MUSIC : Taking a Breather With Mel Powell : The Pulitzer-winning composer, whose latest work arrives Friday, says a key to writing is knowing when to stop

At age 69, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Mel Powell still strives to master what could be called the fine art of knowing when to quit.

“Too often, when I go to hear a new piece and it runs and runs and runs, I start thinking about girls, malted milks--all those things that are forbidden--which is certainly not what I’m supposed to do,” Powell said in a recent interview from his office at CalArts in Valencia. “All those pieces that might have been strong, but which refused to quit somewhere at the point when you want to scratch yourself or shift from one butt to another without being offensive.”

Case in point is his latest work, “Settings for Smaller Orchestra,” commissioned by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra for its new music director, Christof Perick. The group will give the world premiere of the piece on Friday at UCLA’s Royce Hall and repeat the work on Saturday at Ambassador Auditorium in Pasadena.

“Originally I had one movement in mind. But after writing about six or seven minutes for the first part, I thought, that’s enough, and now I want to take a breath. Besides, this will give the audience a break.”

Such straightforwardness is typical of Powell, who knows how to balance information and entertainment when he talks about his music and his career.

Known in classical circles for his dense, intricate scores, Powell actually began his career as a jazz pianist, though he tends to regard that part of his life as the far distant ages. But in his younger days, the New York native was so talented that Benny Goodman recruited him into his band when Powell was only 17.

Two years later, he was drafted again, this time into the Army Air Corps, which at least gave him the chance to play in Glenn Miller’s band.

After the war, Powell spent a few years at MGM studios in Culver City, on the advice of his friend Andre Previn, but, driven by a desire for serious music study, he repaired to Yale University in 1948 to study composition with composer Paul Hindemith. He took a degree, taught at several New York colleges and returned to Yale in 1957 and founded the electronic music studio, one of the first in the country. Later, he became chair of the composition faculty.

California lured him back with an enticing offer to be the founding dean of the School of Music at CalArts when it opened in 1969. He also served as provost from 1972-76 and holds the first endowed chair at the institution.

Over the years, Powell received numerous awards, but he got the big one--the Pulitzer Prize in music--in 1990 for “Duplicates,” a concerto for two pianos and orchestra commissioned for the Los Angeles Philharmonic by patron Betty Freeman. It took him three years to write.

“I am a comparatively slow composer,” he said.

Powell described that work as “an immense, oversized score. When I did a divisi (divided string passages), it was for 54 players,” he said. “They get migraine headaches after all that.”

But that kind of writing is typical for Powell.

“I usually have to work down from a certain complexity that seems more natural to me,” the composer said. “When writing for large ensembles, I really have to make it something manageable, negotiable by the players. I know, being an old fellow, how much rehearsal time they don’t have and how expensive rehearsals are.”

He felt that the new piece had to be titled “Settings for Smaller Orchestra “ because “after the hugeness of ‘Duplicates,’ anything else is a small little band.”

Actually, Powell hadn’t planned on the plural when he had to give a title to the group for its brochure. The orchestra passed the title on to the printer and out came the word “Settings.” “But it turns out to be terribly interesting that way,” Powell said.

The first part of the work, he said, “traffics in multiplicity, with a procession of ‘pure’ sound families.” That means that “first you hear six violins only, then violas only, then woodwinds only, etc. The entire band goes that way, the brass too. This is the first time I’ve written brass without mutes. I can’t wait to hear that!”

Linking those sequences as “a kind of paste or glue” is a group of “exotic” instruments, such as the harp, celesta and marimba. “They do a little thing and that ties into the next thing, like a ritornello (a recurring section) of exoticism,” Powell said.

The first part winds down to end in a passage for a lone clarinet. “Then people can look around and say, ‘Should we arrest this man or what?’ ” Powell said.

Part Two, in contrast, consists of “ mixed ensembles and mixed colors” or combinations of instruments of different “families.”

“Underneath it all,” Powell said, “there is a certain kind of dualism or tension between, on the one hand, pure color groups and mixed ensembles, and between out-and-out multiplicity and single solos. I think it will be an apparent structure, once the audience has a clear program note.”

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Powell’s musical language is what he calls “non-tonality, out of deference to Schoenberg,” father of the 12-tone system.

“He didn’t like the term atonality, “ Powell said. “I don’t know if he would like this any better. I’m really saying he didn’t like anything.”

But despite any complexity in the piece, Powell says he hopes the audience will find “Settings” an “expressive” work.

Expressive?

“Oh my goodness, what else could we be up to, really?” he asked. “We could talk nonsense, of course. They pay us well for that.

“But the truth is that we--I--really do want to make something wonderful. I really do. I can’t imagine any artist wanting anything else, whatever he or she is up to, in whatever language, however advanced or retarded. Of course, about a year after writing it, you look at it and it doesn’t seem as wonderful.”