Ron Chaplin responded to Karl:

>>I would be interested in knowing any thoughts you would like to share on
>>your evaluation of Kupferman's music.
>
>I would, too.  A few days ago, I wondered about Kupferman.  In the
>current edition of Fanfare is an ad for the 17th volume of his work on
>the Soundspell label and I know nothing about his music.  Is it tonal,
>atonal or something in between?

Kupferman utilized mostly atonal devices in his music.  He created
a series of works that are based on what he called his "Infinity tone
row".  That is why many of his pieces are called Infinity No. xx.

   G-F-Ab-Cb-Bb-D-F#-E_C-Eb_A-C#

He handled the row somewhat differently from most composers in that he
utilized the third pitch of the row as the pivot rather than the first
note.  I cannot vouch that he was consistent in this technique.

He also used scales such as the symetric scale which alternates whole
and half tones:

   C-Db-Eb-E-F#-G-A-Bb-C

There were occasional uses of tonality although he never descended into
the kind of repetitive tonal writing that is too often passed off these
days as profound.

He was interested in jazz and in his youth he sometimes performed under
the name Buddy Myers!!!!!!  He wrote a jazz theory book that was based
on the twelve tone system.

His music was usually very difficult to play, demanding not only virtuosity
but also endurance.  His Symphonies were often 40 minutes long.  He was
excedingly prolific, writing in almost all media.

He did write some film scores including "Black Like Me", a rather silly
film wherein James Whitmore passes as a black man in the 1950's south.
He also wrote for the Truman Capote TV films "Trilogy" and the film "A
Christmas Memory" was regularly broadcast during the Christmas season.
The film stared Geraldine Fitzgerald and my cousin Donny Melvin!!  (That's
just an amusiing factoid that may be more interesting to me than to
you).........

His hobbies included painting which was odd considering that he suffered
from some form of color blindness.  Many of the texts that he set were
also written by him.

I think that his music is worth exploring.  A good place to start might
be "Challenger" for Orchestra which includes a fugue in tone clusters.

A better sampler might be his collection of piano music played by
Christopher Vassiliades.  It offers a nice survey of the various stylist
traits of his music.  I saw the pianist perform this difficult program
from memory and it was an impressive evening.

I hope this gives you a hint of his music.  I think that if you are at
all adventurous in your listening you might find that Kupferman is worth
the effort.

Eric Goldberg