Van Nostrand, B :: Fantasy Manual for Urban Survival

  • $64.50
  • Composer
    Van Nostrand, B
  • Instrumentation
    Flute, 1 String & Keyboard
  • Publisher
    American Composers Alliance [ACA-VANO-003S]
  • Orchestration
    al fl, vc, pn
  • Includes CD or Audio Download
    No
  • Classification
    Not Applicable
  • Genre
    Undefined
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Fantasy Manual for Urban Survival

Van Nostrand, B

Dedicated to the memory of Jay Humeston, Fantasy Manual is part of a series of manuals that Van Nostrand wrote between 1972 77, all of which exhaustively explore the sonic and textural possibilities of instruments and voices. They include Ventilation Manual (for flute and harp), Earth Manual (for soprano and chamber ensemble), Emergency Plumbers Manual (for brass quintet and piano), and Lunar Possession Manual (for soprano and chamber ensemble).

In contrast to Voyage and other works of his that rely heavily on graphic notation, in Fantasy Manual Van Nostrand decided to put his musical gestures into fully notated form in a way that echoes that of George Crumb s Vox Balaenae, for similar ensemble. It is an extremely difficult piece to perform, and is in his words a stress test for performers [that] captures a whole world of sound in which he strove to write a cello part beyond his own capabilities. He also worked very closely with flutist Robert Stallman during this time they were classmates since 1964 and recalls that he never wrote a note of flute music without imagining Robert Stallman playing it.

Van Nostrand drew inspiration from the Friedrich Holderlin poem Halfte des Lebens ( Half of life ), unusually presented in movement four in the form of sprechstimme, alternately spoken by the three performers. The three short and lyrical Schwangesang ( Swan Songs ) movements, located at the beginning, middle, and end of the piece, sonically encapsulate the exquisitely tranquil, stark, cold, and clattering images of the Holderlin poem, and also act as key structural pillars.

The violent second movement starts ominously and slowly with sustained low-register sonorities, before gaining rhythmic momentum toward its end, culminating with a fantastic surprise texture involving bow distortion on the D and A strings played behind the cello bridge coupled with violent strumming with a guitar pick on the middle strings of the piano. The single-note epilogue to this movement, marked Slow, suspended, very sad, focuses on the second octave C harmonic on the cello, a note that is returned to often in the piece, this time embellished by the minor third A below it in the alto flute, and setting up the peaceful tone of the next movement, titled 9 Miracles.

Each of the Miracles has a unique and vivid sonic profile with silences inserted between them the ordering of these beautiful sonic snapshots is freely chosen by the performers. The Miracles have evocative titles: A Miracle of Visions, A Miracle of Mirage, A Miracle of Wood, and so on. The most extended of these snapshots, A Miracle of Prisms, is reserved for last and is divided into four phrases separated by silence. The movement trails off at the end with a light ostinato texture that is both rhythmic and gently fluttering.


Movement four introduces the Holderlin poem, the first stanza of which is a meditation by a lake a serene image of a swan dipping its head in the water creating ripples in the reflected reality. The movement begins in much the same way as movement two ended, focusing on the cello s second octave C harmonic, with the alto flute interjecting shakuhachi-like gestures into the texture. The next arrival, or new beginning, is realized through the first appearance of a rhythmic unison in the piece presented as stacked tritones, which serves to introduce the last two lines of the stanza, Tunkt ihr das Haupt, Ins heilignuchterne Wasser ( You dip your heads, In sacred-sober water ). The first stanza ends with an extraordinary extended texture that includes both the cello and flute trilling in their upper extreme registers. Then comes a transition into soft upper flute partials, behind-the-bridge cello pizzicatos, and inside-the-piano glissandos, followed by a return of the lyrical Schwangesang music the second structural pillar, which also marks the dividing line between the two stanzas.

The second stanza of the Holderlin poem presents images of cold: piercing ice, wind, and weathervanes clattering. The cold and stark images that close the poem are underscored by a stunning sequence of sonic effects: bowing the back of the cello, fingernail glissandos on the low piano strings, rattling the stick of the bow between the cello tuning pegs, and, finally, the slow loosening of the cello s lowest C string to its sub-register depths.

Movement five, Receding Attenuations, introduces completely new material. Pulsing, repetitive, freely overlaid and overlapping, lush and minimal in conception, it is an extended moment of aquatic rippling occasionally interrupted by short interjections of material from earlier movements, only to re-form again in pulsing ecstasy. This material sets up the final Schwangesang, now presented in retrograde fashion with the cello reaching into its far upper stratosphere, the piece closing with a final clattering of wood and flute keys before the final release, punctuated by an airy and exhausted sigh spoken into the flute mouthpiece.

- The Timeless Textures of Burr Van Nostrand; Mathew Rosenblum

  • Composer
    Van Nostrand, B
  • Instrumentation
    Flute, 1 String & Keyboard
  • Publisher
    American Composers Alliance [ACA-VANO-003S]
  • Orchestration
    al fl, vc, pn
  • Includes CD or Audio Download
    No
  • Classification
    Not Applicable
  • Genre
    Undefined

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