THOMAS E. BARKER (1954-1988)

When Tom Barker arrived at The Juilliard School, and I became acquainted with the saga of his pilgrim age, geographical and musical, one historical image and precedent was unavoidable, that of Hector Berlioz. For Tom had come to New York from the South with his guitar, as Berlioz had come to Paris from the south of France with his guitar; Tom soon sought out the apparently most unlikely succession of mentors for some one whose musical roots were in country music, as Berlioz soon rejected the edifications of Lesueur and Cherubini for the instruction of the remarkably deviant Anton Reicha. And within an unbelievably few years Berlioz had written works of such realized originality as to induce a Fetis to characterize them as a "bizarre assemblage of sounds." Tom, within a comparably short period of time, created singular works which have been equally flatteringly characterized by Fetis' current counterparts.

Tom's music must be heard to be believed, for it is music which appears so outrageously intricate on the page, with an intricacy enhanced by Tom's rather rococo calligraphy, that it requires knowing, virtuoso performance to reveal the necessity of that graphic complexity to convey the musical lucidity, the temporal flux, the ensemble flexibility. And there al ways were knowing, intrigued per formers able and eager to perform the works, often with Tom conducting with an effectiveness as appropriate as it was personal and uninhibitedly un-tutored.

It is probably impossible to convey verbally the multiple facets of this country boy, this country gentleman, this rebel with a cause, this apparently good old boy who loved and was loved by those consummate New Yorkers who played his music then and now.

In the tragic case of a creator who dies so young, it is customary to conjecture as to the products of the promise presumably unfulfilled, but in the presence of the music on this recording we can rejoice in its own fulfillment.

  -- Milton Babbitt, 1993

Thomas E. Barker was born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1954. His academic and professional life centered in Manhattan where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in music from The Juilliard School. He also Studied for four years at the Manhattan School of Music, from which he received a diploma and built many important professional relationships. He received a D.M.A. from Columbia University in 1984. Barker was first introduced to music through the guitar. An active performer early on, jazz improvisation was a long time interest though his musical pursuits were wide ranging and included conduct ing, country music and blues. In his mature music. Barker relied on the twelve-tone method, with, according to the New York Times, "a persuasive sense of conviction and a certain elegance." Barker's instructors in com position included Milton Babbitt, Charles   Wuorinen,   Vladimir Ussachevsky, Jack Beeson and Chou Wen-Chung. He composed more than 50 published works, beginning in his teens. Among his major compositions is the Four Sets for Orchestra which was performed by his home town orchestra, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, in 1986. Barker died of bone cancer on January 12, 1988. Prior to his death, he was an adjunct Professor of the Department of Music at Mercy College, in Dobbs Ferry, New York, and Board President of the New York New Music Ensemble. With his wife, the violinist Diana Smith Barker, he directed Zaccho, Inc. a non-profit publishing and production concern which continues the promotion of his music. Barker was remembered by the New York music community with a memorial concert of his solo, ensemble, and choral works in February, 1988 at Symphony Space which prompted reviews and tributes in the New York Times and Village Voice. This is the first recording of music by Thomas E. Barker.

TRIKHYALO (1983) for violin, viola and cello was commissioned and premiered by The Group for Contemporary Music of New York. More than any other work by the composer, it attempts to synthesize three divergent musical interests and traditions: contemporary Western classical music (specifically serialism), jazz, and the classical music of India. The title itself combines "trio" and the name of a raga form, "khyal." Barker based his "raga/row/melody" on the kanakangi scale and the work follows the nine part khyal raga structure. A complete statement of the theme occurs midway through me work and is followed by brilliant solos for each of the instruments.

THREE PIECES FOR FRENCH HORN (1984-86) were commissioned by Robert Hoyle, principal hornist of the Hartford Symphony and composed over a period of several years but share as a unifying factor the same tone row. Of the first two movements Geoffrey Greene writes: "Lauda, as the name implies is a majestic song of praise, which is in three sections, fast-slow-fast. Apotheoses is a slow funeral song, giving a sense of the deification and glory of the dead. It was written just after Barker had finished a Requiem." Though Barker never com posed strictly programmatic works, his title for the third horn solo, La Chasse, evokes the hunting horn, and indeed, the movement was written during a period when the composer spent a great deal of time in the woods. "While not outwardly religious," recalls Diana Smith Barker, "Tom found communion with God in nature and in his compositions, all of which were for him divinely in spired, and not secular or separate from his belief and experience of life."