It is the morning of June 5, 2021. I have been out watering the garden, everything is growing fast, and the days are nice and warm now.
This CD has music I wrote from 1977 - 2021; it's a 43 year retrospective.
I have been listening to this CD in the car for the past month. I guess the "state of the art" for me now is how long can I keep doing edits to the recording until I just have to move on. I released CD57 before this (CD55), and it seems I have no trouble going "back in time" since I just decided that I am going to redo my CD11 Duets for two horns as a series sort of like my Opus 99, which has a whole bunch of different works all based on scales version one . . . I think the new CD11 will have at least five sub parts (CD11a, 11b etc.) all based around the new version of my horn duets Op. 292.
This CD is all the duets I have written so far except the horn duets. I did all the recording of all the instruments myself. For the trumpet I recored with my horn and manipulated the tone to sound like a trumpet with my recording program. The trombone duet is mostly done with Wagner Tuba and not trombone, but the places where the trombone slides around, this is recorded on trombone (with a French horn mouthpiece) so the timber of the "trombone" varies through the duet.
All the other instruments on the CD (except horn) are recorded using the SWAM instruments. I love SWAM (Expressive Virtual Instruments and Live Performance Software SWAM is a new-generation technology that enables musicians, performers, and composers to expand their creativity. The SWAM engine combines concepts of Physical Modeling and Behavioral Modeling with the Multi-Vector/Phase-Synchronous Sample-Morphing technique.) I play them with the piano keyboard and a breath controller. The breath adds phrase shape, volume, articulation and vibrato making the instruments sound alive.
This CD really started with the crash of my computer in September of 2020. I kept working on composing and recording, but I did not want to do anything too big until I solved my computer problems. I made a list of the duets I had written and found I just needed a few more to have a duet for horn and all the other instruments. These duets only take a few days to write. I still need to write for tuba, contra bassoon and the saxophones, so there most likely will be another CD of duets someday.
About the Music:
The music on this CD is presented from newest to old. Tracks one through five are quite new and I was really just trying to write nice music. These duets are part of an exploration of using the I Ching scale and harmonic signatures in an attempt to create a form like Haydn did with the symphony.
The horn and trombone duet, Op. 288 is still more a part of the planets series I presented in CD49. That is exploring the idea that weird is never rally that weird.
SiSoDu, Op. 203 was written on my trip the Washington D.C. I have memories of sitting poolside, waiting for a car repair, and driving. It's a very traditional work.
Duet in Retrograde, is now dedicated to Betsy Raum, who I worked with for many years in the RSO.
Around 1990, I used to rent a cabin in Volcano California with a friend where we had weekend retreats that included hiking and duets. Where I wrote Suite in D, Op. 72
The opus 54 is a long and very serious duet written at the time I won my job for Sacramento Symphony. It was played on the Trinity Chamber Concerts series, but I had to pass the horn part to Janis Lieberman who premiered it.
November, Clarinet duet, and A Puff of Smoke are from the 1980's the details of when and why I wrote these are mostly forgotten.
I remember well the music I wrote in High School. Spectrum is an organization of the 12 intervals that occur in a octave. Huber suite was performed on The El Cerrito High School Chamber music night in 1978 with Kyra Wolf on 'cello. The Essay I submitted to my English class instead of writing a real essay that I was supposed to do. I wasn’t the best student.
About the Recording:
This multi track recording were in process from September, 2020 to June 2021
Cover Photo : Flowers in Galcier National Park by R Burdick
About the Performer:
Richard Burdick as a musician:
French hornist: Richard O. Burdick is the first horn of Regina Symphony Orchestra and the Regina Symphony Chamber Players in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He is a prolific composer.
His move to Canada in 2003, with his wife Rebecca and his two boys, marked the start of the fourth major period in his musical Career.
In the 1980’s Richard was first Horn of Napa Symphony, a member of a San Francisco based theater orchestra and played lots of chamber music as manager of Trinity Chamber Concerts, a chamber music series in Berkeley California.
Starting in 1990 he played fourth Horn full-time for Sacramento Symphony, which went bankrupt in 1996. He then won auditions for Fresno Philharmonic, Napa & North State Symphonies and played in Sacramento Philharmonic & Opera.
He is a prolific composer and has many self produced CD’s of his own compositions, Bach, his classical natural horn playing and multi-track performances of many of his favorite pieces.
He performs on a variety of horns, a baroque natural horn (1720), a classical era natural horn (1800), a romantic era (1840's) natural horn, a single F horn from the 1880's, his main symphony horn is a Brendan Model Finke triple horn.
He has also done many music related jobs such as arranger for Sacramento Symphony, librarian and personal manager for Sacramento Philharmonic, and manager of Trinity Chamber Concerts (chamber music series) in Berkeley, California for 19 years starting in 1984.
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