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Galanteries

The Solo Piano Music of William C. White

William C. White composer
Joseph Vaz piano

Release Date: January 24, 2025
Catalog #: NV6677
Format: Digital
21st Century
Solo Instrumental
Piano

Step into a musical world where tradition meets innovation in GALANTERIES, a groundbreaking collection of solo piano works from composer William C. White, brought to life by the brilliant young virtuoso Joseph Vaz. This album turns the traditional mentor-protégé dynamic on its head, as Vaz’s fervor for White’s music inspired the composer to craft these demanding and imaginative pieces specifically for his protégé’s remarkable talents.

The music of GALANTERIES is a kaleidoscope of musical styles and influences, from Baroque elegance to Romantic drama to world folk traditions. In Vaz’s masterful hands, these pieces transcend their classical roots to create something entirely new — a perfect synthesis of composer’s vision and performer’s interpretation. The result is a collection of works so personally tailored to Vaz’s artistry that they feel less like compositions and more like musical effusions, making this album an extraordinary document of artistic collaboration at its most inspiring.

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Track Listing & Credits

# Title Composer Performer
01 11 Bagatelles: No. 1 Allegro William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 2:10
02 11 Bagatelles: No. 2 Moderato molto rubando William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 1:42
03 11 Bagatelles: No. 3 Allegro giocoso William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 1:01
04 11 Bagatelles: No. 4 Moderato alla zortziko William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 1:31
05 11 Bagatelles: No. 5 Molto vivo William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 1:29
06 11 Bagatelles: No. 6 Andante inatteso e luminoso William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 3:22
07 11 Bagatelles: No. 7 Alla tuvana William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 1:01
08 11 Bagatelles: No. 8 Tempo di valse William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 0:49
09 11 Bagatelles: No. 9 Moderato ma metallico William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 1:24
10 11 Bagatelles: No. 10 Poco adagio e moltissimo rubato William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 2:37
11 11 Bagatelles: No. 11 Allegro con la gioia della libertà William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 2:01
12 Galanteries: 1. Bourrée William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 2:18
13 Galanteries: 2. Air I William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 3:37
14 Galanteries: 3. Chaconne William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 4:37
15 Galanteries: 4. Passepied William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 2:14
16 Galanteries: 5. Air II – Bourrée William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 2:52
17 Piano Sonata William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 22:54
18 Eaters of Flesh, a pianistic hymn-fantasia William C. White Joseph Vaz, piano 5:46

Recorded June 26-27, 2024 at Oktaven Studios in Mount Vernon NY
Recording Session Producer William White
Recording Session Engineer Ryan Streber
Editing William White
Mixing Ryan Streber
Mastering Melanie Montgomery

Executive Producer Bob Lord

VP of A&R Brandon MacNeil
A&R Danielle Sullivan

VP of Production Jan Košulič
Audio Director Lucas Paquette

VP, Design & Marketing Brett Picknell
Art Director Ryan Harrison
Design Edward A. Fleming
Publicity Kacie Brown
Digital Marketing Manager Brett Iannucci

Artist Information

William White

Composer

William White is a conductor, composer, teacher, writer, and performer based in Seattle WA. Equally known for his original music as for his bold interpretations, White is an innovative programmer and conscientious leader in the musical community. His music has been performed throughout North America as well as in Asia and Europe. His music has been recorded on the MSR Classics, Cedille, and Navona Records labels, and he maintains a significant career as a composer of music for the concert stage, theater, cinema, church, radio, and film. 

Learn More

Joseph Vaz

piano

Pianist Joseph Vaz has performed internationally as a soloist and chamber musician across North America and Europe, in venues from Carnegie Hall to the Arnold Schönberg Center in Vienna.

Born in Faro, Portugal, Vaz now lives in New York City, where he is completing a doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center. Vaz has studied with renowned performers and pedagogues, including Julian Martin, Ran Dank, and Emile Naoumoff. He is a laureate of several national and international competitions, with recent appearances at the Pacific Stars International (2nd Prize), James Mottram International Piano Competition, and the Seattle International Piano Competition.

Vaz frequently performs at international festivals, including recent appearances at the Gilmore Piano Festival, Sarasota Music Festival, Lucerne Festival Academy, and Aspen Music Festival. Vaz has performed for several acclaimed artists and pedagogues, including Byron Janis, Gabriela Montero, Jerome Lowenthal, Jon Nakamatsu, and Ursula Oppens. His orchestral debut came with the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra in 2015, and he has also performed as soloist with Harmonia Orchestra Seattle, the Seven Hills Sinfonietta and other orchestral ensembles.

