NOTES on the MUSIC by Robert M. Johnstone
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NOTES ON THE MUSIC by Robert M. Johnstone “The Orchestral Palette” April 2, 2016 Machine Jennifer Higdon born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1962 first performance: Washington, D. C., in 2003 instrumentation: piccolo, flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones; timpani; strings duration: 3 minutes Jennifer Higdon is about the hottest thing going in American classical music these days. Her works have been commissioned by over a dozen major orchestras. She earned a Grammy in 2009 for her Percussion Concerto, written for Colin Currie. And her Violin Concerto, premiered in 2010 by Hilary Hahn and the Indianapolis Symphony, won the Pulitzer Prize for that year. The Richmond Symphony performed her Blue Cathedral in its 2011–12 season. She began her musical life remarkably late for a professional. Though born in Brooklyn, she grew up in the south in a sort of “hippie” world of the counterculture. She taught herself the flute at the ripe old age of 15, began formal training at 18 at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, and started composing at 21. She has certainly made up for lost time, serving as Composer-in-Residence for many major orchestras. She currently holds a chair in music on the faculty of the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. Machine was composed in 2003 on a commission from Leonard Slatkin and the National Symphony Orchestra. Giancarlo Guerrero conducted the premiere at the Kennedy Center. Ms. Higdon has written a concise and intriguing program note: “I wrote Machine as an encore tribute to composers like Mozart and Tchaikovsky, who seemed to be able to write so many notes and so much music that it seems like they were machines.” And, no, you are not likely to recognize either Mozart or Tchaikovsky! This is the first performance of Machine by the Richmond Symphony Orchestra. 1 Deep Summer Music Libby Larsen born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1950 first performance: St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1982 instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, trumpet, 3 trombones; timpani, percussion; strings duration: 8 minutes Libby Larsen has flourished not only as an innovative composer in many genres but also as a music educator, promoter, and philosopher. Her music springs not only from the Western classical tradition but embraces jazz, pop, and electronic music. Her first opera, Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus (1990), was her first essay in “technological” sound and has greatly influenced her subsequent compositions. Larsen earned her B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Minnesota, and has made that state her home base. In the early 1970s she co- founded the Minnesota Composers Forum, which in 1996 became the American Composers Forum, dedicated to supporting young composers through grants and fellowships. In 1983 she was appointed Composer-in-Residence with the Minnesota Orchestra, becoming the first female composer to hold such a post with a major American orchestra. She has won a Grammy and in 2010 she received the prestigious George Peabody Medal for outstanding contributions to music in America. Critic David Hurwitz has described Larsen’s music as “comprised of freshly sprung rhythms, freely tonal harmony, and bright orchestration.” Deep Summer Music (1982) “sounds” like summer—dreamlike, warm, languid, and lush. The composer has written that the music seeks to evoke images of the Great Plains, where “one cannot help but be affected by the sweep of the horizon and depth of color as the eye adjusts from the nearest to the farthest view.” This is particularly noticeable “at harvest time,” she writes, “in the deep summer, when acres of ripened wheat, sunflowers, corn, rye, and oats blaze with color…. Built into the score are undulating percussion and string patterns over which soars a broad string melody. A solo trumpet recalls the presence of the individual amidst the vastness of the landscape.” The is the RSO’s first performance of a work by Libby Larsen. John Henry Aaron Copland born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1900; 2 first performance: on NBC radio in 1939 died in North Tarrytown, New York, in 1990 instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 2 horns, 2 trumpets, trombone; piano, timpani, percussion; strings duration: 4 minutes Aaron Copland is one of America’s most revered composers, gifted in every form and genre of music, but noted mostly today for his great ballet trilogy, Billy the Kid (1939), Rodeo (1942), and Appalachian Spring (1944). As a young composer growing up in the streets of Brooklyn, Copland never imagined he would earn his renown in music depicting the great American outdoors. His political views surely influenced his interest in the lives of working people. The 1930s, especially, was a time