June 21 Virtual Concert
We hope you enjoy the concert posted [link]!
Wish by Valerie Coleman
Valerie Coleman's first work for flute and piano, Wish, was inspired by and titled from poet Fred D'Aguiar's work (included below). Wish is a dramatic tone poem for flutist and pianist alike, depicting the Middle Passage in which Africans were trafficked across the Atlantic by tall ships to be sold into slavery. The virtuoso 12-minute journey is a powerful recital work, expressive and with thrilling impact.
[program notes from the publisher]
Wish
I wish those tall ships at Africa’s shore
Had dropped anchor to plant crops there:
Sugarcane, tobacco, cotton and coffee.
Instead they filled the hungry bellies
Of hulls with Africans and set sail
Wanting nothing from that big place
That wasn’t diamond, gold, ivory, flesh.
I wind the clocks back and turn the ships
Around, not a single bullet, whip, or cutlass
Sound to deafen our ears for centuries.
No Atlantic road of bones from people
Dumped into the sea to form a wake.
[“Wish” is from the collection The Rose of Toulouse, which can be purchased from your favorite indie bookstore]
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Piano Quartet in A minor by Gustav Mahler
The manuscript of the Piano Quartet Movement has the date 1876 marked on the cover page, along with the stamp of a publisher Theodor Rattig (who never published the work) and the words: "early compositions" written in Alma's handwriting (Mahler's wife). There are a few references to quartets in some of Mahler's letters but they are quite vague and it is difficult to confirm that he was indeed referring to that particular piece of music.
During his student days in Vienna, the young Mahler was undoubtedly exposed to the music of Brahms, Schubert and Wagner. He was particularly fond of the music of Anton Bruckner. These diverse influences are obvious in the structure and form of this work, but even at such early stage in his career, Mahler's distinctive voice is the dominant feature of this work. His use of key and the thematic material are original and show clearly, the influence of his Jewish upbringing. The rich texture and harmonic structure could easily be confused with some of the string chamber music of Schoenberg.
This striking work leaves the listener wishing the composer had left us with more music for small ensembles. Often paired with this piece is the 24 bar sketch of a scherzo. To the best of our knowledge, the scherzo dates from approximately the same period and may well be part of the same work. This outline has been elaborated on and reconstructed by the composer Alfred Schnittke with a twentieth century perspective in both his own piano quartet and in his fourth string quartet. This provides interesting listening for those whose keen to hear more of this beautiful music.
[program notes from The New Zealand Piano Quartet]
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Romanza for four Violas by Christopher Lowry
Inspired by the rich vocal qualities of the viola, 'Romanza' attempts to combine two very different musical idioms: English pastoral and Italian opera. As a violist myself, I have always been drawn to the beauty and complexity of the viola’s tone; it can be dark and brooding, idyllic and nostalgic, or even bright and joyful. These are just some of the many facets of this unique instrument that encouraged the creation of this work. 'Romanza' deals with the implications of writing for four of the same instrument by experimentation with close spacing of voices, as well as pairing the opposite extremes of range, simultaneously utilizing the richness and power of the C-string and the plaintive singing qualities of the upper register. The piece consists of one primary theme with very little deviation from it; most of the development occurs through means such as motivic variation and changes in tessitura, texture, harmony, counterpoint, and tempo. That said, the piece can essentially be viewed in ternary form, with two slower sections separated by a faster lively section, contrasting the lyrical with the fiery and virtuosic. It exploits many of the viola’s wonderful effects and timbres, a variety of bowstrokes, a broad range of dynamics, and even the challenge of balancing voices. The melodic material is evenly shared among the four players, and therefore all four voices should be thought of as equals. 'Romanza' was commissioned by David Bynog for the American Viola Society.
[program notes from the composer]
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Lucas’s Garden by Amanda Harberg
Backyard Paradise
Moonlit
Wild Roses
Like much of my music, Lucas’s Garden, for clarinet, violin, cello and piano, was inspired by personal experience. My son, Lucas, an avid botanist, asked for free-range for a section of our New Jersey backyard to indulge his passion for growing things. The three-movement piece is about the inner world of my family as it grows and evolves, told through the lens of my son’s garden.
The first movement, Backyard Paradise, reflects on the beautiful wildflower haven that Lucas created with its abundance of native plants and wildlife. The second movement, Moonlit, is a nocturnal, dream-like fantasy, combining quirky gestures with exotic and jazz-influenced melodic lines. The third and final movement, Wild Roses, enriches the garden with its thorny beauty, full of marcato gestures and changing meters. At the climax of the movement, the main melody from Backyard Paradise reemerges triumphantly through the thorns. A hint of the second movement’s moonlit dream-world mischievously reappears, before the wild roses race back in for the final coda.
Lucas’s Garden was originally commissioned in 2018 by the Vandoren Company for their Emerging Artist Competition. Ever the restless composer, I had long wanted to make substantial revisions to this earlier version of the work—first called Inner Latitudes.
In 2021, the New World Symphony commissioned me to re-imagine the work for pianist Thomas Steigerwald. The second movement—my favorite part of the initial work—became the new first movement. I extensively revised the middle movement, and I wrote a new third movement from scratch. The concept of Lucas's Garden finally unlocked the musical and programmatic solutions for me of how to conceptualize the piece in a way that felt complete.
[program notes from the composer]