Also Available by Augusta Read Thomas

for oboe, string trio and piano for solo piano for 2 violins for piccolos and brass for piano trio for English horn and 2 Violins for solo piano in 5 movements for violin and piano Augusta Read Thomas for solo piano

This CD (NI 6261) released in Spring 2014 Aureole

Photograph © Jason Smith Jason © Photograph Carillon Sky

The New Yorker Magazine called Thomas "a true virtuoso composer.” Rising early to the top of her Words of the Sea profession, a member of both The American Academy of Arts and Letters and Academy of Arts and Sciences, former Chairperson of the American Music Center, Thomas has become one of the most recognizable and widely loved figures in American Music. A Member of the Conseil Musical of the Terpsichore’s Dream Foundation Prince Pierre of Monaco, she has won a Grammy and received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize. was one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In My Sky at Twilight Commissions include those by: Berlin Philharmonic, BBC Proms, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, London Symphony, Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestra of Paris, National Silver Chants the Litanies Symphony, New Haven Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, NDR Hamburg, Pittsburgh Symphony, Seattle Symphony, Utah Symphony, Beijing Performing Arts Center, Orchestra of Radio France, Houston Symphony, Chanticleer, Lang Lang, Ravinia, Third Coast Percussion, Tanglewood, Conductors Juilliard, and the Fromm Foundation. Her music is published exclusively by G. Schirmer of The Music Sales Group. Pierre Boulez • Oliver Knussen Cliff Colnot • Jack Delaney 12 NI 6258 NI 6258 1 Jennifer Hackett, flute & piccolo Alison Attar, harp Augusta Read Thomas Michael Henoch, oboe Amy Briggs, piano J. Lawrie Bloom, clarinet Nancy Park, violin John Hagstrom, trumpet Alison Dalton, violin Selected works for orchestra (1995-2013) Charles Vernon, trombone Robert Swan, viola Vadim Karpinos, percussion Katinka Kleijn, cello Michael Kozakis, percussion

1 for orchestra (2013) DePaul University Symphony Conductor Cliff Colnot Violin I Robert Chen Flute Mary Stolper Nathan Cole Jennifer Clippert (& Piccolo) for orchestra (1995) Robert Waters Oboe Jelena Dirks Chicago Symphony Orchestra Dylana Leung Clarinet Eric Mandat Conductor Pierre Boulez (Live concert performance) Carmel Raz Kara Bancks (& Bass Clarinet) 2 … words of the sea … 3.38 Ronald Satkiewicz Bassoon Lewis Kirk Violin II Nancy Park Horn David Griffin 3 … the ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea … 4.13 Akiko Tarumoto John Fairfield 4 … beyond the genius of the sea … 2.53 Margot Duffy Scwartz Trumpet Michael Martin 5 … mountainous atmospheres of sky and sea - homage to Debussy 6.09 Marlou Johnston Brandon Eubank Anne Donaldson Trombone Charles Gary Vernon for soprano and ensemble (2002) Kate Friedman Harp Alison Attar Viola Roger Chase Julie Spring Christine Brandes, soprano Doyle Armbrust Piano/Celesta Amy Briggs Chicago Symphony Orchestra MusicNOW Ensemble Ai Ishida Percussion Robert Dillon Conductor Pierre Boulez Cello Stephen Balderston Jason Haaheim 6 Deeper than all roses 10.07 Dan Klingler Andrew Cierny 7 Lament 8.29 Micah Fusselman Patsy Dash Bass Dan Armstrong

2 NI 6258 NI 6258 11 You are taken in the net of my music, my love, And my nets of music are wide as the sky. My soul is born on the shore of your eyes of mourning. In your eyes of mourning the land of dreams begins. (1904-1973) ‘In My Sky at Twilight’. Translated by W.S. Merwin

I love thee, I love but thee, with a love that shall not die till the sun grows cold, and the stars are old… (1825-1878) from ‘Bedouin Song’ 8 for solo violin and chamber ensemble (2006) -and, if God choose, Baird Dodge, Violin I shall but love thee better after death. Chicago Symphony Orchestra MusicNOW Ensemble ‘Sonnet XLIII’, From the Portuguese I shall think of you; Conductor Oliver Knussen You too do not forget me: Like the wind that sweeps 9 for chamber orchestra (2007) Ceaselessly across the bay, Chamber Orchestra Let us never cease our love. Conductor Cliff Colnot

