28 min.

August 1972
Oaul Masson Mountain Winery, Saratoga, California
Claudia Cummings / San Francisco Ensemble / David Del Tredici

Folk group: 2ssax, mandolin, tenor banjo, accordion
Chamber orchestra: 1(=picc).1.0.Ebcl.1-2.1.1.0-timp.perc(1): crash cymbals/whip-strings*

from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll; "The Star" by Jane taylor, and "God Save the Queen" (traditional)

"Dedicated with filial affection to my parents, Walter and Helen Del Tredici"

Paul Masson-Music at the Vineyards Concerts

"The action begins with the Hatter singing for Alice a song he had sung previously at a great concert for the Queen: 'Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!' This verse, of course, parodies the opening of June Taylor's well-known poem, 'The Star.' To emphasize the parodistic aspect of the Hatter's Song, I use with it, twining in and out of the texture, that very famous tune always associated with the Taylor poem. In my setting, too, I have taken for inspiration the words of the Queen to the Hatter after his eccentric performance at that 'great concert'- 'He's murdering the time! Off with his head!'
" 'Murdering the time,' in fact, becomes a creative image throughout the entire piece. As the different episodes that follow the Hatter's Song unfold, all are treated to, and affected by, this idea of distortion and scrambling."

"Vintage Alice was musical humor at its best. Tantalizingly devious, avoiding the obvious at every corkscrew turn, the unpredictable peregrinations of Del Tredici's mind kept toying with the obvious and coming up with the unexpected.
"The accordion sighed 'ordinary chords,' the banjo and mandolin twanged and tinkled, the soprano saxes intertwined with sinuous lines and the tunes went round and round the orchestra like a snake swallowing its tail. Marvelously crazy, inordinately clever."

"Del Tredici gives us a fine scramble of 'Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,' some exquisite coloratura Sprechgesang, assorted noble jumblings of 'God Save the Queen' (Presumably of Hearts), some of the lushest phony cadences this side of 'Star Wars' and a very neat quodlibety-split just before the superclimactic coda. It gets curiouser and curiouser, but never too curious."
"Vintage Alice extols theatricality and whimsy. It draws on as many sources and techniques as can serve those qualities, among them cabaret band fragments that sound particularly Ivesian. It is charming, cheering and arresting in every way, not least in its brilliant orchestrations."
"Vintage Alice was as clever as you can imagine, by one of the most polished and detailed craftsman among composers, and genuinely funny."