William Vollinger's CD, "Sound Portraits" (Capstone CPS-8718) is a fascinating, quirky and compelling

collection of ten vocal works whose central focus is (from the liner notes): "real people....who are the most

beautiful and highest part of God's creation." These pieces are character studies of both contemporary and

historical personages (Bach, Haydn), and it is the texts (all but three by the composer) that take center stage

- the music's primary function is to support the narrative. Speech-like rhythms and decepitvely simple tonal

melodies flesh out characters and images, often in quite subtle ways. The song "Nadine," for example, employs leitmotifs for certain recuring bits of text, such as "Junior High School 99", and the song "Ed" is a kind of etude

on the two pitches of his name. Clever and witty references about throughout the CD. Vollinger's musical

language is economical and more diatonic than most composers' but deployed with such skill and sensitivity to

text and meaning that an engaging musical narrative always emerges. The CD moves from an initial set of five

songs for unaccompanied voice to five more partnered with piano or clarinet. The clarinet also plays ten

epigrammatic prelude-transitions that separate the songs themselves, until the final work "The Child in the

Hole," where the clarinet extends the prelude right into the body of the song -- a nice compositional touch.

This final work, by far the longest at 14 minutes, is also the most ambitious and rewarding work on the CD.

Scored for voice and clarinet, the text subtly shifts from a true story of a child's experience in Poland in WWII

to an account of man's fallen life "in this hole" (Ps. 40:1-3) and the salvation we await. This work had great

emotional power and called to mind the effect of those long end-movements in Mahler's works. Linda Ferreira,

soprano, and Anne Thurmond, clarinet, perform with great skill and sympathy for this music, and the engineering

on the recording is outstanding. "Sound Portraits" is the work of a composer who has developed and refined

a unique genre over many years and who has created moving and thought-provoking works out of simple and

refreshingly direct materials.

William Vollinger’s work for soprano and clarinet (Katherine Harris with Fiterstein) was the emotional centerpiece

of the evening. “The Child in the Hole” (2002) tells the true story of a Jewish child whose father pays a Polish

farmer to protect him during the Nazi regime, and the farmer hides the boy in a hole covered with grass and dirt.

the words, also by Vollinger, are vernacular, probing the way a child might cope with the fear, loneliness and

squalor. Vollinger’s score for clarinet was brilliant, refring to its history as the sound of celebration for Eastern

European Jews as well as its ability to sound mournful and dark.Vollinger kept the vocal line simple trying to

capture a young boy’s world, but in so doing robbed the soprano of her most expressive range. Given these

inequities of writing, it was remarkable how wide a spectrum of emotions the work traversed so movingly.

I am not exaggerating when I say I absolutely, positively loved “Raspberry Man,” and that it was the highlight of

my entire trip to the southwest. At the right moment, and in jut the right way, you spoke directly to me and for me,

and that is precisely what I love so much about music.

                                  -- BOB LORD, CEO of Parma Recordings

Your piece was received with incredible enthusiasm last night. People came up to me afterwards and said that

they were moved to tears, they had goosebumps, they were frightened-- every emotion that the piece contained

was reflected in their comments. Everyone was saying this piece is just fantastic! Thank you so much once again

for writing it. It was the outstanding piece of the evening from the audience's standpoint.

                                  -- THOMAS D. THOMPSON, principal clarinetist, Pittsburg Symphony

There are so many many funny things. It's a wonderful art that he uses, sometimes the most simple means, but in certain ways not so simple. The thing about Bill is that you know he uses practically nothing but triads, but yet

it's not like any music you'll hear anywhere. He uses space beautifully. He uses triads beautifully. He uses just

the commonplaces and puts such a wonderful touch on them.

                                   --- GREGG SMITH, director of the Gregg Smith Singers

words, words, words Yesterday I recorded a composer's recital featuring new art songs. There was one set of

songs by William Vollinger called "Acts of Kindness" that was particularly moving. There are seven songs in

the cycle.The music is surprisingly tonal in parts, and is constructed as a set of seven variations with each song

set in a key a fourth higher than the previous one. It was interesting listening to this music and being surprised

at how much the tonal aspects jutted out--consequence of being accustomed to modern music now I suppose.

