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Biography Program Notes Contact Download David Gompper
 
Finnegan’s Wake (1997)
David Gompper
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 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. In 2009 he received an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York City.
 
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 London's Wigmore Hall, including: Homage a W. A. (William Albright) for piano; and Shades of Love, a song cycle on the poetry of Constantin Cavafy.
 
Subsequent returns to Moscow have included premieres and performances of Crossed, Music in the Glen, Six Love Poems, Star of the County Down, Butterfly Dance, Spirals and Ikon. His latest work for violin and piano, Ikon, was taken on a 14-concert tour throughout the US and Europe last fall with Wolfgang David, a violinist from Vienna with whom Gompper actively collaborates as a pianist and composer. They have recorded three CDs on the Albany and VDE-Gallo labels.
 
He recently completed several new compositions including a 28' song cycle called The Animals on poetry of Marvin Bell written for Stephen Swanson. He is working on several new compositions including a piano solo in memory of William Albright, a piano trio and a work for solo cello for Timothy Gill in London. His Violin Concerto and other orchestral works were recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (London) in December 2009 for a release on Naxos in early 2011.
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 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.
 
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“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 Saskatchewan
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 David Gompper
www.davidgompper.com
david-gompper@uiowa.edu
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 Finnegan's Wake: Score (pdf)
 
Finnegan's Wake: Violin Part (pdf)