8th Century All texts and translations used with permission 10 for French horn & 18 players (2004) Greg Heustis, horn Southern Methodist University Wind Ensemble Conductor Jack Delaney Mary Stolper, piccolo Vadim Karpinos, percussion Total playing time : 79.50 Mathieu Dufour, flute Matthew Strauss, percussion Michael Henoch, oboe Mary Sauer, piano Larry Combs, clarinet Amy Briggs, piano and celesta J. Lawrie Bloom, clarinet Courtney Lawhn, harp Engineering and post-production by Christopher L. Willis Oto Carrillo, horn Baird Dodge, violin Sharon Jones, horn Nancy Park, violin cover photo : istockphoto.com John Hagstrom, piccolo trumpet Robert Swan, viola This release made under license to Wyastone Estate Limited c & © 2014 Tage Larsen, trumpet Katinka Kleijn, cello

10 NI 6258 NI 6258 3 Repeat that, repeat, Among today's composers, Thomas has remained Cuckoo, bird, and open ear wells, heart-springs, delightfully sweet, consistent in blazing her own path. In this she has undoubtedly been aided by her With a ballad, with a ballad, a rebound cosmopolitan training, having studied with, among others, Alan Stout (Northwestern Off trundled timper and scoops of the hillside ground, hollow University, 1983-87), Oliver Knussen (Tanglewood, 1986, 1987, 1989) and Jacob Hollow hollow ground: Druckman (Yale University, 1988), as well as one final year in London at the Royal Academy The whole landscape flushes on a sudden at a sound of Music (1989). Her stature as a widely respected composer and teacher has been forged ‘Repeat that, repeat’ by a 9-year stint as Mead Composer in Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and You were shaking and an air full of leaves lengthy posts at the Eastman School of Music and Northwestern University prior to her Flowed out of the dark falls of your hair present distinguished appointment as one of only six "University" Professors at the University Down over the rapids of your knees of Chicago. Her music has travelled worldwide over the years through the advocacy of Until I touched you and you grew quiet figures such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Pierre Boulez, Daniel Baremboim, Christoph And raised to me Eschenbach, Oliver Knussen, Esa Pekka Salonen, William Boughton and Sir Andrew Davis Your hands and your eyes and showed me among many others. But names, appointments and honours in themselves cannot give an Twice my face burning in amber indication of what Thomas' music sounds like. And the music itself defies any easy ‘Kore’ (excerpts) This was the prized, the desirable sight, verbalisation. Divining influences can give some indication as long as it is borne in mind that Unsought, presented so easily, knowledge of said influences is no substitute for listening to the actual music. Thomas' Parted me leaf and leaf, divided me, eyelid and eyelid of slumber. long-standing study of Jazz has imparted a sense of rhythm notable for its combination of ‘Moonrise June 19, 1876’ drive and elasticity. Figures as diverse as Byrd, Bach, Chopin, Mahler, Debussy, Berg, Stravinsky, Berio, Knussen, George Benjamin, Ellington, Coltrane and Dutilleux certainly furnish clues as to how Thomas' music has attained its formal fluidity, a lyricism high-flown and diaphanous by turns, a harmonic language that can move between tart, flavoursome Come back to me in dreams, that I may give dissonance and warm consonance with an enviable naturalness, and an orchestrational Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: instinct of pyrotechnic virtuosity. Speak low, lean low, As long ago, my love, how long ago. Appropriately, this collection begins with the most recent work on this CD. A sparky ‘Echo’ curtain-raiser, Aureole unquestionably lives up to its title with its shimmering, glowing colours The stars and the rivers and luminous sonorities. Opening the work are bold, fanfaresque flares, a familiar Thomas And waves call you back. fingerprint, which transform and progress into fast, animated music. The mood is playful and c.522-433 B.C. buoyant, and attempts to temper the high spirits by means of more lyrical episodes ultimately fail to still the revelries. The ending seems to revert to the opening intensity, but the smile in

4 NI 6258 NI 6258 9 I Deeper than all roses the harmonies deter one from taking it all too seriously, which, one suspects, was Thomas' Ablaze with desire, … intention all along!

