MAHLER ’ S FOURTH WITH HEYWARD
Jessie Montgomery
Born December 8 , 1981 , in New York City Resides in Chicago , Illinois
FIVE FREEDOM SONGS [ 2017 – 18 ]
“ Music is my connection to the world ,” wrote Jessie Montgomery . “ It guides me to understand my place in relation to others and challenges me to make clear the things I do not understand .” A graduate of New York University and The Juilliard School , she is pursuing a Ph . D . in composition at Princeton University . Since 1999 , she has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization , which provides opportunities for musicians from Black and other minority communities . She has appeared often as a violinist with the Silkroad Ensemble and Sphinx Virtuosi , and was a member of PUBLIQuartet and the Catalyst Quartet . She recently completed a three-year term as composer-in-residence of the Chicago Symphony .
She conceived Five Freedom Songs in collaboration with soprano Julia Bullock . Says Montgomery , “ We wanted to create a song cycle that honors our shared African- American heritage and the tradition of the Negro spiritual , while also experimenting with non-traditional stylistic contexts . Each of the five songs in this cycle are sourced from the historical anthology Slave Songs of the United States ( originally published by A . Simpson & Co ., New York , 1867 ), which categorizes each song based on origin and social context .
“ For example , ‘ My Lord , What a Morning ’ is actually the original lyric to the more popular spiritual ‘ Stars Begin to Fall ,’ which also originated in the Southeastern slave states . ‘ I Want to Go Home ’ also originates from the Southeastern states , and my setting is inspired by the simple way it was transcribed as a simple seven-note melody without an indicated rhythm , which inspired me to write it in a hybrid Gregorian chant / spiritual style . ‘ Lay dis Body Down ,’ a funeral song said to originate from the region surrounding South Carolina , is set in an improvised style , wherein each part of the ensemble chooses their own pacing of the line to create a swirling meditation . ‘ My Father , How Long ?’ contains the refrain ‘ We will soon be free , we will soon be free , De Lord will call us home ,’ the words of which reflect the dual meaning between spiritual salvation and freedom from oppression . It is a song that emerged from a jail in Georgetown , SC at the break of the Great Rebellion , and [ is ] accompanied by percussive sounds in the strings evoking the chain gang . ‘ The Day of Judgment ’ originates from the region surrounding Louisiana and is set as an uneasy celebration over the refrain of a traditional West African drumming pattern .”
Instrumentation : Percussion , strings , and solo singer .
Gustav Mahler
Born July 7 , 1860 , in Kalischt ( Kaliště ), Bohemia ( now Czechia ) Died May 18 , 1911 , in Vienna , Austria
SYMPHONY NO . 4 [ 1899 – 1901 , REV . 1892 & 1911 ]
Gustav Mahler spent the summer of 1899 at Bad Aussee , a stunning locale in Austria ’ s Salzkammergut , and during his last ten days there he began to map out his Fourth Symphony . He filed away his sketches in August and did not return to them until the following summer , this time at the villa he was building at Maiernigg , in southern Austria . He told his amanuensis Natalie Bauer-Lechner that , when he returned to the project , it had progressed to “ a much more advanced stage than it had reached in Aussee without my having given it a moment ’ s real attention in the meantime .… That my second self should have worked on the symphony throughout the ten months of winter sleep ( with all the frightful nightmares of the theatre business ) is unbelievable !” By August 5 his symphony was effectively completed , though he continued to revise it for the rest of his life .
He had a head start with the symphony . In 1892 , he had written a song — first with a piano accompaniment , a few weeks later in an orchestral version — titled “ Das himmlische Leben ” ( The Heavenly Life ) on a text drawn from the purported folk anthology Des knaben Wunderhorn . He contemplated using his setting of “ Das himmlische Leben ” to conclude his Third Symphony but he discarded the idea and made the song the point of departure for his Fourth , where it would stand as the finale . He then crafted the first three movements as preparation for that song-finale , which he once referred to as “ the top of the Symphony ’ s pyramidal structure .” It caps an extensive , incident-laden first movement , a wry scherzo ( Mahler indicated that he intended it as a sort of danse macabre ), and a supernal Adagio ( which Mahler ranked as his finest slow movement , although his oeuvre offers several worthy competitors ). The conductor Bruno Walter , Mahler ’ s assistant when this pieces was germinating , reported , “ Referring to the profound quiet and clear beauty of the andante [ sic ], Mahler said to me that they were caused by his vision of one of the church sepulchers showing the recumbent stone image of the deceased with the arms crossed in eternal sleep .” Everything reaches its destination in Mahler ’ s simple song . It is intoned , moreover , by a soprano who , Mahler insisted ( in a note he inserted in the first edition of the score ), should render her four verses “ with childlike , cheerful expression ; entirely without parody !”
Instrumentation : Four flutes ( third and fourth doubling piccolo ), three oboes ( third doubling English horn ), three clarinets ( second doubling E-flat clarinet , third doubling bass clarinet ), three bassoons ( third doubling contrabassoon ), four horns , three trumpets , timpani , bass drum , triangle , sleigh-bells , glockenspiel , cymbals , tamtam , harp , and strings , in addition to a solo soprano singer in the finale .
JAMES M . KELLER , the longtime Program Annotator of the San Francisco Symphony and for 25 years Program Annotator of the New York Philharmonic , is the author of Chamber Music : A Listener ’ s Guide ( Oxford University Press ).
JAN-FEB 2025 | OVERTURE | 35