Recently, the UCSC Library has subscribed to the Database of Recorded American Music (also known as DRAM), which brings to six the number of online streaming resources available to UCSC faculty, students, and staff. DRAM focuses entirely on the music of American composers, primarily those of the 20th and 21st centuries. A good example of the riches to be found in this resource are the three recordings of "Petroushkates" by composer Joan Tower.

Of this five-minute piece scored for small wind ensemble (with added percussion in one of the arrangements), Tower writes that "in an attempt to understand why figure skating, especially pair skating, was so beautiful and moving to me I discovered a musical corollary I had been working on for a while - the idea of a seamless action, (Skating, of course, has no seams unless you stop!) I also always loved Petroushka and wanted to create an homage to Stravinsky and that piece in particular. As it turned out, the figure skating pairs became a whole company of skaters, thereby creating a sort of musical carnival on ice. "

Two of the recordings are by the Da Capo Chamber Players, an ensemble founded by Tower in 1969, and it is fascinating to compare their rendition of 1980 (featuring Tower on piano, on the CRI label) with that eight years later (also on the CRI label), with the advantage of digital technology and the "performers' greater familiarity with and affection for the music" (liner notes). Even more interesting is how the piece is transformed by the addition of percussion in the 2002 performance on the Cedille label. All three versions confirm the description of Tower's compositions as "characterized by an instrumental color and brilliance and by her writing which is both challenging and flattering to performers; Tower's use of earth­bound, physical images lends the music an accessible, tangible quality."

DRAM and the other five streaming audio resources in the Library system do not permit downloading, but they provide a wealth of music for listening from any computer, on or off campus. The audio quality is very close to that of CDs, and, for most albums, the liner notes can be read online. In brief, the five other resources are the Naxos Music Library, offering recordings from almost seventy labels, mostly in the area of classical music but also including excellent collections of film music and Chinese music; Naxos Music Library -- Jazz, offering the very deep Fantasy label catalogs of jazz, blues, and R&B; Classical Music Library, covering classical music from the earliest chant to contemporary composers; Smithsonian Global Sound, with the truly remarkable ethnomusicology archive of the Smithsonian Folkways catalog, representing folk music from every country of the world; and African American Song, whose initial offerings are historical recordings of Document records, featuring folk, blues, jazz, ragtime and sacred songs of African Americans through the first half of the twentieth century. Each of these resources is continually adding new recordings and labels to their collections. Together they make available almost 400,000 listening selections, and have thereby vastly increased music available for the study, enrichment, and enjoyment of UCSC users.

If you want to listen to the inspiration for Joan Tower's composition, Igor Stravinsky's marvelous 1911 ballet score variously rendered Petrouchka or Petrushka, you will find a variety of performances in Classical Music Library and Naxos Music Library.

There are two easy ways to get to these resources: You can look up any one of them by keyword in CRUZCAT, the UCSC online catalog. Alternatively, you can look them up individually at the Research page of the library webpage, or a search for "music" will pull up all six (as well as other music resources).

Paul Machlis, Music Librarian