PROGRAM NOTES
AWADAGIN PRATT RETURNS she established herself as an essential composer , performer , and educator within New York ’ s dynamic music scene , including a role as the first-ever Artistic Partner of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra . Other commissions from the New York Philharmonic and National Symphony Orchestra ( among many , many others ) confirm that Montgomery has earned a lasting place in the highest echelon of living composers . She wrote the following note about this concerto commissioned by the Art of the Piano Foundation for pianist Awadagin Pratt with the support of nine orchestras , including the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra .
Rounds for solo piano and string orchestra is inspired by the imagery and themes from T . S . Eliot ’ s epic poem Four Quartets . Early in the first poem , “ Burnt Norton ,” we find these evocative lines :
At the still point of the turning world . Neither flesh nor fleshless ; Neither from nor towards ; at the still point , there the dance is ,
But neither arrest nor movement . And do not call it fixity ,
Where past and future are gathered . Neither movement from nor towards , Neither ascent nor decline . Except for the point , the still point ,
There would be no dance , and there is only the dance .
Text © T . S . Eliot Reproduced by courtesy of Faber and Faber Ltd
In addition to this inspiration , while working on the piece , I became fascinated by fractals ( infinite patterns found in nature that are selfsimilar across different scales ) and also delved into the work of contemporary biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber who writes about the interdependency of all beings . Weber explores how every living organism has a rhythm that interacts and impacts with all of the living things around it and results in a multitude of outcomes .
Like Eliot in Four Quartets , beginning to understand this interconnectedness requires that we slow down , listen , and observe both the effect and the opposite effect caused by every single action and moment . I ’ ve found this is an exercise that lends itself very naturally towards musical gestural possibilities that I explore in the work — action and reaction , dark and light , stagnant and swift .
Structurally , with these concepts in mind , I set the form of the work as a rondo , within a rondo , within a rondo . The five major sections are a rondo ; section “ A ” is also a rondo in itself ; and the cadenza — which is partially improvised by the soloist — breaks the pattern , yet , contains within it , the overall form of the work .
To help share some of this with the performers , I ’ ve included the following poetic performance note at the start of the score :
Inspired by the constancy , the rhythms , and duality of life , in order of relevance to form :
Rondine — AKA Swifts ( like a sparrow ) flying in circles patterns
Playing with opposites — dark / light ; stagnant / swift
Fractals — infinite design
I am grateful to my friend Awadagin Pratt for his collaborative spirit and ingenuity in helping to usher my first work for solo piano into the world .
Instrumentation String orchestra .
Richard Strauss
Born June 11 , 1864 in Munich , Germany Died September 8 , 1949 in Garmisch- Partenkirchen , Germany
DER ROSENKAVALIER SUITE [ 1911 , ARRANGED 1944 ]
Richard Strauss , already a successful conductor and composer of orchestral tone poems , established himself as Germany ’ s greatest opera composer with the shocking debut of Salome in 1905 . He followed up with Elektra , based on an existing play by Hugo von Hofmannsthal , and then Der Rosenkavalier ( The Knight of the Rose ), which Strauss and Hofmannsthal conceived together from scratch , loosely following an 18 th -century story . The opera was an immediate success , rivaling even Salome ; after debuting in Dresden in 1911 , it reached Milan ’ s La Scala and Vienna ’ s Court Opera by the end of the year , and it opened in London ’ s Royal Opera House and New York ’ s Metropolitan Opera in 1913 . The Rosenkavalier Suite heard on this program was assembled in 1944 with the help of the Polish conductor Artur Rodziński , then the music director of the New York Philharmonic .
The suite , in one interconnected movement , draws excerpts from various parts of the opera . The opening music of the suite , taken from the opera ’ s prelude , peaks with a braying figure from the French horns that hints at what has been transpiring in the bedroom where the opera begins . In another scene , Octavian ( the young knight involved in that bedroom encounter ) arrives dressed in silver and bearing a symbolic rose , as represented by a sparkling theme played by flutes , celesta , harp , and violins . This music reappears in the suite as a leitmotif , suggesting otherworldly beauty and Octavian ’ s love .
The rude interruption and ensuing waltz , with its tendency to wander off-key , are hallmarks of another character , Ochs , the bumbling philanderer who eventually gets his comeuppance after a series of comic mishaps and deceits . After the waltz , a romantic passage takes music from the opera ’ s final love duet , and then the suite concludes with another big waltz number adapted from the third act .
Instrumentation Three flutes including piccolo , three oboes including English horn , four clarinets including E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet , three bassoons including contrabassoon , four horns , three trumpets , three trombones , tuba , timpani , percussion , two harps , celesta , and strings .
Musical Terms Librettist : A person who writes the text of an opera or other long vocal work . Andante con moto : Musical tempo ( speed ): slowly , but with motion Menuetto : A movement in 3 / 4 time that originates from a slow , stately dance of 17th-century France . Counterpoint : Two or more musical lines that are harmonically interdependent . Motives : A short musical idea that has special importance in or is characteristic of a composition . Rondo : A musical form with a recurring musical theme . Tone poem : A piece in one movement that illustrates the content of a poem , story , novel , painting , landscape , or other non-musical source . Leitmotif : A recurrent musical theme throughout a composition , associated with a particular person , idea , or situation .
MAY-JUN 2022 / OVERTURE 17