       |
|
This section has the following options:
Introduction
Composition List
Discography
Available Scores
Talma's compositions span seven decades, beginning in the late 1930s and ending with her death in 1996. Her works divide compositionally into three stylistic periods: 1) “Neo-Classical”; 2) Serial Neo-Tonal; and 3) Non-Serial Atonal. Talma was a highly original, prolific composer who wrote for a variety of media, although compositions for voices, or for solo voice with piano accompaniment, dominate her output. Talma’s style of composition is largely polyphonic and almost entirely based on the counterpoint techniques she studied with Nadia Boulanger.
Her music is motivic but non-developmental, and her melodies are short, following the French stylistic reaction to what are perceived as the long, shapeless, aimlessly meandering melodies of the Romantic period. Talma’s melodies are sparse, usually three to four measures in length, stepwise or triadic in nature, and often intertwined with a strong rhythmic motive—the latter generally emerging as the more prominent aspect. Melodic ideas are rarely developed. Instead, distinct melodies follow one another with contrast occurring through mode, tempo, rhythmic or metric change. Compositional tendencies such as metric displacement via accents and/or ostinatos, as well as rhythmic imitation and other contrapuntal techniques, appear throughout most of her works. Her music is generally sparse and light in texture, again following the French style.
Harmony in Talma’s music is predominantly non-functional; chords are not called upon to shape a phrase through tension and release or through a conventional series of progressions and resolutions. Instead each chord is conceived as a sonorous unit in a phrase whose structure is determined more by rhythm, melodic shape, and color, than by harmonic movement. Non-tertian simultaneities comprise the greater portion of her works where color and sensation emerge as the more important factor. Tertian chords often contain added tones such as the sixth, following the French style. Other added tones are the second and the fourth. Extended tertian harmonies sometimes appear but rarely as functional harmony.
Perhaps due to the French influence, Talma’s compositional style is neither flamboyant nor showy in the virtuosic Romantic style but is instead restrained, conveying emotions, images, and sensations. This may explain why there are no concertos in her oeuvre. Her music is generally not programmatic. Only two piano compositions, Venetian Folly and Soundshots, written in the first and third periods respectively, follow a program.
Tonality in Talma’s music does not follow the lines of traditional tonal linearity. In most compositions, neither background nor foreground unfolding of the tonic harmony is completed. Although triadic and/or extended triadic harmony sometimes appear in her first-period compositions, they appear merely as surface events and do not play a significant role in background structures. Harmonic motion is not achieved, but instead harmony unfolds in a manner that produces harmonic stasis or “frozen harmonies.” In sections of frozen harmonies, the harmony remains the same while the melody, rhythm, texture, articulation and even the metric divisions change and thereby activate the music in the absence of functional harmony. Compositions composed of frozen or static harmony, unlike traditional tonal compositions, generally result in sectionalized or discontinuous works. Such tendencies can be found in Talma’s Toccata for Orchestra, Piano Sonata No. 1, and Four-Handed Fun, to name a few. Each section of static harmony stands on its own as an individual grouping of sound events, which is further delineated through compositional details such as contrast of instrumentation, texture, motivic material, tempo, and formal design.
Harmonic stasis is quite prevalent in most of Talma’s music. Individual sections create harmonic color through the succession of closely related simultaneities. In the vocal compositions, for example, large sections portray emotions through harmonic coloring, influenced entirely by text. Talma sets up contrasting moods or emotions in both the vocal and instrumental compositions through the juxtaposition of these harmonically colored sections. Such sections are also separated from each other through rhythmic techniques, tempo, or metric changes. Strong examples of this technique in the vocal works are found in Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird, Let’s Touch the Sky, and Diadem, to name a few.
Almost all of Talma’s first- and early second-period compositions are tonally centric with certain pitches that seem more important than others and that serve as tone centers for the composition in part or as a whole. I have labeled this aspect of her music “neo-tonal” to distinguish it from traditional triadically structured tonic-dominant harmony in tonal music. Centricity in Talma’s music is established through assertion.