The text comes from various true stories of acts of kindness, some small, some great. Normally, I have a hard

time paying attention to words in music, but this was perhaps the first time song lyrics have touched me so

much. The last one made me cry.

                                  --- blog entry of TRACY RHODUS, soprano who premiered “Acts of Kindness”

Each work is so unique. You really create from the heart and from your soul and every single piece takes the

listener somewhere unexpected. Your music is moving and what more could a composer hope for, whether

to laughter ( "Ruth" and "Alice"), to tears ("O.D.") or to places of realization or contemplation or sadness or

gratitude. Each piece takes me somewhere that it is good for me to be.

                                   --- ELIZABETH SYDOR, composer

Thank you for your beautiful compositions available to listeners on your website. They are so diverse! You

have so much scope as a portrayer of human emotions, thoughts, conditions and needs. Your Lutheran or

Christian way of life is so finely actualized through your compositions in prose and music. I loved every one

of your pieces, especially your portrayal of situations calling for thoughtfulness and social action! What a

beautiful way to move people to action.

                                   --- MARI HUGHES, soprano

My wife, Jeanie and I have been listening to and enjoying your "Bach", "Winds Would", "O.D." and "False Postulate" particularly. What wonderful music on the Web! You are not only supremely clever and inventive,

but have a marvelous and sure-footed melodic sense which is complimented by a harmonic texture diving in

and out of "smooth" and "crunchy" in a truly original style. It feeds my spirit to hear it and rejuvenates my

musical ambitions in the most positive sense. While wonderfully entertaining, your work is also important.

It maintains a tradition of moving the music forward. That is twice difficult. First, it must be done with

originality. And second, it must be done with style. You seem to achieve this without contriving to do so.

Continue and thrive.

                                    --- JOHN CRIGLER, composer

The roots of speech music go back at least to Alexander Dargomyzhsky in mid 19th-century Russia, the genre of the late 19th-century melodrama, and the use of Sprechstimme by composers such as Humperdinck and Schoenberg, but Harry Partch may fairly be said to have brought the form into full flower. Partch developed the genre to an amazing degree, even to the point of creating a whole new battery of instruments, and an entirely new system of tuning to accompany his intoned speech. In his music, composer William Vollinger continues the tradition of Partch, but has built his own distinctive style involving only traditional instruments in standard tuning.

Vollinger succinctly sums up his musical aesthetic in the liner notes of the present CD: “There are two basic things I want to do when I compose: (1) explore new territory, and (2) say something good about the human condition, even when funny.” It is safe to say that he succeeds in both of these goals, not only in these two works, but in others that I’ve heard by him. Indeed, his music is original in the best sense of the word in that for every work I’ve heard by him, my reaction has always been, “No one else could have written that!” His music is defined by urbane wit, poignant texts (invariably of his own composition), a declaimed vocal style that falls somewhere in between measured speech and Sprechstimme (and occasional singing), all of which is accompanied by instrumental figures and textures that reinforce and underscore the texts in well-thought-out ways.

I first got to know his music back in the LP era, when I encountered his More than Conquerors on the Grenadilla label. This work is a touching depiction of the life of Corrie ten Boom, famous for her work in hiding and thus saving the lives of many Jews in Holland during World War II.

The first work on the present CD is Raspberry Man, a real-life story in music about a colorful character of the sort that New York seems to be famous for. This fellow, name unrevealed, achieved his reputation (and epithet) by standing outside Jack Dempsey’s restaurant in Manhattan, sticking out his tongue at passersby and giving them Bronx cheers. These are represented quite onomatomusically (if I may coin a term) by the instrumental ensemble. At the end of the work, the narrator is left wondering what ever became of the man. Was his dying breath, perhaps, expended in a Bronx cheer?