Vaz is an avid chamber musician and has performed with multiple orchestras and choirs for operas and concert programs. He is a proponent of new music, working closely with several composers on pieces for world premieres. Interested in many genres of music-making, Vaz enjoys working in contemporary music ensembles, musical theater, and popular music. Outside of music, he holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and a minor in French from Indiana University, and loves reading modernist literature.

josephvaz.com

Notes

This album presents the complete oeuvre for solo piano by William C. White, the fruit of a remarkable, years-long collaboration between White and Joseph Vaz, a young pianist of virtuoso talent and musical distinction.

White and Vaz first met in Cincinnati OH in 2012, when White was serving as conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Youth Orchestra and Vaz was a member of that orchestra’s bass section. The two began a mentor-protegé relationship that has matured into an ongoing artistic partnership. The three major works on this album — the 11 Bagatelles, Galanteries, and the piano sonata — were composed by White at the suggestion (and insistence) of Vaz, who worked to make White into a pianistic composer.

These three works — plus a fourth that White composed on a lark — show the breadth of the composer’s musical voice, while the performances display the scope of Vaz’s prowess at the keyboard.

Each of these eleven miniatures offers a distinct stylistic portrait. Bits of folk music are incorporated, with No. 4 referencing a Basque popular song and No. 7 nodding to a dance by a popular Tuvan folk band. There are two night pieces, with No. 6 capturing the gentle mood of a summer evening and No. 2 evoking the flavor of the Alhambra at midnight.

Homages to particular composers abound, with No. 3 nodding toward Prokofiev and No. 10 specifically offered as an ode to the late Stephen Sondheim. The characters of the pieces range from zany (No. 5) to elegant (No. 8) to brooding (No. 9). The collection is framed by a matched pair, with the bell-like sonorities of No. 1 explored to their tintinnabulous extremes in No. 11.

The term “galanterie” was used by 18th-century composers to describe the optional movements of a Baroque dance suite. A suite required four standard movements — the allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue — but between the sarabande and the gigue a composer could insert a rogue dance: a bourrée, gavotte, minuet, or passacaglia, just to name a few of the options.

In Galanteries (which White describes as “a suite of misfit dances”) four such movement types are given pride of place: the bourrée, the air (a pair, in fact), the chaconne, and the passepied.

This piano sonata was composed in March and April of 2020: the very earliest days of the COVID-19 lockdown. It was written for Vaz to perform in one of his doctoral-degree recitals at the CUNY Graduate Center. Vaz has gone on to perform it at several other venues throughout the United States.

The work, played without a pause, is organized into four movements: a prelude, a theme, and variations, a lyrical slow movement, and a stomping rhythmic finale (crowned by a return of the prelude music). The principal melodic motives are woven through the entirety of the piece in a cyclical fashion.

(In spite of the sonata’s short history, the piece found itself at the center of an international plagiarism scandal, when it emerged that the sonata had been copied note-for-note by a young composer in Western Asia and given a concert performance under that composer’s name.)

Eaters of Flesh is a piano fantasia that began life as a hymn. The hymn text was penned by William Cowherd, the leader of a 19th-century sect of radical Christian vegetarians known as the Bible Christian Church. White, a fervent vegan himself, set this text to music (along with two other texts by Cowherd) as his Op. 46, Three Vegan Hymns.

Cowherd’s text reads as follows:

“Eaters of Flesh!” could you decry
Our food and sacred laws,
Did you behold the lambkin die,
And feel yourselves the cause?

Lo! there it struggles! hear it moan,
As stretch’d beneath the knife:
Its eye would melt a heart of stone!
How meek it begs its life.

Had God, for man, its flesh design’d;
Matur’d by death, the brute,
Lifeless, to us had been consign’d,
As is the ripen’d fruit.

Hold, daring man! from murder stay:
God is the life in all.
You smite at God! when flesh you slay:—
Can such a crime be small?

The fantasia uses White’s original hymn tune for Eaters of Flesh as the basis for an impassioned keyboard work. Originally, the fantasia included a brief, semi-optional vocal line; on the present recording, Vaz incorporates this into the piano texture.

The artists wish to thank Ryan Streber of Oktaven Studios for his musicality, collegiality, and most of all his calm, cool, collected problem-solving when disaster (Joey) struck (the keys too hard). Thanks to the team at PARMA Recordings — Bob Lord, Danielle Lewis, Melanie Montgomery, Ryan Harrison, Janet Giovannello, and Lucas Paquette.

White would like to thank his family for supporting him, his friends for humoring him, and his neighbors who have to listen to him compose. Vaz would like to thank his parents for their eager support of his music making, Rebecca Moranis for her ears and love, and Bobby Carlson for being the first person to listen to the entire sonata live.