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AMERICAN CLASSICS GERSHWIN: Concerto in F TOWER : Sequoia • PISTON : Symphony No. 5 HARBISON: Remembering Gatsby Kevin Cole, Piano National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic David Alan Miller George Gershwin (1898–1937) • John Harbison (b. 1938) • Joan Tower (b. 1938) (Foxtrot for Orchestra) . Robert Shaw and the Atlanta resounding success, subsequently performed by the New Orchestral Works Symphony Orchestra commissioned the work, which they York Philharmonic and other orchestras around the world. Walter Piston (1894–1976): premiered in September 1986. Harbison’s greater For Tower, it was a game changer – she was now a major George Gershwin (1898–1937): Concerto in F (1925) This recording of Concerto in F is the first to be made ambition was realized 14 years later when the player on the American compositional scene, and in the from The George and Ira Gershwin Critical Edition . Based Metropolitan Opera premiered his third opera, The Great years since she has also become a passionate advocate George Gershwin was not given to resting on his on a comprehensive study of the manuscript, print, and Gatsby , commissioned to honor the 25th anniversary of for women composers (reflected in her popular Fanfares for laurels. Each success only fueled his desire to aim recorded sources, this new score presents the Concerto James Levine’s debut with the company. the Uncommon Woman ). higher. Plugging songs led to cutting piano rolls. Tin as it was notated and performed by the composer. According to the composer (in a note published on With Sequoia , Tower set out to create a work that Pan Alley led to Broadway musicals and, eventually, Students of the work will recognize countless small the Wise Music Classical website), the piece: would explore the concept of balance in music. In a the opera Porgy and Bess . And so it was only natural differences from performances based on the old edition. February 2019 pre-concert interview held just before that Gershwin followed the sensational success of his Many parts take on a new character in Gershwin’s original “begins with a cantabile passage for full Leonard Slatkin performed Sequoia with the Detroit first extended instrumental work, Rhapsody in Blue articulations. Notice, for instance, the lack of slurs and orchestra, a representation of Gatsby’s vision of Symphony Orchestra as part of their American Panorama (1924), not with another piece for jazz band, but with swing rhythm in the skipping bass clarinet and bassoon the green light on Daisy’s dock. Then the foxtrot Festival (available on YouTube), she explained, “The his first foray into the concert hall. The opportunity solos near the start of the first movement. Other familiar begins, first with a kind of call to order, then a piece is just littered with the idea of balances on all came in 1925, when Damrosch commissioned Gershwin details are missing altoge1ther, like the woodblock Twenties tune I had written for one of the party musical levels I could come up with.” to compose, orchestrate, and perform a piano concerto punctuations in movement I ( , 5:04) and the orchestral scenes, played by a concertino led by a soprano Compositionally, she focused particularly on register in a series of performances with the New York reiteration of the Concerto ’s final chord. Listen also for the saxophone. The tune is then varied and broken balance (high/low), rhythmic balance (fast/slow) and Symphony Orchestra. new colors 1sprinkled throughout, including the into its components, leading to an altered reprise textural balance (thin/thick). When asked where the idea The premiere of Concerto in F on 3 December 1925 glockenspiel ( , 10:54), the unmuted horn in the opening of the call to order, and an intensification of the came from, she said, “It started with Beethoven. I played marked two sorts of debuts for Gershwin: first, as a pianist solo of movement 1II, and new 3bars for the piano in the original cantabile. A brief coda combines some of a lot of his music at the piano, and what I started noticing and composer at Carnegie Hall, and second, as a outer movements ( , 7:06 and , 2:37). Although subtle the motifs, and refers fleetingly to the telephone about him was this kind of thing we’re talking about.” As composer of score-oriented works. All of his previous on their own, the cumulative effect of so many changes is bell and the automobile horns, instruments of for the title, she explained, “I was trying to find an image in music, including Rhapsody in Blue , was written according profound, rendering suddenly sharp the well known yet Gatsby’s fate.” nature that involved balance, and the thing about the to the performer-oriented conventions of popular genres, blurry features of Gershwin’s first orchestral masterpiece. sequoia tree that’s so amazing is … that they’re very tall in which composers supplied the basic musical shape that Harbison