Program Notes
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Sept. 21-22, 2019, page 1 programBY DR. RICHARD E. RODDA notes Bright Blue Music (1985) of his compositions from Decca/London ■ Records, the first such agreement that MICHAEL TORKE BORN IN 1961 company had offered since its associa- Michael Torke (TOR-kee) was born in tion with Benjamin Britten; in 2003, he Milwaukee on September 22, 1961. His launched his own label, Ecstatic Records. parents enjoyed music, but they were In 1997, he was appointed the first Asso- not trained in the field, so they entrusted ciate Composer of the Royal Scottish Na- Michael to a local piano teacher when tional Orchestra. Torke’s recent projects he early showed musical talent. He include the opera Pop-pea, a rock version soon started making up his own pieces, of Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Pop- and by age nine he was taking formal pea, premiered at the Châtelet Theater in composition lessons. His skills as a Paris in May 2012. pianist and composer blossomed while There is youthful excitement and joy in he was in high school, and he took his Bright Blue Music, commissioned by the professional training at the Eastman New York Youth Symphony. The piece is School in Rochester, where he studied firmly rooted throughout in the key of with Joseph Schwantner and Christo- D, which Torke claims to have associ- pher Rouse. Though he had surprisingly ated with the color blue since he was five little familiarity with popular idioms years old, and achieves a spaciousness before entering Eastman in 1980, Torke and extroversion that may evoke for absorbed all manners of music from the some vast expanses of cloudless sky. students and faculty at the school, com- ing to realize that he could make pop, (1999) rock and jazz coexist with the “classical” blue cathedral ■ idioms in his music. After graduating JENNIFER HIGDON BORN IN 1962 from Eastman in 1984, he spent a year at Jennifer Higdon, born in Brooklyn, the Yale School of Music as a student of New York on New Year’s Eve 1962 and Jacob Druckman before moving to New raised in Atlanta and Tennessee, is one York City, where his practice of submit- of America’s foremost composers. She ting scores to every available competi- took her undergraduate training in flute tion had already made his name known performance at Bowling Green State to a number of contemporary music University, and received her master’s buffs. (He has won the American Prix and doctoral degrees in composition de Rome and grants and prizes from the from the University of Pennsylvania; Koussevitzky Foundation, ASCAP, BMI she also holds an Artist Diploma from and the American Academy & Institute the Curtis Institute of Music in Phila- of Arts and Letters.) In 1985, his music delphia. Higdon joined the composi- was taken on by the prestigious publish- tion faculty of the Curtis Institute of ing firm of Boosey & Hawkes. In 1990, Music in Philadelphia in 1994, where he received a first-refusal contract for all she now holds the Milton L. Rock Chair Sept. 21-22, 2019, page 2 in Composition Studies. Her distinc- “This is a musical story that com- tions include three Grammy Awards memorates living and passing through and a Pulitzer Prize. Among Higdon’s places of knowledge and of sharing and recent projects is the opera Cold of that song called life.” Mountain, based on Charles Frazier’s best-selling novel, which premiered at On the Beautiful Blue Santa Fe Opera in 2015. Danube, Waltzes, Op. 314 Of blue cathedral, composed in 1999 (1867) in celebration of the 75th anniversary ■ of the Curtis Institute of Music, Higdon JOHANN STRAUSS, JR. 1825-1899 wrote, “Blue — like the sky. Where On the Beautiful Blue Danube almost all possibilities soar. Cathedrals — a sank beneath the waves at its launch- place of thought, growth and spiritual ing. Johann Herbeck, director of the expression, serving as a symbolic door- Vienna Men’s Chorus, asked Strauss if way into and out of this world. Blue he could provide a new piece for his represents all potential and the progres- ensemble, and Strauss responded with a sion of journeys. Cathedrals represent a melody inspired by a line from a poem place of beginnings, endings, solitude, of Karl Isidor Beck: “On the Danube, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge on the beautiful, blue Danube.” Herbeck and growth. assigned Josef Weyl, a police clerk who “As I was writing this piece, I found sang in the chorus and a poet-manqué, myself imagining a journey through a to concoct some verses to fit Strauss’ glass cathedral in the sky. Because the exquisite melody. “Vienna, be gay! And walls would be transparent, I saw the what for, pray? The light of the arc! Here image of clouds and blueness permeat- it’s still dark!” was the best that Weyl ing this church. In my mind’s eye, the could do. (Hans Fantel suggested that listener would enter from the back this doggerel may have been prompted of the sanctuary, floating along the by the carbon-electrode lights just corridor amongst giant crystal pillars, beginning to sprout on Vienna’s street moving in a contemplative stance. corners.) The press notices of this new The stained glass windows’ figures number’s premiere on February 15, 1867 would start moving with song, singing were not unkind, but Strauss judged a heavenly music. The listener would the whole thing a marginal fiasco, and float down the aisle, slowly moving tucked The Blue Danube into his desk. upward at first and then progressing Later that year, he was invited to take at a quicker pace, rising towards an part in the International Exhibition in immense ceiling which would open to Paris that Napoleon III was staging in the sky. As this journey progressed, the honor of himself. His music proved so speed of the traveler would increase, successful in the French capital that he rushing forward and upward. I wanted dusted off On the Beautiful Blue Danube to create the sensation of contempla- and displayed it to the delirious Pari- tion and quiet peace at the beginning, sians. Within weeks, demand for the moving towards the feeling of celebra- work spread across the western world, tion and ecstatic expansion of the soul, and On the Beautiful Blue Danube has all the while singing along with that since come to be regarded as the quintes- heavenly music. sential expression of the Viennese waltz. Sept. 21-22, 2019, page 3 Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 (1900-1901) SERGEI RACHMANINOFF ■ 1873-1943 The greatest disappointment of Rach- maninoff’s career was the failure of his Symphony No. 1 at its premiere in 1897, a traumatic event that thrust him into a nervous collapse. His aunt, Varvara Satina, had recently been successfully treated for an emotional disturbance by a certain Dr. Nicholas Dahl, a Moscow physician who was familiar with the lat- est psychiatric discoveries in France and Vienna, and it was arranged that Rach- maninoff should visit him. He began his daily sessions in January 1900. “Dahl had inquired what kind of composition was desired of me, and he was informed ‘a concerto for piano.’ In consequence, I heard repeated, day after day, the same hypnotic formula: ‘You will start to com- pose a concerto — You will work with the greatest of ease — The composition will be of excellent quality.’ Although it may seem impossible to believe, this treatment really helped me. I started to compose again at the beginning of the summer.” In gratitude, he dedicated the new Concerto to Dr. Dahl. The Concerto begins with bell-tone piano chords heralding the main theme, announced by the strings; the arching second theme is initiated by the soloist. The development is propelled by a mar- tial rhythm that continues with undi- minished energy into the recapitulation. The Adagio is a long-limbed nocturne. The finale resumes the marching motion of the first movement with its introduc- tion and main theme. In relief to this vigorous music is the lyrical second theme. These two themes, the martial and the romantic, alternate for the rest of the movement. ©2019 Dr. Richard E. Rodda ALLENTOWN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SEPTEMBER 20-21, 2019 8:00 P.M., SYMPHONY HALL PROGRAM DIANE M. WITTRY MUSIC DIRECTOR/CONDUCTOR Bright Blue Music MICHAEL TORKE blue cathedral JENNIFER HIGDON On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Waltzes, Op. 314 JOHANN STRAUSS, JR. IN T ER M I ss ION Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 SERGEI RACHMANINOFF Moderato Adagio sostenuto Allegro scherzando Piano Soloist: Olga Kern.