintive melody, ornamented and floating between harmonic and canonic textures. A more-animated middle section allows the Radio Drum soloist to 'draw' ornate arpeggios by passing a mallet above the surface of his instrument.

"III. The Statue of Zeus in the Great Temple of the Sacred Grove (Olympia, Greece; 437 BC). With flesh of ivory, robe of gold, and throne of jewels, Pheidias' statue inspired Epictetus to write: 'Go see it, for it would be a misfortune to have died without doing so!' The music proceeds deliberately with heavy pulsations at various conflicting tempi, each suggesting giant footsteps. The Radio Drum cadenza is composed of multiple pulsations, in which a pulse at one tempo transforms into that of another. Zeus' penchant for thunder can be heard in the piano's low trills that close the movement.

"IV. The Colossus of Rhodes (Rhodes, Greece; 280 BC) invokes the giant bronze statue of the Sun God, that stood with feet bestriding the harbor, ships sailing beneath. Focus shifts cyclically between tight synchronization and soft impressionistic textures, parallelling the arch formed by the legs of the Colossus. The movement opens with shimmering high trills, suggesting sunlight dancing on water, and progresses through a series of huge melodic arches. After an extended cadenza, in which the Radio Drum soloist controls speed and dynamics of twelve simultaneous independent trills, the texture thins to a single trill, slows to a steady pulsation and transforms into a wild hammered dulcimer tune, improvised by the Radio Drum soloist over a string-band accompaniment. This finally diverges into chaos over a trilling statement of the 'arch' melody, leading to the final extended marimba solo."

about the composer		back to top

Composer, conductor, violinist, and mandolinist David A. Jaffe's (b. 1955) pioneering work in electronics is evident in his research and compositions, which often feature new instruments and electronic techniques. Influenced by the work of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, and Henry Brant, his music combines and juxtaposes a wide range of sources, including folk and popular music, birdsong, and political and social issues.

Born in northern New Jersey, Jaffe studied composition at Ithaca College in New York, Bennington College in Vermont with Henry Brant, and Stanford University, California. His music has been performed at many international festivals and computer music conferences, and he has presented workshops and concerts at the LIPM studio in Argentina, Bratislava Festival of Electroacoustic Music in Slovakia, Melbourne University in Australia, and Havana, Cuba. Ensembles that have commissioned works from Jaffe include the American Guild of Organists, Chanticleer, Kronos Quartet, Mostly Modern Orchestra, and QUARKS! Trio. His music is available on the Elektra/Asylum, Well-Tempered Productions, Wergo, and Vienna Modern Masters labels.

Jaffe is also known for his research in physical modeling synthesis, expression in computer music and real-time performance. He has written articles for Computer Music Journal, Interface, and Perspectives of New Music, and in the books The Music Machine and The Well-Tempered Object. Jaffe is currently Audio System Architect and Manager of DSP Audio Software at Analog Devices, Inc.

related websites
http://www.jaffe.com

about the performers		back to top

Percussionist, composer, and researcher Andrew Schloss studied at Bennington College in Vermont, the University of Washington, and Stanford University, California. Schloss's research and composition in computer music has been presented at festivals in North and South America and Europe. In 1988, he was awarded a Fulbright grant to conduct research at IRCAM in Paris, during which time he tested and refined the Boie/Mathews Radio Drum. As a percussionist and computer musician, Schloss has performed with musicians including Laurie Anderson, Hilario Durán, Joe Jackson, Rickie Lee Jones, Tito Puente, and Chucho Valdés. In 2001, Schloss co-coordinated the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) in Havana, Cuba. He currently teaches at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

related websites
http://www.finearts.uvic.ca/~aschloss