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Donald Martino

 

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Donald Martino



 
 
Donald Martino (May 16, 1931 – December 8, 2005) was a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is an United States award regarded as the highest national honor in newspaper journalism, literary achievements and musical composition....
 winning American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
.

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey
Plainfield, New Jersey

Plainfield is a City in Union County, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the city population was 47,829....
, Martino studied composition with Ernst Bacon
Ernst Bacon

Ernst Bacon was an United States of America composer, pianist, and Conductor . A prolific author, Bacon composed over 250 songs over his career....
, Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions

Roger Huntington Sessions was an USA composer, critic and teacher of music.Born in Brooklyn, New York to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution, Sessions studied music at Harvard University from the age of 14....
, Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt

Milton Byron Babbitt is an American composer. He is particularly noted for his pioneering Serialism, and electronic music....
, and Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola

Luigi Dallapiccola was an Italy composer known for his lyrical serialism compositions....
. Most of his mature works (including pseudo-tonal works such as Paradiso Choruses and Seven Pious Pieces) were composed using the twelve-tone method; his sound world more closely resembled the lyrical Dallapiccola's than his other teachers'.

The pianist Easley Blackwood
Easley Blackwood Jr.

Easley Blackwood, , the son of Easley Blackwood Sr., is a professor of music, a concert pianist, a composer of music, some using unusual musical tuning, and the author of books on music theory, including his research into the properties of microtonal tunings and traditional harmony....
 commissioned Martino's sonata Pianississimo, explicitly requesting that it be one of the most difficult pieces ever written.






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Donald Martino (May 16, 1931 – December 8, 2005) was a Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize

The Pulitzer Prize is an United States award regarded as the highest national honor in newspaper journalism, literary achievements and musical composition....
 winning American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 composer
Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, usually in the medium of musical notation, for interpretation and performance. The level of distinction between composers and other musicians varies, which affects issues such as copyright and the deference given to individual interpretations of a particular piece of music....
.

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey
Plainfield, New Jersey

Plainfield is a City in Union County, New Jersey, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the city population was 47,829....
, Martino studied composition with Ernst Bacon
Ernst Bacon

Ernst Bacon was an United States of America composer, pianist, and Conductor . A prolific author, Bacon composed over 250 songs over his career....
, Roger Sessions
Roger Sessions

Roger Huntington Sessions was an USA composer, critic and teacher of music.Born in Brooklyn, New York to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution, Sessions studied music at Harvard University from the age of 14....
, Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt

Milton Byron Babbitt is an American composer. He is particularly noted for his pioneering Serialism, and electronic music....
, and Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola

Luigi Dallapiccola was an Italy composer known for his lyrical serialism compositions....
. Most of his mature works (including pseudo-tonal works such as Paradiso Choruses and Seven Pious Pieces) were composed using the twelve-tone method; his sound world more closely resembled the lyrical Dallapiccola's than his other teachers'.

The pianist Easley Blackwood
Easley Blackwood Jr.

Easley Blackwood, , the son of Easley Blackwood Sr., is a professor of music, a concert pianist, a composer of music, some using unusual musical tuning, and the author of books on music theory, including his research into the properties of microtonal tunings and traditional harmony....
 commissioned Martino's sonata Pianississimo, explicitly requesting that it be one of the most difficult pieces ever written. The resulting work is indeed of epic difficulty, but has been recorded several times. (Blackwood declined to perform it.)

Martino presented Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt

Milton Byron Babbitt is an American composer. He is particularly noted for his pioneering Serialism, and electronic music....
 with at least two musical birthday cards: B,a,b,b,it,t on his 50th birthday and Triple Concerto on his 60th.

Martino, who taught at Yale University
Yale University

Yale University is a private university in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1701 as the Collegiate School, Yale is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher education in the United States and is a member of the Ivy League....
, the New England Conservatory of Music
New England Conservatory of Music

The New England Conservatory of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, is the oldest independent Music school in the United States.The conservatory is home each year to 750 students pursuing undergraduate and graduate studies along with 1400 more in its Preparatory School as well as the School of Continuing Education....
, Brandeis University
Brandeis University

Brandeis University is a Private university research university with a liberal arts focus, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, nine miles west of Boston, Massachusetts....
, and Harvard University
Harvard University

Harvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Massachusetts, United States, and a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1636 by the colonial Massachusetts legislature, Harvard is the Colonial Colleges institution of higher learning in the United States....
, won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1974 for his chamber work Notturno.

Martino died in Antigua
Antigua

Antigua is an island in the West Indies, in the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region, the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda....
 in 2005.

Selected Works by Donald Martino

It should be noted that many of these pieces have extensive doublings, such as flute/piccolo/alto flute.
  • String Quartet No.2 (1952)
  • Violin Sonata No.1 (1952)
  • String Quartet No.3 (1953)
  • Three Dances (1953) for viola and piano
  • A Set for Clarinet (1954) for solo clarinet
  • String Trio (1954)
  • Portraits (1955) for chorus and orchestra
  • Quartet (1957) for clarinet and string trio
  • Trio (1959) for violin, clarinet, piano
  • Fantasy Variations (1962) for violin solo
  • Concerto (1964) for wind quintet (n.b. without orchestra)
  • Piano Concerto (1965)
  • Strata (1966) for bass clarinet
  • B,a,b,b,it,t (1966) for solo clarinet with extensions
  • Mosaic (1967) for orchestra
  • Pianississimo (1970) for piano
  • Seven Pious Pieces (1971) for chorus
  • Cello Concerto (1972)
  • Notturno (1973) for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, and piano
  • Paradiso Choruses (1974) for chorus and orchestra
  • Ritorno (1975), for orchestra
  • Triple Concerto (1977) for Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Contrabass Clarinet and small orchestra
  • Fantasies and Impromptus (1978) for piano
  • Quodlibets II (1979) for flute solo
  • String Quartet No.4 (1983)
  • The White Island (1985) for chorus and orchestra
  • Saxophone Concerto (1986) for Alto Saxophone and orchestra
  • From the Other Side (1988) for flute, cello, percussion, and piano
  • Twelve Preludes (1991) for piano
  • Three Sad Songs (1993) for viola and piano
  • Violin Concerto (1996)
  • Serenata Concertante (1999) for flute, clarinet, flugel horn, french horn, percussion, piano, violin, violoncello
  • Romanza (2000) for violin solo
  • Sonata (2003) for violin solo
  • String Quartet No.5 (2004)
  • Trio (2004) for violin, cello, piano
  • Trio (2004) for clarinet, cello, piano
  • Concertino (2004) for clarinet and orchestra
  • Violin Sonata No.2 (2004)
  • Concerto for Orchestra (2005)


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