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Robert Gans (1952-    )

Robert Gans' journey in the music world has taught him that to reach people, it's necessary to speak their language, and contribute something meaningful to the conversation.   He currently teaches piano, and music theory at the Gorin School of Music in Mountain View, California.  Prior to that, he taught piano, music theory, and composition at the Portland Conservatory of Music from 2005 until 2010. In 2010 Gans presented performances of music by himself, Enrique Granados, Frederic Chopin, and finished composing a set of five piano nocturnes entitled Dreamscapes which he performed at the Portland Conservatory's second annual Contemporary Music Festival in April 2010 to critical praise. In April 2009 he performed two of his recent piano works at the Portland Conservatory's first Contemporary Music Festival causing one reviewer to comment, “Soundscape for Piano, and Rhapsodic Variations, played by the composer, Robert Gans, showed that the Romantic style is alive and well at the conservatory.” In 2009 he wrote incidental music for a drama entitled The Streets of Portland produced by AIRE Theater at the St. Lawrence Arts Center and released a new CD entitled For the Very First Time.  In 2008, he presented a solo piano recital featuring works by Beethoven, Wagner, Ravel and himself.  That year he also completed a three movement work for string orchestra based on John Milton's Paradise Lost, and a revision of his first musical drama, The Skyladder. Gans received a Bachelor's degree in music from the State University of New York at Oswego where he studied piano with Anthony Crain.  After exploring post graduate study, he returned home to New York City where he studied piano with concert pianist John Contiguglia, composer Roland Trogan, and worked in the music industry for seven years before moving to Portland, Maine, and from there to Menlo Park, California.

COMPOSITIONS                                                            Gans Links     ~ ~ ~     Works by Genre    ~ ~ ~    What's New
Pinwheel: A Piano Improvisation, piano (1976)
Romance, piano (1977)
5 Jazz-Rock Instrumentals, flexible ensemble (1977)
Oh, What Light of Hope, organ (1978)
Concertpiece, horn, clarinet and piano (1980)
5 Piano Preludes Based on Books (1981)
    (The Snow Leopard; A Farewell to Arms; On the Road; The Glass Bead Game; Tess of the D'Urbervilles [2003])
The Skyladder, a musical drama in 2 acts (1981; rev. 2008)
Easter Suite in 3 Movements (The Last Supper; The Passion; The Resurrection and Ascension), flute and piano (1982)
8 Songs Without Words, keyboard (1984)
10 Songs for Rock Quartet and Vocalist (1988)
Syzygy - 3 Short Movements for Strings and Brass (1990)
Border Crossings: 12 Crossover Instrumentals, flexible ensemble (1993)
4 Latin Jazz Pieces, flexible ensemble (1995)
Fusion: 4 Jazz-Rock Instrumental Pieces, flexible ensemble (1997)
Travelogue, piano (1997)
Mantra, vibraphone, viola, cello and double bass (1999)
Tess: An Art Song, chorus and piano (1999)
Scylla and Charybdis, piano (2000)
2 Chorales, flexible ensemble (2000)
Fantasy, organ (2001)
4 Electronic Soundscapes, synthesizer (2002)
Martial Meditation, brass and string orchestra (2003)
Butterfly, flute and piano (2003)
Blue Ballet Suite in 4 Movements, piano, flute, oboe, double bass and percussion (2004)
Candles in the Wind, electronic piece for video (2004)
Dawn at the Gates of Gondor – a trumpet fanfare (2004)
Hail Mary, a musical drama in 2 acts (2005)
Paradise Lost I: The Awakening and Escape From the Abyss, string orchestra (2006)
The Hidden Places, woodwind quintet and double bass (2006)
Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in 3 Movements (2006)
Collage, piano (2007)
Rhapsodic Variations, piano (2007)
Paradise Lost II: Paradise Found, string orchestra (2008)
Paradise Lost III:  The Fall, string orchestra (2008)
The Streets of Portland: a melodrama, incidental music (2009)
Dreamscapes, 5 Nocturnes, piano (2009)


