Pictures of New Mexico
The John Donald Robb Musical Trust was established in 1992 by John D. and Harriet Robb. Its mission is to support the propagation, study and performance of John D. Robb’s music and to preserve the John Donald Robb Archives of Southwestern Music at the Universoty of New Mexico
Pictures of New Mexico is the inaugural CD of the music of John Donald Robb.
From the Liner Notes:
These recordings present the small pieces for solo piano from Robb’s long and successful career. Further, these pieces occupy a fairly brief span from that career, 1944—1952. Only one of the six works presented here was published during the composer’s lifetime, his Pictures of New Mexico, Op. 12 (Newark: AMP, 1947). Nonetheless, the three movements of the Sonatina and the 24 movements from the other five opuses, each a collection of brief movements, show a remarkable variety of music given the short temporal frame of their conception and their restriction of genre and medium.
Even with that variety, it is possible to speak cogently of Robb’s style in his collections of small solo piano pieces. In his music, the strong influence of French aesthetics, emphasizing clarity and good taste—as exemplified by his famous teachers Milhaid and Boulanger, is conditioned by the desire to create a genuine American music. In this he was influenced, no doubt, by another of his teachers, the great American composer Roy Harris and aslo by Charles Ives. The pictorial or tone painting aspect of Robb’s small keyboard pieces follows a long French tradition going back to Couperin. His adaptation of this concept to his new—at that time—home in the desert Southwest is reflected by the fact that all but one opus in this collection has a descriptive title. Each movement of those opuses also bears individual descriptive titles, and several opuses directly engage New Mexican images. In this, he followed his teacher Milhaud who in 1920—21 wrote his Saudades do Brazil. These were musical reflections upon his Brazilian stay as a diplomat during World War I, and the small solo piano movements were named for sections of Rio de Janiero and used their local musical rhythms. Technically, however, Robb also incorporated traditional English and German notions of craft from his teachers Horatio Parker and Paul Hindemith. Thus, the result is a cosmopolitan synthesis that is firmly transplanted in the American Southwest.
…
Just as Charles Ives gave up a highly successful insurance practice in New York City in order to devote full time to the risky business of composition, so did Robb give up the lucrative practice of international law in that same city for the same reason. These works are special in that they represent many of Robb’s first and thus bravest efforts as a new professional composer in a country that did not yet have a firm tradition of its own in that profession.
This musician and scholar heartily recommends performance of the Sonatina upon the concert stage, and the other works form an American counterpart to volumes 2 through 6 of his contemporary Béla Bartók’s justly famous pedagogical work, Mikrokosmos.
—Richard Hermann, PhD., Associate Professor of Music, University of New Mexico
Track List:
Pictures of New Mexico, opus 12
01) The Bells of the Mission [1:22]
02) Horseback over the Sagebrush Plain [0:26]
03) In the Indian Village [1:18]
04) Siesta Time [1:07]
05) In the Cotton Grove [1:29]
Three Impressions, opus 15
06) Morning [1:06]
07) Afternoon [2:36]
08) Night [2:04]
09) Little Suite, opus 13a [5:13]
Moderately Rapid
Slowly
Quickly
Slowly
Romanza
Lively
Post-Impressionistic Paintings, opus 14
10) Merry-Go-Round, Pop Art [0:41]
11) Nude Descending a Staircase, du Champ [1:29]
12) Clown, Walt Kuhn [1:31]
13) The Jungle, Rousseau [2:26]
14) Persistance of Memory, Dali [1:20]
15) Woman with Mandolin, Picasso [1:44]
Scenes from a New Mexico Mountain Village, opus 9
16) The Yellow Aspens [1:18]
17) Procession of the Penitentes [2:52]
18) The Plains at Sunset [2:10]
19) Square Dance [2:35]
Sonatina “Three Incidents from Lilion,” opus 22
20) Carnival [4:00]
21) The Star [3:10]
22) Liliom’s Anger [2:31]
Total Program Length: 46:20
Recording Information
Recorded at Keller Hall, University of New Mexico
Recording Engineer: Manny Rettinger
Cover and tray artwork: Frank McCulloch
Design and layout (CD): Adam Ford
Liner Notes: Richard Hermann
© 1998, The John Donald Robb Musical Trust, all rights reserved
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