{ program notes
wrote the music, I had no idea what Martha was going to call it!”
So wrote Aaron Copland of the beautiful ballet score he composed for Martha Graham, the high priestess of American modern dance. She named it Appalachian Spring after a line in Hart Crane’ s poem The Bridge, from which she also drew the ballet’ s scenario; Copland had called it simply“ Ballet for Martha.” The two great American artists, born in the same year, had been brought together through the philanthropic generosity of Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, a visionary American patroness who commissioned many important works from the leading creative figures of the first half of the 20 th century. The joint creation was introduced to the world on October 30, 1944 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D. C. and immediately became an American classic. The following year, Appalachian Spring was honored with the Pulitzer Prize for Music.
In a time when American values were being challenged by totalitarian enemies, Graham fashioned an affirming scenario drawing on the self-reliant spirit that built the country. As described in the score, the ballet concerns“ a pioneer celebration in spring around a newly built farmhouse in the Pennsylvania hills in the early part of the last century. The bride-to-be and the young farmer-husband enact the emotions, joyful and apprehensive, their new domestic partnership invites. … A revivalist and his followers remind the new householders of the strange and terrible aspects of human fate. At the end the couple are left quiet and strong in their new house.”
Because the Library of Congress theatre was small, Copland had to restrict his orchestra to only 13 instruments, but we will hear the arrangement he made in 1945 for large orchestra. Austerity and simplicity are at the heart of this eloquent music, with its ability to conjure both the wide-open spaces of the American frontier and the down-to-earth values of the first settlers. Plain harmonies and open intervals of the fourth, fifth, and octave dominate the musical fabric, with complexity saved for the country-fiddling rhythms that propel several dance episodes. The score’ s focal point is the song“ Simple Gifts,” which Copland found in an anthology of dance tunes from the Shakers, a utopian sect that flourished briefly in early 19 th-century America. Introduced by the clarinet, the song is treated to several variations, then sung grandly by the full ensemble.
Instrumentation: Two flutes( including piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings.
Thurgood’ s Rhapsody
James Lee, III
Born in St. Joseph, Michigan, November 26, 1975.
James Lee, an Associate Professor at Morgan State University, moved to Baltimore in 2005 from Ann Arbor, Michigan and soon began attending concerts at the BSO. In January 2008, members of the BSO and Soulful Symphony Orchestra performed his Hiddekel: Third from Life from Beyond Rivers of Vision, conducted by Joseph Young, and in May 2010, the BSO performed... and on the other side of the river from the same work, conducted by Damon Gupton. In September 2011, the BSO premiered Chupshah! Harriet’ s Drive from Canaan, and in September 2013, Fantasy on the Star-Spangled Banner, both commissioned by Marin Alsop and the BSO. Of tonight’ s premiere, Lee says:“ My work Thurgood’ s Rhapsody is a musical commentary on various aspects of the life of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. The work starts with a solo oboe that sounds the‘ tone of freedom and equity’ in which the whole orchestra proceeds to tell the story of Thurgood’ s adventures in and out of the courtroom.”
Instrumentation: Two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, and strings.
Polaris: Voyage for Orchestra
Thomas Adès
Born in London, England, March 1, 1971
“ Even as the UK is brimming with wonderful young composers, I think few would dispute that Tom Adès may be the most extravagantly gifted of them all.”— Sir Simon Rattle
No composer before the public today has had as rapid a rise to well deserved fame as England’ s Thomas Adès. Sometimes sardonically called“ Tom Terrific” by envious musical rivals, he is an extraordinarily gifted conductor and pianist, as well as a composer whose every work is keenly anticipated throughout Europe and increasingly in the United States. Adès seems to create masterpieces in any musical genre he touches. His works include Arcadiana, an exquisite string quartet he wrote in 1994 at age 23; Powder Her Face, an edgy, sexually liberated chamber opera written a year later and already enjoying many revivals; and Asyla( 1997), a searing, brilliant tone poem for large orchestra that Sir Simon Rattle chose as the first piece to perform when he became music director of the Berlin Philharmonic in 2002. Asyla went on to win the Ernst von Siemens Prize in Germany and America’ s Grawemeyer Award.
In 2004, Adès followed Powder Her Face with an even more impressive opera, The Tempest based on Shakespeare’ s last play, premiered at the Royal Opera Covent Garden and in 2012 by the Metropolitan Opera also presented live in HD in movie theaters that year. He is currently working on a third opera, The Exterminating Angel, scheduled for Met performances in the 2017 – 18 season. Many of his works have been performed at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music under Marin Alsop’ s baton.
Adès’ extreme precocity and technical brilliance have led many to compare him with Benjamin Britten, and, indeed, he served for many years as the artistic director of the Aldeburgh Festival that Britten founded. Adès holds the Britten Chair in Composition at London’ s Royal College of Music as well. His superb pianistic skills have led him, like Britten with the singer
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