augments his large orchestra with a trap-set and they’re very wide. And the act of balance is just singers, arrangers, and producers adapted to their needs Timothy Freeze (small bass drum, snare drum, high-hat cymbal, two cow amazing to me – that this tree could keep going higher and styles. With the Concerto , however, Gershwin worked bells and wood block) and a flexatone, both staples of and higher, like a tall building.” She added one caveat, within the norms of concert music, producing a fully John Harbison (b. 1938) : 1920s dance bands. however: “The thing that’s not good about the title is that orchestrated score that sought to document in detail his Remembering Gatsby (Foxtrot for Orchestra) (1985) the sequoias are very quiet.” After a beat, she warned the musical inspiration and skill. Joan Tower (b. 1938) : Sequoia (1981) audience with impish humor, “My piece is not quiet.” Despite these ambitions, Gershwin was not yet fully John Harbison grew up near Princeton, New Jersey, Sequoia is scored for large orchestra: woodwinds in pairs, committed to the tedious task of notating a fine-grained familiar with the milieu so vividly portrayed in F. Scott Joan Tower founded the Da Capo Chamber Players in four horns, two each of trumpets and trombones, bass score of this length. The Concerto ’s manuscripts omit Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby . His uncle, in 1969, playing piano for the ensemble and composing for trombone, tuba, harp, piano (doubling celesta), strings numerous expressive indications and tempo markings fact, had been a member of the Triangle Club at Princeton them a treasure trove of artfully crafted chamber pieces. and a vast array of percussion requiring five players. that are necessary for performance. And although he University along with Fitzgerald. One of the composer’s When the American Composers Orchestra approached her modified aspects of the notated score for years to come, early ambitions had been to become an opera composer, in the early 1980s with a commission for a full orchestra Walter Piston (1894–1976) : Symphony No. 5 (1954) he failed to distinguish those changes that he intended as but after his first two works in the genre ( Full Moon in work, she initially turned them down, feeling she wasn’t revisions from those that were merely adaptations to March in 1977 and Winter’s Tale in 1979) failed to set the quite ready to tackle a large-ensemble piece. But she Walter Piston contributed significantly to the development particular performance contexts. For nearly a century, opera world on fire, he redirected his composing efforts to relented, and the resulting work, Sequoia (strikingly, her of 20th-century American music as a teacher, author and performances of the Concerto have relied on outdated other genres. Nevertheless, he continued to make first major piece for symphony orchestra), was premiered composer. He taught music theory and composition at scores in which editors ignored some of these issues and sketches for an opera based on Fitzgerald’s novel, a few by the ACO under the direction of Dennis Russell Davies at Harvard University from 1926 to 1960; his many pupils solved others according to their own tastes. of which were brought together in Remembering Gatsby Alice Tully Hall in New York City on 18 May 1981. It was a included Leonard Bernstein and John Harbison. He wrote four music theory textbooks, all of which are considered The central Adagio movement, slow and contemplative National Orchestral Institute Philharmonic classics in the field. His expansive catalog of works throughout, opens with a twelve-tone theme in plucked Richard Scerbo, Director encompasses pieces for orchestra (including eight basses and cellos. Violins begin what will grow into an symphonies – of which the Third and Seventh won Pulitzer extended cantilena with long, sinuous lines. Woodwinds Violin Viola Flute Trombone Prizes – and numerous concertos), chamber music (five enter (beginning with clarinet and then oboe) to add color Julian Maddox, Alyssa Yoshitake, principal Sabrina Bounds Jonathan Kraft string quartets) and works for solo piano. A suite from his and texture. The music rises to a powerful climax before concertmaster Katie Bracewell Kari Boyer Sarah Lewandowski sole work for the stage – the ballet The Incredible Flutist – thinning out and concluding with another pizzicato twelve- Hannah Price, principal Joseph Henderson Trey Bradshaw was his most popular success. His music, often described tone idea from the nether regions of the orchestra. Manya Aronin Benjamin Kramer Yejin Lisa Choi Bass Trombone as neo-Classical (and occasionally neo-Romantic) is In the final movement, the composer introduces an Amelia Bailey Weilan Li William Clark expertly crafted and steeped in structural logic, rhythmic element heretofore missing from the Symphony : a sense Beatrice Baker Samantha Peng Oboe vitality and emotion. He began experimenting with of joy and optimism.