A FULL EVENING OF ORCHESTRAL MUSIC BY HENRY COWELL
When’s the last time that’s happened anywhere?
Leave it to Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra to make it happen.
8 p.m. Friday January 29, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center (pre-concert talk at 6:45 p.m.)
The program:
Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 3 (1944)
Atlantis (1931) ( NY Premiere )
Variations for Orchestra (1959)
Symphony No. 2, “Anthropos” (1941)
Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra (1962)
Symphony No. 11 (1953)
Seven Rituals of Music (NYC Premiere )
Featuring soprano Heather Buck, mezzo-soprano Elise Quagliata, baritone Jonathan Hays, and harmonica soloist Robert Bonfiglio
Here’s a potent excerpt from Botstein’s program notes:
“He was probably the most courageous American composer of the 20th century, with his daring techniques and desire to build bridges between Western music and what we now call ‘world music.’ He was an original thinker – an iconoclast. But Cowell is the sort of figure Americans talk about liking but don’t, actually. We celebrate the idea of American originals, but when we meet them, we tend to put them in jail.”
More from the notes by Botstein and Richard Tietelbaum can be viewed at the bottom of this post. The full program notes, by the way, end with a welcome tidbit of news: Joel Sachs’ long awaited biography of Cowell is scheduled for publication by Oxford University Press in spring, 2011.
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Saturday, January 30, The Peter Jay Sharp Theater, The Juilliard School, Lincoln Center
COPLAND’S THE TENDERLAND (concert performance)
Juilliard Opera and Juilliard Orchestra
David Effron, conductor
Copeland Woodruff, director
The performance is part of Juilliard’s annual Focus! festival, which is directed by Joel Sachs and this year carries the theme “Music at the Center: Composing An American Mainstream.” Six concerts are scheduled, January 22-30. Among the offerings is Cowell’s Symphony 13 “Madras” on Monday, January 25. Works of Rorem, Barber, Menotti and Bernstein are also sprinkled among the events.
The Tenderland, Copland’s only evening-length opera, certainly isn’t being neglected this year. Here in upstate New York Glimmerglass Opera will present a new fully staged production this summer.
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AN AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY: THE MUSIC OF HENRY COWELL
Excerpts from notes by Leon Botstein:
Although Cowell’s place in the history books is secure, he and his music are not `in the air.’ He was probably the most courageous American composer of the 20th century, with his daring techniques and desire to build bridges between Western music and what we now call `world music.’ He was an original thinker – an iconoclast. But Cowell is the sort of figure Americans talk about liking but don’t, actually. We celebrate the idea of American originals, but when we meet them, we tend to put them in jail…
Cowell’s career coincides with the advent of American modernism in painting, sculpture and architecture. Insofar as music in American life before 1917 seemed to be derivative in its indebtedness to European models, the challenge facing young American artists in the 1920s was the creation of something distinctly and uniquely American. Now that America, though still young, seemed fully realized as a nation, it demanded that its own distinctive voice be heard. The character of that voice would have to match the industrial spirit of America. It had to be marked by a self-conscious modernity and a faith in innovation. In this regard, there was no more distinctly American composer in the first half of the 20th century than Henry Cowell. He was an experimentalist and a pluralist. True to America’s identity as an immigrant nation, he embraced influences from numerous sources. He broke the boundaries that had been erected between types and genres of music. He invented new sounds…
The judgment of history does not constitute an objective test. Consider the fate of Henry Cowell. The scandal surrounding his imprisonment for homosexuality, and the easy association in many circles between aesthetic radicalism and left-wing politics damaged his reputation and career during his lifetime and posthumously. For all of America’s celebration of innovation, there has been a dark side to American cultural life: an enormous pressure to conform, the rule of a marketplace that is intolerant of genuine individuality and dissent, and a risk-averse anti-intellectualism derived from mistrust, isolationism and commercial interest. Cowell’s career and music have consistently tripped the wires of all of these negative attitudes. As a result, for the last 50 years, his music was deprived of the hearing it deserved except in a small community of devoted advocates. More exposure is necessary to permit a reasonable assessment of the worth of his many compositions. Only after repeated performances can we as performers and listeners decide which works we prefer and which seem more persuasive than others. . . That is what makes Cowell the perfect subject for the mission of the American Symphony.
Excerpts from Richard Teitelbaum’s notes on the program:
Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 3 (1944) is an example of 18 such works Cowell wrote between 1944 and 1964 for forces ranging from solo cello to full orchestra. They reflect his interest in early American music. For No. 3, the composer drew from “Southern Revival meetings in which popular minstrel show rhythms were turned to religious purposes.”
Atlantis (1926-1931) is one of Cowell’s most unusual and experimental pieces, a dance work scored for three voices and small orchestra. Eventually abandoned as too expensive to stage, “Atlantis” wasn’t premiered until 1996.
Variations for Orchestra (1956/59) was revised for Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony. Based on what Cowell called “a brief, simple and melodious theme of twelve different tones,” the Variations see the composer follow his own path, avoiding both Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique and conventional theme-and-variations form.
Symphony No. 2, “Anthropos” (1938) was completed while Cowell was still in prison. The five movements are titled 1) Repose 2) Activity 3) Repression 4) Liberation. It was premiered on March 9, 1941, at the Brooklyn Museum with the composer conducting.
Concerto for Harmonica and Orchestra (1962) wasn’t premiered until in 1986 — by this evening’s soloist, Robert Bonfiglio, with the Brooklyn Philharmonic under Lukas Foss. The work entails such Japanese elements as the sound of the sho, the chamber reed organ that can produce tone clusters. This enabled Cowell to combine two longstanding interests, his ultra-modernist “invention” of tone clusters and similar chords inspired by the ancient Japanese gagaku court orchestra.
Symphony No. 11, “Seven Rituals of Music” (1953) follows Cowell’s concept that “there are Seven Rituals of Music in the life of man from birth to death.” The symphony opens gently with music for a child asleep and ranges through percussive music for work, a song of love, the ritual of dance and play, preparations for war and, finally, the ritual of death – a lament that grows in intensity until the symphony ends.
Complete program notes available here.
(Courtesy American Symphony Orchestra)
