David Gompper
Finnegan’s Wake (1997)
Downloads:
Finnegan's Wake: Violin Part (pdf)
Biography:
David Gompper has lived and worked professionally as a pianist, a conductor, and a composer in New York, San Diego, London, Nigeria, Michigan, Texas and Iowa. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Jeremy Dale Roberts, Humphrey Searle and Phyllis Sellick. After teaching in Nigeria, he received his doctorate at the University of Michigan, taught at the University of Texas, Arlington, and since 1991 has been Professor of Composition and Director of the Center for New Music at the University of Iowa. In 2002/2003 Gompper was in Russia as a Fulbright Scholar, teaching, performing and conducting at the Moscow Conservatory.
Gompper's compositions are heard throughout the United States and Europe. In 1999 his Transitus (for wind ensemble) premiered at Carnegie Hall, and a number of his works have premiered in London¹s Wigmore Hall, including: Hommage à W. A. (William Albright) for piano; and Shades of Love, a song cycle on the poetry of Constantin Cavafy. Gompper’s Violin Concerto, written for Wolfgang David, will be recorded by the Slovak Radio Orchestra in November of 2007.
Subsequent returns to Moscow have included premieres and performances of Crossed (November 2003); Music in the Glen and Six Love Poems (November 2004); Star of the County Down (November 2005, again in May 2006; and Butterfly Dance (Albany Records TROY882). Both Music in the Glen and Star of the County Down have been released on Albany Records (TROY937). His Outside Cage for piano and electronics was premiered at the Institute of Music and Acoustics (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany last June. Gompper’s An Elm We Lost and Kuta Muela appear on the CD Monsterology (Albany Records TROY900). A new work for 2 violins and string orchestra will be premiered in December in Albania.
Program Notes:
Finnegan’s Wake premiered in Thessaloniki, Greece in May 1997, where it was performed by Eva Delfinopoyloy (violin), and the composer (piano). Gompper informs us that “the initial inspiration for the piece came from working with the violinist and fiddler Andrew Carlson, who was crucial in shaping the final version. The piece is dedicated to my friends, Erin Irish and Gene Szymkowiak.”
On the origins of the composition, Gompper reveals “Finnegan’s Wake is based on an Irish fiddle reel, The Green Groves of Erin, made popular by the traditional Celtic group, the Bothy Band [Green Linnet GLCD 3016], and more recently, by the string trio of Edgar Meyer, Mark O’Connor and Yo-Yo Ma [Sony SK 68460].”
In turn, the incipits that follow point to the alterations at the beginning of the first and the second sections of the reel, as the original tune itself is made over into the Bothy Band’s version of it, and laterally into Gompper’s Finnegan’s Wake.
“Finnegan’s Wake is a four-sectioned, one-movement form, and although it presents Irish-Appalachia-Texas fiddle traditions embedded within the context of art music, my intention was to effect a transformation of the foot-stomping dance tune by leading it through a labyrinth of rhythmic manipulations, and into a series of playful excursions for both instruments.”
Finnegan’s Wake is particularly rich in its amalgamation of styles, transitions from the one to the next, and in the manner in which, at its end, a single voice remains, that of Gompper himself, for what had begun as emulation, is ultimately converted into appropriation: the source material serving the composer’s own musical purposes.
Program Notes (short):
Finnegan's Wake is based on two Irish fiddle tunes, The Green Groves of Erin/The Flowers of Red Hill, and made popular by the Bothy Band, and more recently, the string trio of Edgar Meyer, Mark O'Connor and Yo-Yo Ma. While its four-sectioned, one movement form presents Irish-Appalachia-Texas fiddle music embedded within the context of art music, my intention was to transform the music as feet-stomping dance music through a labyrinth of rhythmic manipulations into a series of playful excursions for both instruments.
This work, premiered in Thessaloniki, Greece in May 1997, was performed by Eva Delfinopoyloy, violin and the composer on piano. The initial inspiration for this piece came from working with the violinist and fiddler Andrew Carlson, who was crucial in shaping the final version. The piece is dedicated to my friends, Erin Irish and Gene Szymkowiak.
Program Notes by Gregory Marion
Assistant Professor of Music Theory
The University of SaskatchewanContact information:
David Gompper
www.davidgompper.com
david-gompper@uiowa.edu