Emmanuel Changed is also a true story about a former student in Vollinger’s children’s choir. The young man changed over a summer from being a friendless, bullying 10-year-old hellion, to a decent young lad who eventually gained some friends. It is a touching piece, full of gentle humor. Vollinger imaginatively uses his sparse forces (an alto sax and piano) to musically underscore the transformation of this young boy.

Both of these works, along with the other music by Vollinger I’ve heard, spring out of his Christian faith, a faith that to Vollinger necessarily produces fruit—often expressed in terms of compassion toward one’s fellow man. His is music with a message—not always explicitly Christian, but always seeking to elevate the thoughts and actions of the listener to a higher plane. In this, he succeeds admirably on both musical and spiritual grounds.

The prospective purchaser should note that there are only about 12 minutes of music on this CD, the remainder of which is given over to files that can be accessed on one’s computer. These include an interesting video containing an interview with the composer, during the course of which he discusses his philosophy of composition, and his ideas about originality. There is also a live video performance of Raspberry Man, scores of both of the works on the CD, and (apparently) downloadable ring tones. I didn’t try those out (I gave up my ring tone of “The Great Gate of Kiev” that I had for a long time in favor of the kind of ding-a-ling ring that phones had when I was a kid), but everything else that I tried on the computer portion of the CD worked well.

Performances by the unnamed narrator and the Juventas Ensemble are first-rate. Not everyone I know is fond of speech music, but those who are will find much to admire in this finely produced disc. Accordingly, highly recommended.

Most first-graders in U.S. schools are told that America is the great melting pot. In subsequent years, they learn by observation and experience that many elements in that pot are slow to melt, or not prone to melting at all. From the musical standpoint, things were simple enough at our beginnings. In colonial times and well through the 19th century Americans generally mirrored European traditions, producing some competent composers who imitated the styles of their European contemporaries. So-called popular music did not exist, as Stephen Foster and his kind were really rustic Schuberts, writing charming melodies and lyrics on the romantic themes of the day. However, political and social upheavals as well as technological advances changed all of this, and in less than 150 years American culture became a shattered mirror whose fragments reflect a chaotic jumble of tastes, values, and forms. The rise of popular culture has given us jingles, jazz, blues, torch songs, mood music, Muzak, rock, rap, musicals, movie scores. Serious music has broken traditional ranks, spawning a plethora of new schools that sometimes exclude melodic line, harmony, or comprehensible rhythmic patterns. The 12-tone system, Minimalism, electronic music, and Cage’s idea that “music is organized sound,” which introduced vacuum cleaners and airplane motors to the concert stage, have created a Tower of Babel in which there is no commonly understood language.

Many disparate elements from both categories, however, fall into a happy and unifying alliance in William Vollinger’s two compositions on this CD. From the more traditional standpoint, the vocal writing, albeit not precisely what Schoenberg would regard as Sprechstimme, is nonetheless a similarly stylized inflection of the text’s rhythm and nuance. As well, one can find similarities to Poulenc’s Le Bestiaire, although Vollinger’s sophisticated and sometimes complex instrumental writing is more fragmented in its coloring and underscoring of significant words. Poulenc generally has the singer’s melodic line and rhythm doubled by an instrument, whereas Vollinger’s narrator keeps the rhythmic element and omits the melodic entirely. It is very curious to find that his words flow in easy sequence whereas his music, in direct contrast to Poulenc’s, moves from phrase to phrase, even measure to measure in a desultory fashion: a musical vertical to the word’s horizontal. Although Schoenberg, Poulenc, and finally Gioacchino Rossini may seem an odd lineup of traditional references, I would like to call the Italian maestro as witness for the defense, in case the listener sees no traditional grounds for the Raspberry Man’s often repeated expletive. Rossini’s jolly little babe in Chanson de Bébé is just as crude and repetitive with his “pipi-caca” (the reader may translate from the French for himself) as William Vollinger’s strange protagonist.

In regard to the world of pop culture, Emmanuel Changed and especially Raspberry Man are unapologetically filled with the bells and whistles of trendy radio and television music reminiscent of cartoon soundtracks and toy commercials. Also, when there is extended melodic material and a line or two is actually sung, it is in the Sondheim style, often with the music-box piano arpeggios he constantly used.