9th Century from ‘Kokinshu’ O lyric love, half angel and half bird If Aureole gives us Thomas' most recent musical snapshot, the earliest work here And all a wonder and a wild desire. demonstrates both how Thomas' language has evolved and, paradoxically, how consistent it ‘The Ring and the Book’, 1869 has remained in the 18 years spanned by this collection. A weightier, more dramatic Love…had to come suddenly…carrying one’s heart proposition, Words of the Sea already presents Thomas' glinting, diamond-bright sound to the edge of the abyss. world fully grown. Each one of its 4 movements takes as its starting point a phrase from Madame Bovary, 1857 Wallace Stevens' long poem The Idea of Order at Key West, resulting in a tumultuously On the sweet honey of his words, my heart floated; multi-faceted orchestral seascape covering a wide range of moods and emotions. The from the fire of his kiss, my lips still burn. opening "...words of the sea..." sets the stage with music that never stands still, with the 17th Century ‘Dancing-Girl’s Song’ tensely expectant opening fanfare returning at the end. "...the ever-hooded, tragic-gestured Love- bittersweet, irrepressible- sea..." comes as an extreme contrast with its evocative contrabass clarinet solo. The Loosens my limbs and I tremble. introspective mood is harshly broken by a brass outburst, with the ensuing storm abating as c.613-580 B.C. from ‘to Atthis’ suddenly as it had arisen. "...beyond the genius of the sea..." is a ferocious scherzo of somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond unrelenting drive and force, and many another composer might have stopped with its any experience, your eyes have their silence: dynamic concluding chords. Not Thomas. The concluding "...mountainous atmospheres of in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me. sky and sea..." assumes a more meditative tone, the high, rarefied sonorities here taking the nothing we are to perceive in this world equals music into another, airier dimension. At length, a long, vaulting violin melody materialises the power of your intense fragility: whose texture amidst high woodwind trills, and one senses that this is where the entire work was pointing compels me with the colour of its countries, towards. At last the vision fades, and the music tick-tocks its way into silence. rendering death and forever with each breathing (I do not know what it is about you that closes The voice is as dominant a presence in Thomas' oeuvre as the orchestra, and In My Sky at and opens; only something in me understands Twilight for soprano and chamber orchestra reveals her imagination at full stretch. The title the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses) comes from a poem by Pablo Neruda, but Neruda is only one of many poets to be set in this nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands 18-minute diptych taking love in its many moods and nuances as its subject. Thomas took the title as a point of departure for her choice of texts, ranging from Sappho to W.S. Merwin, For the heavens are sending us love like a flame and the aim behind her casting this particular net so wide was to create a highly charged, Spreading through straw delicately calibrated balancing act between urgent intensity and ethereal suspension, with And desire like the swoop of the falcon! Thomas' gleaming lyricism the common link between these two states of being. Thomas' own c.1085- c.570 B.C. description of her music in general, "lyricism under pressure", is succinctly apt in summing up

