Arturs Maskats “My River runs to thee...” (2019)

ARTURS MASKATS was born in Valmiera, Latvia, on December 20, 1957, and lives in Riga, Latvia. He composed “ ‘My River runs to thee...’ ” on commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons, music director, and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Andris Nelsons, Gewand- hauskapellmeister, and completed the score in July 2019. The score is inscribed “In memoriam Andrejs Zˇ agars” (1958-2019); Zˇ agars was for many years head of Latvian National Opera (see below and page 34). These world premiere performances of “ ‘My River runs to thee...’ ” are the first BSO performances of any music by Arturs Maskats.

THE SCORE OF “ ‘MY RIVER RUNS TO THEE’ ” calls for two flutes and piccolo (doubling third flute), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets in A, bass clarinet (doubling third clarinet), two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percus- sion (glockenspiel, crotales, tubular bells, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, triangle, metal wind chimes, three wood blocks, three temple blocks, tambourine, piccolo snare drum, suspended cymbal, crash cymbals, wind machine, bass drum), harp, celesta, and strings. The duration of the piece is about fifteen minutes.

Arturs Maskats is the third Latvian composer commissioned by the BSO since Andris Nelsons became music director of the orchestra in 2014; the first two were Eriks Ešenvalds, whose Lakes Awake at Dawn for chorus and orchestra had its world premiere here in November 2014, and Andris Dzenītis, whose Ma¯ra for symphony orchestra had its American premiere here in November 2018. Like Ma¯ra, “My River runs to thee...” was co-commissioned by the Gewandhausorchester (GHO) Leipzig as part of the BSO/ GHO Alliance. Since the Alliance began in 2018, the two orchestras have co-commissioned composers from Nelsons’ home country of Latvia along with those from the United States and Germany (and Austria in the case of HK Gruber). Maskats is the second of three BSO/GHO-commissioned composers this season, following French-American composer Betsy Jolas’s Letters from Bachville, given its American premiere by Mr. Nelsons and the BSO two weeks ago. In April 2020, Nelsons and the BSO will perform the world premiere of HK Gruber’s Short Stories from the Vienna Woods here at Symphony Hall.

week 10 program notes 33