As the narrator is William Vollinger himself, we are saved the difficult assignment of guessing whether the artist is carrying out the wishes of the composer. Vollinger takes great joy in performing the role of a good-natured Sunday school teacher, simplifying life’s most profound moral lessons, and sometimes imitating, as teachers of the young often do, the students’ manner of speaking.

Congratulations are due the first-class members of the Juventas Ensemble, who play with virtuosity, expressive tone, and an outstanding rhythmic accuracy as they shadow every move the narrator makes. No easy task!

Congratulations are also due the technical engineers, who produced a warm ambient acoustic, making the words crystal-clear, and subtly highlighting the many instrumental effects that pepper both pieces.

Dominating both of these works, making its presence felt in every note, every word, is William Vollinger’s message. To miss it is well-nigh impossible. One has the sense that the composer would sacrifice any musical or literary canon, employ any artistic device, to convey the message. Words take precedence over music, but the message itself seems to have forcefully determined the style and shape of these compositions. Clarity is center stage. Although much serious music of our time demands copious program notes to explain what the composer has failed to convey through his work, it is not the case here. There is nothing to be explained, only felt, and whether one is pleased or displeased with the eccentric mix of idioms, the message is clear; it is tempting to say, loud and clear! One is deeply moved: music’s ultimate goal. Perhaps the how and why of it is a very private matter, between the composer and his muse.

MUSAICA WILL PREMIERE “RUTHIE,THE DUCK GIRL”

New Orleanians take their characters seriously, so it probably shouldn't surprise anyone that  the Musaica chamber ensemble has commissioned a musical portrait of Ruth Grace Moulon - - the "duck lady" who wandered the streets of the French Quarter for decades before her death in 2008. Composed by William Vollinger, "Ruthie the Duck Girl" sets an imaginary interview with Ruthie (played by actress Elizabeth Argus) against a musical backdrop of two clarinets, two violins, viola, double bass, piano and harp. The piece premieres Sunday at 5 p.m. at Christ Episcopal Church in Covington. It will be  repeated Monday at 7:30 p.m. at Canal Street Presbyterian Church and Thursday at 7:30  p.m. at St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church in New Orleans.

Vollinger, who lives in New Jersey, has made a specialty of musical portraiture, creating text-centered works that explore the lives of characters including a Holocaust survivor, a Manhattan eccentric known as the "Raspberry Man," and the 18th-century composer Franz Josef Haydn. His choral work received a huge stamp of approval when he was commissioned to write for the Gregg Smith Singers -- a New York ensemble that worked with Stravinsky, Elliot Carter and other well-known composers

Vollinger admires Haydn for "his humanity and humor," but his recent work sounds a more contemporary note. It melds the plaintive wail of klezmer clarinet, the crisp lucidity of Stravinsky's "Histoire du Soldat," a dash of percussive clangor and a passion for notating natural speech rhythms in wwmusic "My wife says my music belongs in the kitchen -- not in the bedroom," Vollinger said "My music is like New Jersey: It's in your face, blunt, and made fun of by New Yorkers. I'm not afraid to be funny, and I know that there is a lot of sadness hidden inside of our joking. That's probably a pretty good match with Ruthie."

Schoenberg's "Pierrot Lunaire" brought the art of sprechstimme into the vocabulary of new music. Speech-song

stays with us in various ways. One highly idiomatic and funny way is with William Vollinger's Raspberry Man (Navona 5857), a short ten minute, two work single CD.

The title work is a chamber piece for small group and singer-reciter. The composer does the vocal part; the

Juventas Ensemble takes on the instrumental parts. "Raspberry Man" is a wryly funny sung-spoken story that

skillfully combines modern chamber music compositional style with an amusing story about a fellow who

stood outside Jack Dempsey's Restaurant in Manhattan and gave passers-by the raspberries.

The second short piece, "Emmanuel Changed" has a similar trajectory.

It's interesting, funny, well performed and well written music with a definite twist.