WORKS BY GENRE                                                            Gans Links     ~ top of page ~
Dramatic/Theater
The Skyladder, a musical drama in 2 acts (1981; rev. 2008)
Blue Ballet Suite in 4 Movements, piano, flute, oboe, double bass and percussion (2004)
Hail Mary, a musical drama in 2 acts (2005)

Orchestral
Syzygy - 3 Short Movements for Strings and Brass (1990)
Martial Meditation, brass and string orchestra (2003)
Paradise Lost I: The Awakening and Escape From the Abyss, string orchestra (2006)
Paradise Lost II: Paradise Found, string orchestra (2008)
Paradise Lost III:  The Fall, string orchestra (2008)

Choral
Tess: An Art Song, chorus and piano (1999)

Chamber/Ensemble
5 Jazz-Rock Instrumentals, flexible ensemble (1977)
Concertpiece, horn, clarinet and piano (1980)
Border Crossings: 12 Crossover Instrumentals, flexible ensemble (1993)
4 Latin Jazz Pieces, flexible ensemble (1995)
Fusion: 4 Jazz-Rock Instrumental Pieces, flexible ensemble (1997)
Mantra, vibraphone, viola, cello and double bass (1999)
2 Chorales, flexible ensemble (2000)
Blue Ballet Suite in 4 Movements, piano, flute, oboe, double bass and percussion (2004)
The Hidden Places, woodwind quintet and double bass (2006)
Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in 3 Movements (2006)

Solo Instrument
Easter Suite in 3 Movements (The Last Supper; The Passion; The Resurrection and Ascension), flute and piano (1982)
Butterfly, flute and piano (2003)
Dawn at the Gates of Gondor – a trumpet fanfare (2004)

Piano/Keyboard/Organ
Oh, What Light of Hope, organ (1978)
5 Piano Preludes Based on Books (1981)
    (The Snow Leopard; A Farewell to Arms; On the Road; The Glass Bead Game; Tess of the D'Urbervilles [2003])
8 Songs Without Words, keyboard (1984)
Travelogue, piano (1997)
Scylla and Charybdis, piano (2000)
Fantasy, organ (2001)
Collage, piano (2007)
Rhapsodic Variations, piano (2007)
Nocturnes, piano (work in progress, 2009)

Vocal
10 Songs for Rock Quartet and Vocalist (1988)

Incidental/Film
The Streets of Portland: a melodrama, incidental music (2009)

Electronic
4 Electronic Soundscapes, synthesizer (2002)
Candles in the Wind, electronic piece for video (2004)


GANS  LINKS                                                            Works by Genre      ~ top of page ~

Composer's website

Gans @ American Composers Forum
Gans @ Portland Conservatory

Streaming Audio
Gans @ Pytheas  -  Blue Ballet, movement 4 (see below for information on "Blue Ballet")

Recordings
For the Very First Time @ Composer's website



What's New with Robert Gans . . .
Bob's new CD For The Very First Time is now available. Let him know if you are interested in a copy!
 
Sunday, Feb. 14th at 3 p.m. Bob will be performing the last 2 movements of the Escenas Romanticas by Enrique Granados at the monthly public concert of the Portland Rossini Club at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke at 143 State St. in Portland.  The parking lot is in the rear of the church on Park St.  Admission is $10. Seniors $5, and students free.  What better day than Valentine's Day to hear music conveying romantic scenes!  Bach and Chopin are also on the program along with a performance of the outstanding Musica Filia Girl's Choir.
 
And a little further down the road in April Bob will be performing his new composition entitled Dreamscapes: 5 Piano Nocturnes at the April Portland Rossini Club public concert, and then again at the Portland Conservatory's Contemporary Music Festival.




Composer’s note:  “Blue Ballet” is a four movement work written in 2004 and is approximately a half hour in length.  Its tonal language is a blend of the blues and contemporary classical music vernacular.  The first two movements can be played as piano solos but the work is intended for an ensemble. 

After a brief musical introduction which sets the mood, the dancers begin an Invocation of the spirits of the blues to infuse the drama about to be danced.  The dancers are priests and priestesses who are charged with protecting and keeping sacred the spirit which has created and sustained the blues.  After the initial statements of the Invocation themes the dancers come briefly to a pause. 