of labor unrest and social reform and Copland embraced much of it. He began to write folk-based musical themes in 1936 with a composition for a radio show called Frontier Journal. In 1939 while writing his first film music (Of Mice and Men and Our Town), Copland composed another short piece for radio, John Henry, based on the African-American folk hero—“that steel-driving man”—who was so strong that he outdrove a steam hammer, only to fall dead “with the hammer in his hand.” This is the first performance of “John Henry” by the RSO. This Dream, Strange and Moving Christopher Theofanidis born in Dallas, Texas, in 1967 first performance: Walnut Creek, California, in 1995 instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons; 5 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba; timpani, harp, percussion; strings duration: 8 minutes Christopher Theofanidis is one of this country’s most exciting young composers. In 2005 The RSO performed his Rainbow Body, a prize-winning work that has been performed more than any other new American composition in the last decade. He has composed commissions for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Atlanta and Pittsburgh Symphonies (for the latter his Violin Concerto, written for Sarah Chang). In 2013 he composed the competition piece for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. Theofanidis, a native Texan, earned his B.A. from the University of Houston, then a Ph.D. at Yale. He served on the faculties of the Peabody and Juilliard Conservatories before returning to Yale in 2008. 3 This Dream, Strange and Moving is his first orchestral work, composed while he was Composer-in-Residence with the California Symphony in 1995. In it he reveals a spirituality that has been an abiding influence in his music. “Dreams” is a word that has featured in a number of his titles over the years; as he put it, “dealing with things that you can’t touch and you can’t quite imagine.” In this 8- minute “dream sequence,” Theofanidis reveals his mastery at orchestration, knowing which solo or clusters of instruments are “right” to call forth rich but also transparent effects. This is the first performance of This Dream by the RSO. Crysantemi in C-Sharp Minor Giacomo Puccini born in Lucca, Italy, in 1858; died in Brussels, Belgium, in 1924 first performance: Milan Conservatory, 1890 instrumentation: strings duration: 7 minutes The name “Puccini” evokes the most adoring admiration, for he remains among the most admired of opera composers (ranking only with Mozart, Verdi and Wagner) and his greatest masterpieces—La Boheme, Madame Butterfly, Tosca, Turandot—are among the most often performed. It is little wonder, then, that the world knows much less about his strictly instrumental music. While comparatively modest in quantity, it includes a few orchestral pieces, lots of sacred choral works (including a Mass and a Requiem), and chamber music, the most remarkable of which is a one-movement string quartet called, Crisantemi (Chrysanthemums). Puccini composed it in 1890 in a single night in memory of his 44-year old friend, the Duke of Aosta (in his youth—briefly—the King of Spain), who had just passed away. The title alludes to the Italian association of chrysanthemums with death and mourning. In its all-too-brief five minutes, the music captures—with its two haunting melodies and doleful minor key harmonies—the essence of consolatory grief. Puccini was to use the two melodies again in his opera, Manon Lescaut, which he was beginning to compose at the time. This is the first performance of Crysantemi by the RSO. Suite from The Firebird Igor Stravinsky 4 born in Oranienbaum, Russia, in 1882; first performance: full ballet in Paris, June 25, 1910 died in New York City in 1971 instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons; 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba; harp, piano, timpani, percussion; strings duration: 23 minutes The Firebird is the earliest major work to display the genius of the man who was to become one of the greatest voices of 20th century music. Igor Stravinsky was 27 years old at its creation. Up to that time his music, though imaginative and promising, had largely reflected the influences of his early models and teachers— Tchaikovsky, Glazunov, Borodin, and most pervasively, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Rimsky was his greatest patron and musical friend. Firebird, despite its innovations, is still in many ways a hybrid work, with elements of these earlier Russian influences, nourished by impressions of the new French music of Paul Dukas and especially of Claude Debussy. Yet it is Stravinsky’s own imagination that provides in this ballet stunning glimpses of a very different musical world a- borning. In December, 1909, the young Stravinsky, largely unknown outside of Russia, received a commission from the great impresario, Serge Diaghilev, to compose a ballet for the 1910 season of his famous Ballet Russes.