Search - Various Artists :: Lukas Foss: Curriculum Vitae

The four works on this disc represent the culmination of Lukas Foss's long period of experimentation beginning in the mid-1950s. The String Quartet No. 3 has, superficially, the hallmarks of minimalist style that also characterize the ensemble piece Music for Six; it's been characterized as a "minimalist Grosse Fuge." Music for Six is an even more radical design in process and textural accumulation. The most radical aspect is its instrumentation, which is open to any instrument in the treble range. Curriculum Vitae, for virtuoso accordionist, quotes bits of tunes with autobiographical connotations for Foss: Brahms, Mozart, and the Nazi anthem, among others. It is both tragic and comic, tonal and atonal, simple and intricate. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird is one of Foss's most important pieces and one of his most successful in integrating his musical concerns with as direct as possible an expression of musical and poetic meaning.