Next, there is a motivic variation of the Invocation theme alternating between major and minor.  The variation is offered very simply and humbly at first.  But as the dancers start to infuse the invocation with more passion, the theme becomes more romantic finally leading to the Offering.

The Offering theme is stated twice before being played in counterpoint with a previous Invocation thematic variation.  Then the offering evolves into a set of more dissonant variations as the dancers reach more deeply to reach the source of the blues. 

The music now recapitulates into a Gershwinesque variation of the opening theme as the dancers do everything in their power to persuade the spirits to accept their offering as expressed by a more insistent variation of the primitive initial Invocation theme. 

As the dancers come to the end of the Invocation and Offering the music becomes quiet, plaintive and reflective before building to the ending where the dancer’s offering is completed and they sink to the ground in profound and reverent exhaustion. 


This movement is the blues spirit’s response to the Invocation and Offering.  The spirits are playful at first but soon settle down to the serious business at hand as the music and dance modulates from strident chords through some gentle but characteristic blues triplets leading into the first main theme.  This theme is intended to express the universality of the blues through the use of an intensely felt European harmonic idiom which finally settles down and resolves for a moment before moving at first dissonantly and then meditatively to a characteristically American interpretation of the blues using a languid 12 bar blues form.

After the 12 bar blues the action picks up, briefly revisiting the European “blues” theme before settling down into an impressionistic flight of the spirits.  They soar and swirl in an uplifting and dynamic fashion which gradually subsides again into a mild whole tone/augmented dissonance before the final fragment of the European style blues theme leads into an energetic toccata like finale.  After a jarring birth, the spirits finally reach a state of repose and fulfillment which transcends the boundaries of the world.

This movement portrays one of the two preeminent causes of the blues which is of course, love.  It is a pas de deux which starts out with a male and a female dancer encountering each other for the first time.  As it opens, the girl is wandering alone accompanied by floating tonalities.  The boy enters accompanied by a bass ostinato motif and the girl responds.  There are some initial coy and tentative overtures made to each other and then their interplay starts to build over the now constant rhythm of the ostinato. 

The musical texture becomes two part as they become acquainted and start to court each other.  Theme 2 enters as the rhythm of their dancing becomes more energized.  They finally collide with each other.  There is a brief reference to a theme of the 2nd movement and then the boy’s ostinato theme is briefly exchanged between them before a final transition to a romantic interlude at the end of which they finally kiss and settle down into each others arms.  Reality (the music) suddenly startles them out of their blissful reverie and they flee offstage.

This movement portrays the other primary cause of the blues which is loss.  The boy and girl come back onstage approaching cautiously bathed in blue light.  They dance their love in a soft and melancholy fashion as if aware of what is coming.  This turns into a waltz like “dance of denial” as they seek to prolong their love and escape the inevitable parting which life holds for all lovers.  After the dance of denial, they are frightened by the intrusion of unearthly tonalities.  At the end of a series of fast repeated notes signifying the inevitable, the girl falls to the ground as the three chords of her doom are sounded.  The boy kneels over her in grief and panic trying to revive her.

Over the strains of a harp like theme the spirit of the girl rises and takes the boys hand.  Together they wander to the underworld and come through the gloom upon the river Styx.  They behold the river and dance their parting dance to the water music as the boatman slowly approaches.  They are agonizingly wrenched apart.  She enters the boat alone.  The boatman will not allow him to enter.  He must stay on the other side of the river.  The boatman takes her across to the other side.  She disembarks in a dark starlit void while the boy waits in vain alone on the other side.  They gaze at each other longingly across the river as an unearthly chorus is heard.  Finally as part of the opening theme is repeated the girl turns and is led inexorably away by one of the heavenly host.  The boy collapses to the ground by the side of the river to live out the rest of his days, waiting in solitude until he can rejoin her. At the sound of the last three ascending notes the boy looks up to gaze longingly across the river while the boatman looks up returning his gaze, the creative tension of life and love, birth and death personified.