[ Dave Soldier ]

Classical Music

mp3s of music I've written for players from classical backgrounds (except go here to hear string quartet music).

For scores go here.

organ
Hockets and Inventions
I love polyphonic music of the middle ages known as Ars Nova, and wrote a book of Hockets and Inventions (1987-1989) exploring how the music could have evolved. These are progressively more complex and are each in two or three parts that can be played by any instruments, but are playable by organ.

1. Hocket I Jordan
2. Invention 1
3. Hocket II Fuelgen
4. Invention 2
5. Hocket III Neville
6. Invention 3
7. Hocket IV Otto
8. Invention 4
9. Hocket V Roscoe
10. Invention 5
11. Hocket VI Resolution
12. Invention 6

Performed by Walter Hilse on the Aeolian Skinner organ.

for solo saxophone
Utah Dances
Utah Dances (1990), using baroque dances as a 90th birthday present for Otto Luening who loved these forms.
This suite can be played by any solo woodwind. Cortijo led agreat dance band in the nineteen-fifties and his records are still played in the southwestern United States. The Forty-nine is a social dance performed in the "checkerboard" region where northeast Arizona meets Utah and New Mexico. Itreceived the name from a vaudeville group that played the Kiowa reservation in Oklahoma. The barkers would yell "come see the gals of forty-nine!"

Utah Dances
1. Jig
2. Fugue in one voice
3. Cortijo
4. Allemande
5. Forty-niner and double

Performed by Michael Schwartz on the alto saxophone

for violin and cello duo
Duo Sonata
Duo Sonata (1989) in three movements.

Reverie
Lent:scordatura
Tribute Electric

played by Laura Seaton and Erik Friedlander on violin and cello.

for viola and tape
East St. Louis, 1968
(1999) I tried to make a portrait of memories my early life as a viola player exploring my home town.

East St Louis, 1968

played by Richard Auldon Clark on viola, Dave Soldier synthesizer and harmonica, found tapes and electronics

for violin cello and harpsichord
Clever Hans
(2005) 6 variations based on the Grimm's fairy tale, and written for a ballet for the dance troupe Freefall. Here's the concert version.

Clever Hans

played by Rebecca Cherry on violin, Karlos Rodriguez on cello, and Michael Mizrahi on harpsicord

for accordion and mixed ensemble
Sontag in Sarajevo
in two movements

for one accordion (parts for standard or Strad accordions both on the scores),
one chordal instrument (guitar, piano, or other),
one treble melody instrument (violin, clarinet, trumpet, etc.),
one bass instrument (cello, bass, trombone, tuba, bassoon, etc.).

Fluor Phosphor Lumen and Candle
Dance for the Tetragrammaton

Performed by Regina Carter, violin; Anne de Maranis, accordion; Dave Soldier, guitar; and Dawn Buckholtz Avery, cello

for accordion and tape (or orchestra)
To Spike Jones in Heaven
(1989) for accordion and tape, performed by William Schimmel. This piece can also be performed with orchestra (but never has been).

To Spike Jones in Heaven

Performed by William Schimmel, accoridon

for solo piano

Romances From the Second Line
Le Belvedere portrays Ravel's ghost wandering his home. I tried to incorporate some New Orleans piano music in these pieces, hence the name.

1. Easy Street
2. Letter to Skip James
3. Le Belvedere
4. Die Heiterkeiten
5. Tillie's Puctured Romance

performed by Christopher O'Riley, piano

for solo clarinet
Duo for clarinet and Meade Lux Lewis
A feature for clarinet from Ice 9 Ballads, from an incident in the book that the piece is meant to accompany
Duo for Clarinet and Meade Lux Lewis.

for chamber orchestra

Smut
1992

Chorea Lascivia (Smut)
for chamber group and singers
two electric guitars, percussion, trumpet, trombone,
Soprano, mezzosoprano, bass voice
In the early 90’s members of Congress were saying that only modern art extolled homosexuality. We need to bring back a classical education in this country where you read Plato and Sappho! Chorea Lascivia, A collection of nine gothic rock songs, with mostly homoerotic Latin lyrics written by medieval monks and dedicated to to Robbert Mapplethorpe and David Wojnarowicz.

1. Dum Caupona Verterem
2. Ad Puerum Anglicum
3. Odalisque in the Seraglio
4. Miser, Miser
5. Graffiti from a 10th century manuscript
6. Quodlibet made from overlapping themes.
7. Parisius Paridi
8. Letter to Ausonius, a hocket

Performers: Tiye' Giraud, Wilbur Pauley, Napua Davoy - Vocals, Ben Neill - Trumpet, Dave Soldier & Bob Bannister - Guitars, Samm Bennett, Jim Pugliese- Percussion, Drums; Rob Bethea - Trombone; Richard Auldon Clark - Conductor

Ice-9 Ballads
For chamber orchestra and singers. Ice-9 Ballads are 9 songs for orchestra with lyrics from Cat's Cradle with narration by Kurt Vonnegut

1. Annihilation Life
2. Dyot Meet Mat
3. Nice Very Nice
4. 119th Calypso
5. Duo for Clarinet and Meade Lux Lewis
6. 14th Calypso
7. Mona's Funeral Music
8. Big Tyrant
9. Folly

performed by the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra, Richard Auldon Clark, conductor, featuring Jimmy Justice, Tiye' Giraud, Napua Davoy, and Janeice Thompson, vocalists:

Mark Twain's War Prayer
cantata for Gospel choir and orchestra on Mark Twain text:Wilbur Pauley, bass, Jason White, tenor, Dionne Freeny, soprano
This is an orchestral setting of The War Prayer, a short story by Twain that he intended to be published after his death. It features extended vocal techniques developed by the two soloists, tenor Jason White and bass Wilbur Pauley and also features a gospel choir, borrowing from contemporary gospel groups such as Reverend Milton Brunson's Community Singers and the Anointed Pace Sisters.
1. Invocation
2. Supplication
3. Canticle
4. Benediction

Ultraviolet Railroad
double concerto for violin and cello and orchestra
performed by Mark Feldman and Erik Friedlander; Richard Auldon Clark, conductor, Neil Kirkwood piano soloist
1.Betonia, where I fell into a trance
2. Rapture
3. I'm going upstairs, I'm to take off all my clothes

The Apotheosis of John Brown
a cantata for baroque orchestra, setting of Frederick Douglass, conducted by Richard Auldon Clark
1.My first meeting with Capt. Brown (1947)
2. Concerto
3. War in Kansas (1856)
4. Holler
5. His capture and execution (1859)
6. My escape to England from United States Marshals
7. The beginning of the end (1847-1859)
8. Pastorale
9. John Brown a fisherman (1860)

Soloists: Robbie McCauley, narrator; Jason White, Mary Lee Kortes, Napua Davoy, Gilbert High, vocals; Laura Seaton violin, Gwendolyn Toth, harpsichord