PROGRAM NOTES
PROGRAM NOTES
TO AWAKEN THE SLEEPER composition at the Yale School of Music . His musical influences range widely — Afro-Caribbean rhythms ; African-American gospel , blues , and jazz ; European Romantic and Modernist composers — and he often brings this eclectic mix to bear on topics involving social justice . Breakthrough works include his choral composition Seven Last Words of the Unarmed , which sets words of seven Black men who suffered police brutality in the United States . Following the premiere of his opera A Snowy Day ( based on Ezra Jack Keats ’ beloved children ’ s book ) at Houston Grand Opera , that company appointed him to a fiveyear term as its first composer-in-residence , beginning this season .
To Awaken the Sleeper , premiered in 2021 at the Colorado Music Festival , is an orchestral ode with narrator ( or “ orator ,” as the score calls it ) that sets texts by the brilliant writer and thinker James Baldwin . From its opening eruption ( labeled “ Chaos , insurrection !”), the score travels through a varied emotional landscape ( moments are punctiliously marked with such indications as “ Resigned ,” “ Questioning , and “ Patriotic ”), to a , “ Explosion !” and “ Return to reality .” In an interview on Atlanta TV channel 11Alive , Thompson said , “ My identity as a Black man is inherently political in this country , and to be able to bring my identity to bear in this genre and idiom of music that I love so much , it means so much to me . If we all reckon with our current circumstance and get to see each other — and I think music is a perfect vehicle for us to be able to see each other — I think we can move toward that more perfect union for sure .”
Instrumentation Two flutes ( second doubling piccolo ), two oboes , two clarinets and bass clarinet , two bassoons , four horns , three trumpets , two trombones , tuba , timpani , crash cymbals , snare drum , bass drum , suspended cymbal , marimba , tenor drum , tam-tam , harp , and strings , plus narrator .
Dmitri Shostakovich
Born September 12 ( old style )/ 25 ( new style ), 1906 , in Saint Petersburg , Russia Died August 9 , 1975 , in Moscow , U . S . S . R .
SYMPHONY NO . 10 IN E MINOR [ 1953 ]
Dmitri Shostakovich , who had been mercilessly bullied for years by Stalin ’ s henchmen , breathed a shallow sigh of relief when the dictator died , in 1953 , and he began his Symphony No . 10 only a few months later . Or perhaps earlier ; the pianist Tatyana Nikolaeva , one of his confidants , insisted that the symphony — and unquestionably its first movement — dated from 1951 , and that its composer withheld the piece , along with many others , until after Stalin was gone . The symphony scored a notable triumph at its premiere , on December 17 , 1953 , with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic , and its success was confirmed at follow-up performances in Moscow . It was perhaps inevitable that so prominent a new work should come under the close scrutiny of the Composers ’ Union , which pondered it over the course of three days in April 1954 . Shostakovich , by then adept at apologizing publicly for his music , diplomatically acknowledged that , at the distance of a year , he did sense certain shortcomings in the piece , and that he might write some things differently if he had it to do over . But he didn ’ t go so far as to volunteer to actually revise his symphony . “ As soon as a work is written ,” he said , “ the creative spark dies . When you see its defects , sometimes large and substantial , you begin to think that it wouldn ’ t be a bad thing to avoid them in your next work , but as far as the one just written , well , that ’ s done with , thank goodness .” The hardline commissar types lambasted it for being “ non-realistic ” and ultimately pessimistic , hardly the thing for hopeful Soviet society . By the end of the debate , however , a more liberal faction fashioned a compromise position to which the Union ’ s members could agree , defining the piece , in most curious terms , as “ an optimistic tragedy .”
Instrumentation Two flutes and piccolo ( second flute also doubling piccolo ), two oboes and English horn ( doubling third oboe ), two clarinets and E-flat clarinet ( doubling third clarinet ), two bassoons and contrabassoon ( doubling third bassoon ), four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , tuba , timpani , triangle , tambourine , snare drum , cymbals , bass drum , tam-tam , xylophone , and strings .
ANOTHER PERSPECTIVE : SHOSTAKOVICH SYMPHONY NO . 10
By Paula Maust
R ussian composer Dmitri Shostakovich ’ s professional work was complexly intertwined with the political landscape of the Soviet Union . Socialist Realists and the Proletkult sought to cultivate music , art , and literature that was created by proletarians for proletarians . Throughout his career , those in positions of power frequently vacillated between censuring Shostakovich ’ s music and praising it . At one point the composer ’ s status was even reduced to that of a “ non-person ,” and the public ’ s love for his music often drew suspicion from prominent members of the Communist Party . Indeed , the nomination of his Piano Quintet , op . 57 for a Stalin Prize in 1941 caused a significant amount of controversy . Yet Shostakovich ’ s music was also sometimes used by Stalin for propaganda , which put the composer in a precarious position . Although many scholars have tried to determine what Shostakovich ’ s personal viewpoints were , it is unlikely that we will ever be able to know the full extent of how he felt about these situations . In the memoir Testimony ( 1979 ), which some argue is not a reliable source , Shostakovich says that he musically depicted Stalin in Symphony No . 10 , saying , “ I wrote it right after Stalin ’ s death , and no one has yet guessed what the Symphony is about . It ’ s about Stalin and the Stalin years .” He goes on to say that the march , in particular , is “ a musical portrait of Stalin .” During Stalin ’ s reign , between eight and twenty million Russians perished , and countless more lived in perpetual fear . Many suggest that the triumphant ending of Symphony No . 10 is indicative of the Russian people ’ s release from a dehumanizing political regime .
MAY-JUN 2023 / OVERTURE 35