Talma also relies on some of the techniques of tonal expression such as reiteration, return, pedal point, ostinato, accent, emphasis upon a pitch center, formal placement, or register to draw the listener’s attention to a particular pitch class. Pronounced agogic accent very often announces the superiority of a pitch class in her neo-tonal style and establishes its first order status. Because bass notes are sometimes ambiguous or define areas of tonal stasis, melodies assume a more vital role in determining tonal centricity in this music than in traditionally tonal music. This is not to say, though, that Talma does not rely on bass note prominence as an important means of establishing centricity.
Talma's second-period serial compositions are at first somewhat strictly written, while retaining many of the first-period neo-tonal stylistic tendencies. Later works during this period, however, move further away from both the strict twelve-tone practice and the noe-tonal style. The early third-period compositions comprise a more modern sound, in a freely atonal compositional language. In the works from 1983 onward, however, Talma returns to motivic writing, as well as many of her early quartal harmonies.
Orchestra |
|
| 1944 | Toccata for Orchestra |
| 1963-64 | Dialogues (piano & orchestra) |
| 1967-69 | The Tolling Bell (baritone & orchestra) (Shakespeare, Marlowe, Donne) |
| 1985 | Full Circle |
Chamber Works |
|
| 1946 | Wedding Piece: Where Thou goest I go (organ solo) |
| 1951 | Song & Dance (violin & piano) |
| 1954 | String Quartet |
| 1962 | Sonata for Violin and Piano |
| 1968 | Three Duologues for clarinet and piano |
| 1973 | Summer Sounds for clarinet and string quartet |
| 1980 | Lament (cello & piano) |
| 1982 | Studies in Spacing (3 winds & piano) |
| 1983 | Ambient Air (flute, violin, cello & piano) |
| 1983 | Fanfare for Hunter College (2 trumpets & 3 trombones) |
| 1987 | Seven Episodes for Flute, Piano and Violin |
| 1987 | Conversations (flute & piano) |
| 1994 | Spacings (viola & piano) |
Piano |
|
| 1934 | Two Dances |
| 1939 | Four-Handed Fun (for two pianos) |
| 1943 | Piano Sonata #1 |
| 1946 | Italian Suite |
| 1946-47 | Venetian Folly: Overture and Barcarolle |
| 1947 | Alleluia in the Form of Toccata |
| 1949 | Pastoral Prelude |
| 1954 | Six Etudes for Piano |
| 1955 | Piano Sonata #2 |
| 1955 | Passacaglia & Fugue |
| 1955 | Three Bagatelles for Solo Piano |
| 1974 | Soundshots |
| 1977 | Textures |
| 1984 | KaliedescopicVariations |
| 1989 | Ave Atque Vale |
Vocal |
|
| 1928 | Song of the Songless (Meredith) |
| 1934 | Five Sonnets from the Portuguese (E.B. Browning) |
| 1934 | Late Leaves (Landor) |
| 1934 | Never Seek to Tell Thy Love (Blake) |
| 1935 | A Child's Fancy (song cycle) (Edith Gould) |
| 1938 | I Fear a Man of Scanty Speech (Dickinson) |
| 1941 | One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted (Dickinson) Published in Seven Songs for Voice and Piano |
| 1945 | Leap Before You Look (W.H. Auden) Published in Seven Songs for Voice and Piano |
| 1945 | Terre de France (song cycle) |
| 1946 | Sonnet (G.M. Hopkins) Published in Seven Songs for Voice and Piano |
| 1946 | Spring & Fall: To a young child (G.M. Hopkins) Published in Seven Songs for Voice and Piano |
| 1949 | Glory to God for Dappled Things (G.M. Hopkins) Published as Seven Songs for Voice and Piano |
| 1950 | Sonnet (G.M. Hopkins) Published in SevenSongs for Voice and Piano |
| 1951-54 | La Corona (Holy Sonnets of John Donne) (voice & piano) |
| 1960 | Birthday Song (tenor, flute, viola) (Edmund Spencer) |
| 1973 | Rain Song (Garrigue) Published in Seven Songs for Voice and Piano |
| 1976 | Have You Heard? Do You Know? (S, m-S, T & Instrumental ensemble) (composer) |
| 1979 | 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (tenor or soprano voice & oboe, flute or violin & piano) (Wallace Stevens) |
