Charles Buel papers

1949-2003

Charles Buel (1943-1994) was a California-based composer. Born in San Francisco, he lived in Germany from 1946 to 1952. His father was an Army officer and later a school superintendent during the American occupation. In Karlsruhe, at age seven, he received piano instruction and began writing music. With the bassoon as his principal instrument, he attended San Francisco State University for undergraduate studies in music. He completed graduate work at the University of California at San Diego, where his composition teachers included Robert Erickson, Kenneth Gaburo, and Pauline Oliveros. For his M.A. thesis, he composed Four Theater Pieces.

In all, Buel wrote more than 100 works in a variety of styles and genres, utilizing a wide range of instrumentation and media. Some early vocal works, from the period prior to his graduate studies, have approximate pitch and are free of bar lines. Among these is Truthful Words Are Not Beautiful, written in 1968 for twelve-part chorus and scored on a long scroll of paper several feet long. There are also dissonant and complex works from the era such as the delicately scored Summer Music for clarinet, cello and piano (1965).

Buel's writing eventually settled into a more tonal style, though he continued to seek new ideas and inspirations. A series of works allude to esoteric spirituality, including The Syphinx [sic] for 15 saxophones (1977), The Hierophant for brass, percussion, piano and bass (1979), The Two of Cups for woodwind quintet (1976) and Avatars for saxophone quartet (1983). There is also an emphasis on winds, with four pieces for band, three works that feature bassoon, and nine works for various combinations of saxophones, including the solo Reflections on Raga Todi (1972), which was inspired by Ravi Shankar's autobiography.

Vocal and choral compositions appear throughout every period of Buel's writing, and from the 1970s through the early 1990s, he completed five settings of poetry by the contemporary gay author Edward Field. These include The Lost, Dancing, a piece that addresses AIDS and was premiered by the Golden Gate Men's Chorus in a program of the Society of Gay and Lesbian Composers in 1991. Buel's involvement in gay causes also led him to write Freedom Day March, a programmatic work in two movements entitled "Struggle to be Free" and "Joy of Being Free."

Many of Buel's works were highly conceptual and called on such large and unusual forces that their realization was difficult, and often unrepeatable. He was also a practical and practicing musician who organized a variety of performances and events throughout his life. While at San Francisco State, he helped to start the Collegium Musicum for Renaissance Music, and in 1981 he founded the short-lived group Lambda World Music Ensembles. Many of his works were written for special occasions and in tribute to others, such as the uncompleted Requiem for Harry Partch. Buel died of AIDS in San Mateo, California, at the age of 51. After his death, Buel's family and friends released a selection of his later music on a CD entitled Charlie Buel: Last Works.

Source: Dalton, Joseph. [Biography of Charles Buel]. The Aids Estate Project for Artists with AIDS.