8 NI 6258 NI 6258 5 In My Sky at Twilight. While Thomas sets the work in two movements linked by an orchestral harmonic, still, impassive, enigmatic. A solo violin meditates lyrically at journey's end before interlude, such fluid and quicksilver music comprehensively defies any attempt to break it vanishing in the stratosphere. The violin harmonic flares briefly and then stops. And only down into cut-and-dried forms. It is best viewed as a dream sequence with the music silence remains. constantly changing moods and colours during its stream-of-consciousness journey, before it finally winds down to the rapt stillness of its closing bars. Rounding off this CD is the other concertante work included here, Silver Chant the Litanies. Requiring 18 players alongside the solo horn, it veers between orchestral and chamber music The concerto form has occupied Thomas throughout her career, and the present CD contains in much the same way as Carillon Sky does. It is, however, a very different proposition from two such works. Carillon Sky is the more recent of the two, and it is the second of 3 violin the later piece, its environment tougher and grainier in sound, the emotions punchier. More concertos to date. Bell-like sonorities have long been a hallmark of Thomas' music, and, as than the other works collected here, Silver Chant the Litanies is a result of Thomas' the title reveals, this work's sonic firmament is populated with them. The forces required are long-standing and deeply personal engagement with the past. It is dedicated to the memory comparatively modest (14 players including the soloist), and that makes it one of many works of Luciano Berio, whose music has always been of paramount importance to Thomas, and of Thomas' to simultaneously inhabit the realms of orchestral and chamber music to the point the work in question undoubtedly channels the Italian's phantasmagoric imagination as it where it turns into a hybrid that resists pigeonholes. The solo violin is very much a voyager charts its course through its action-packed 12 minutes. But Berio is not the only composer in the glistening, airborne sonic environment conjured in this taut 8-minute concerto. The being paid tribute to here. Less directly, the shade of Gustav Mahler is also summoned; emotions contained herein range from quiet contemplation to effervescent abandon, with Mahler plays as central a role in Thomas' compositional makeup as it did in Berio's, and Thomas' songful intensity running through it all like a compositional scarlet thread, and the these two great predecessors' spirits are evoked by allowing their respective personalities to soloist all but turns into a musical chameleon as it picks up resonances and shades from the register their presence within Thomas' own voice ("crossing perfumes" therein, to use Thomas' translucent surroundings through which it travels and dances. own evocative phrase). If Berio's kaleidoscopic sense of instrumental colour plays a guiding role in this work's highly charged orchestration, Mahler's spirit surely informs the solo writing Words of the Sea is a commanding demonstration of the sheer sense of power that Thomas for that most quintessentially Mahlerian of instruments, the horn. It is through this more can summon from a large orchestra; the later Terpsichore's Dream, on the other hand, is a oblique and subliminal approach that Thomas enables the past to actively colour her music, fine example of the almost limitless variety of light and shade Thomas can draw from more as opposed to relying on outright quotation (even if the solo horn's majestic opening fanfare modest orchestral resources. Evoking Greek mythology's muse of the dance, the work is could well be a distant cousin of the trumpet call that opens Mahler's Fifth Symphony). The really an abstract ballet, with all the colour and fluidity that such a concept implies. Once work's mood of tension and confrontation very much dominates the greater part of its span, again, Thomas' orchestral imagination is given full rein, whether in the opening, where the but it never overpowers Thomas' fundamental lyricism. Eventually the music finds stillness, if harps, plucked strings and bells recall Terpsichore's lyre; or in the plangently expressive not release, in a slow, subdued epilogue which finally dissipates with one of Thomas' trombone solo that begins the ensuing slow section; or the gently tintinnabulating filigree of omnipresent bells. But this bell doesn't glisten or glitter: instead, it tolls slowly into nothingness. glockenspiel, harps and celesta which follows. Before long, the music grows increasingly restless, and eventually the accumulated tension breaks out in a sustained fast section, all © Paul Pellay, 2013. vivid, bright colours and propulsive rhythms. At length, the music seems to power its way to an exuberant close, but Thomas suddenly stills the tumult to reveal a quiet high violin

6 NI 6258 NI 6258 7 AUGUSTA READ THOMAS SELECTED WORKS FOR ORCHESTRA NI 6258 for French horn & 18 players horn French for for chamber orchestra chamber for for soprano and ensemble and soprano for for orchestra for for solo violin and chamber ensemble chamber and violin solo for for orchestra for Chamber Orchestra Conductor Cliff Colnot Cliff Conductor Orchestra Chamber Conductor Jack Delaney Conductor DePaul University Symphony Conductor Cliff Colnot Cliff Conductor Symphony University DePaul soprano Brandes, Christine Ensemble MusicNOW Orchestra Symphony Chicago Boulez Pierre Conductor Augusta Read Thomas AugustaRead for works orchestra Selected 10 Violin Dodge, Baird Ensemble MusicNOW Orchestra Symphony Chicago 9 Knussen Oliver Conductor horn Heustis, Greg Ensemble Wind University Methodist Southern 1 2-5 Orchestra Symphony Chicago 6-7 performance) concert (Live Boulez Pierre Conductor 8 DDD

AUGUSTA READ THOMAS SELECTED WORKS FOR ORCHESTRA NI 6258