{ program notes over 20 minutes , Barber has taken us on a compelling symphonic journey that many other composers would have needed twice as long to travel .
Instrumentation : Three flutes including piccolo , two oboes , English horn , two clarinets , bass clarinet , two bassoons , contrabassoon , four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , tuba , timpani , percussion , strings .
A Lincoln Portrait
Aaron Copland
Born in Brooklyn , New York , November 14 , 1900 ; died in North Tarrytown , New York , December 2 , 1990
In December 1941 , shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor , Aaron Copland — along with two other prominent American composers Jerome Kern and Virgil Thomson was approached by the conductor Andre Kostelanetz to compose a work about a great American , political or literary , to be premiered at Kostelanetz ’ s concerts with the Cincinnati Symphony in summer 1942 and then to be presented around the country . The commission ’ s underlying motive was to create morale-boosting orchestral pieces for a country facing dark times .
Though Copland initially thought he would focus on poet Walt Whitman as his subject , he soon switched to Lincoln , probably the most revered figure in American history at that time . The magnificent seated statue of Lincoln by Daniel Chester French had been added to the Lincoln Memorial in 1922 , and Carl Sandburg ’ s two-volume biography of the Illinoisan was of even more recent vintage . Lincoln had led the country through the terrible Civil War , and Americans in 1942 looked to him for inspiration as they faced an even more challenging international struggle .
Copland ’ s Lincoln Portrait was given its first performance on May 14 , 1942 in Cincinnati and today ranks as America ’ s most celebrated piece for narrator and orchestra . Dozens of famous Americans have voiced its simple , powerful text , including public figures like Eleanor Roosevelt and Adlai Stevenson and actors such as Gregory Peck and James Earl Jones ; even Carl Sandburg himself became a noted interpreter . As Copland explained , “ The letters and speeches of Lincoln supplied the text . It was a comparatively simple matter to choose a few excerpts that seemed particularly apposite to our own situation today [ i . e . 1942 ]. I avoided the temptation to use only well-known passages , permitting myself the luxury of quoting only once from a world-famous speech [ the “ Gettysburg Address ”]. The order and arrangement [ as well as the connecting words ] are my own .”
In a note for the work ’ s premiere , Copland wrote : “ I worked with musical materials of my own , with the exception of two songs of the period , the famous ‘ Camptown Races ’ and a ballad that was first published in 1840 under the title of ‘ The Pesky Sarpent ,’ but is better known today as ‘ Springfield Mountain .’ …
“ The composition is roughly divided into three main sections . In the opening section , I wanted to suggest something of the mysterious sense of fatality that surrounds Lincoln ’ s personality . Also , near the end of that section , something of his gentleness and simplicity of spirit . The quick middle section briefly sketches in the background of the times he lived in . This emerges into the concluding section where my sole purpose was to draw a simple but impressive frame about the words of Lincoln himself .”
Instrumentation : Two flutes including piccolos , two oboes , English horn , two clarinets , bass clarinet , two bassoons , contrabassoon , four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , tuba , timpani , percussion , harp , celesta , strings .
Concerto for Cello and Orchestra in B minor , opus 104
Antonín Dvořák
Born in Nelahozeves , Bohemia ( now Czech Republic ), September 8 , 1841 ; died in Prague , May 1 , 1904
Dvořák ’ s two most popular orchestral works — the “ New World ” Symphony and the Cello Concerto — were both
“ made in America ” during the three years the composer spent as director of the National Conservatory in New York City . But while the symphony partly draws its inspiration “ from the New World ,” the concerto is definitely “ from the Old World .” In fact , many commentators hear in this work an expression of Dvořák ’ s homesickness for his beloved Bohemia . In a letter to his mentor and friend Johannes Brahms written from New York in December 1894 as he was composing this work , Dvořák alluded to his yearning for Bohemia : “ I left five children in Prague , and my only boy Otakar and my wife are here , and so we are often homesick . If I can write something , that is the only recovery for me .”
The slow movement stresses the cello ’ s ability to sing with the pathos and feeling of the human voice .
The composer had been lured to America by Mrs . Jeannette Thurber , a passionate arts patron and wife of a multi-millionaire grocery magnate . A visionary who had already launched an opera company producing opera in English , she now created a conservatory in New York City that was intended to launch an American school of composition and train talented musicians of all backgrounds , with special attention to African Americans . She offered Dvořák the princely sum of $ 15,000 per annum ( around a quarter of a million in today ’ s dollars ) to head the National Conservatory and teach its advanced composition students . For three seasons from 1892 to 1895 , the composer spent most of his time in New York and threw himself wholeheartedly into the task of encouraging an indigenous American musical voice .
But by late 1894 , Dvořák was longing to return home . The Czech cellist Hanus Wihan had been begging Dvořák for a concerto , and when the composer heard Victor Herbert — a prominent cellist before he became the toast of Broadway — play his new Second Cello Concerto with
January – February 2017 | Overture 33