| 1980 | Diadem (tenor and Pierrot ensemble) (Confucius) |
| 1986 | Wishing Well (duo for soprano & flute) (Francisco Tanzes) |
| 1990 | Infanta Marina (song cycle for soprano) (Wallace Stevens) |
| 1993 | The Lengthening Shadows (Donne, Keats, Landor, Hopkins) |
Choir |
|
| 1928 | Three Madrigals (women's voices & string quartet) |
| 1929 | La Belle Dame Sans Merci (women's voices) (J. Keats) |
| 1938 | 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird (women's voices & piano) (W. Stevens) |
| 1943 | Infanta Marina (women's voices & piano) (W. Stevens) |
| 1950 | Golden Echo, Leaden Echo (mixed chorus & piano) (Gerald Manley Hopkins) |
| 1952 | Let's Touch the Sky (three poems for chorus, flute, oboe & bassoon) (e.e. cummings) |
| 1966-67 | A Time to Remember (mixed choir & orchestra) (speeches of J.F. Kennedy) |
| 1985 | A Wreath of Blessings (a capella mixed chorus) (William Cartwright, George Herbert, Lucy Larcom, Irish and Hebridean anonymous poems) |
Sacred |
|
| 1939 | In Principio Erat Verbum (mixed chorus & organ) |
| 1943 | Carmina Mariana: Ave Maria; Regina Coeli; Salve Regina (2 S & piano) |
| 1946-48 | The Devine Flame (oratorio) |
| 1965 | All the Days of my Life (cantata for tenor, clarinet, cello, piano, & percussion) |
| 1973 | Voices of Peace (mixed choir & strings) |
| 1976-77 | Celebration (womens choir & small orchchestra) |
| 1978 | Psalm 84 (mixed choir, a capella) |
| 1984 | Mass for the Sundays of the year |
| 1989 | Give Thanks and Praise (antiphonal double chorus) |
| 1990 | In Praise of a Virtuous Woman (women's voices & piano) (Proverbs 31: 10-30) |
| 1992 | Psalm 115 (mixed chorus, a capella) |
Opera |
|
| 1955-58 | The Alcestiad (Thornton Wilder) |
|
| Talma, Louise. All the Days of my Life. NY: composer, written 1965.
_______. Alleluia in the Form of Tocatta. Carl Fischer, Inc. P2551 written 1947; published. _______. A Time to Remember. Piano reduction by Talma. NY: composer, written 1966. _______. Celebration. Vocal Score. NY: C.F.Peters Corp.oration, No.66749a, written 1976-77; published 1978. _______. Celebration. Orchestral Score. NY: composer, written 1966-67. _______. Four-Handed Fun. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc. P2649, written 1939; published 1949. _______. Let's Touch the Sky Chapel Hill, NC: Hinshaw Music, written 1952; published 1977. _______. Pastoral Prelude. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc. P2731, written 1949; published 1967. _______. Piano Sonata No. 1. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc. 03533, written 1943; published 1968. ______. Piano Sonata No. 2. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc., written 1955; published 1972. _______. Seven Episodes. NY: C.F.Peters, Inc. 67170, written 1987; published 1988. _______. Seven Songs. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc. Facsimile Edition 211, written 1941, 1945, 1946, 1949, 1950, 1973; published 1986. _______. Six Etudes for Piano. NY: G. Schirmer, Inc. ED2684, written 1954; published 1962. _______. Sonata for Piano and Violin. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc., Facsimile Edition 192, written 1962; published 1979. _______. Soundshots. NY: Hinshaw Music, HMP-113, written 1974; published 1979. _______. String Quartet. NY: composer, written 1954. _______. Summer Sounds. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc. Facsimile Edition 88, written 1973; published 1976. _______. Terre de France. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc., written 1945; published 1978. _______. Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. NY: Carl Fischer, Inc. Facsimile Edition 212-160, written 1979; published 1984. _______. Three Duologues. NY: Edition Musicus, written 1968; published 1969. _______. Toccata for Orchestra. NY: American Music Center, written 1944; published 1947. |
Discography |
|
| Talma, Louise. All the Days of My Life. Live recording from Hunter College, "A Celebration for Louise" February 5, 1977. Charles Bressler, tenor; Lukas Foss, conductor. | |
| _______. | Alleluia in the Form of a Toccata. Premiere. Avant Records, AV1012. Nancy Fierro, pianist. |
| _______. | The Ambient Air. Music of Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 549. Recorded 1987. |
| _______. | Diadem. Da Capo in Song. 1984 Recorded Anthology of American Song, New World Records. |
| _______. | Four-Handed Fun. Music of Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 549. Recorded 1987. |
| _______. | Full Circle. Music of Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 549. Recorded 1987. |
| _______. | Have You Heard? Do You Know? Louise Talma. Paul Sperry, tenor; Louise Talma, piano. Musical Heritage Society 7308K. Recorded 1986. |
| _______. | Kaleidoscopic Variations. Music of Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 549. Recorded 1987. |
| _______. | La Corona: The Holy Sonnets of John Donne. Music of Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 187. The Dorian Chorale, Harold Aks, conductor. Recorded at Colden Auditorium, Queens College, 1964. |
| _______. | Lament. Music of Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 549. Recorded 1987. Composed at the request of Joan Tower. |
| _______. | Let's Touch the Sky. Live recording by New England Conservatory Chorus, May 8, 1980. |
| _______. | Let's Touch the Sky. Live recording by Eastern New Mexico University Chamber Chorus, 1992. |
| _______. | Piano Sonata No. 1. Piano Music by Five Women Composers. Musical Heritage Society 4236. Virginia Eskin, Piano. Recordrd June 6, 1979 at Cooper Union, New York City. |
| _______. | Piano Sonata No. 1. Live recording by Roman Rudnytsky at the Dana School of Music, Youngstown State University, Ohio. |
| _______. | Piano Sonata No. 2. Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 281. Herbert Rogers, pianist. |
| _______. | Psalm 84. Live recording from Hunter College, "The Music of Louise Talma" May 31, 1983. |
| _______. | Six Etudes for Piano. Four American Composers Desto Records DC-7117. Beveridge Webster, piano. |
| _______. | Sonata for Violin & Piano. Live Faculty recording by Daniel Stepner, violin and Lois Shapiro, piano at the New England Conservatory, September 20, 1983. |
| _______. | Soundshots. Live recording from Hunter College, "The Music of Louise Talma" May 31, 1983. |
| _______. | Studies in Spacing. Live recording from Hunter College, "The Music of Louise Talma" May 31, 1983. |
| _______. | Summer Sounds. Live recording from Hunter College, "A Celebration for Louise" February 5, 1977. Jerry Kirkbride, clarinet. |
| _______. | Terre de France. Paul Sperry Sings American Cycles and Sets. Troy 058-2. Recorded 1991. |
| _______. | Three Bagatelles. Music of Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 549. Recorded 1987. |
| _______. | Three Duologues. Music for Clarinet & Piano. Composers Recordings Incorporated 374. Michael & Beveridge Webster. Recorded 1974; produced by CRI 1977. |
| _______. | Toccata for Orchestra. Louise Talma. Composers Recordings Incorporated 145. Imperial Philharmonic of Tokyo, William Strickland, conductor. |
| _______. | Variations on 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. Louise Talma. Paul Sperry, tenor; Louise Talma, piano. Musical Heritage Society 7308K. Recorded 1986. |
| _______. | Voice of Peace. Live recording from Hunter College, "A Celebration for Louise" February 5, 1977. Greg Smith Singers. |
For further information, or to join the Louise Talma Society, send e-mail
to:
LuannDragone@ATT.NET
