Program 8 - Dvorak Fest III

Suite from The Tender Land

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Composed in 1952-1954.

Premiered on April 1, 1954 in New York City.

The Tender Land, Aaron Copland’s only full-scale opera, was composed in 1954 on a commission from Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the League of Composers. Copland wrote of The Tender Land, composed in his distinctive American idiom, “The opera takes place in the 1930s, spring harvest time. It’s about a farm family — a mother (Ma Moss), a daughter (Laurie) about to graduate from High School, her sister (Beth), and a grandfather (Grandpa Moss). Two drifters (Martin and Top) come along asking for odd jobs. The grandfather is reluctant to give them any, and the mother is alarmed because she’s heard reports of two men molesting young girls of the neighborhood. Nevertheless, they sleep in the shed for the night. The graduation party begins the second act. The heroine has naturally fallen in love with one of the drifters. And they prove it by singing a twelve-minute love duet. But there is something of a complication. You see, she associates him with freedom, and he associates her with settling down. Martin asks Laurie to run away with him, but in the middle of the night he decides that this kind of roving life is not for Laurie, so he silently steals off with Top. When Laurie discovers she’s been jilted, she decides to leave home anyway, and at the conclusion, the mother sings a song of acceptance that is the key to the whole opera. In it she looks to her younger daughter as the continuation of the family cycle that is the whole reason for their existence.” The Suite consists of the introduction to Act III, the love duet, the party scene from Act II, and the quintet, The Promise of Living, that closes Act I.

Concerto for Marimba and Chamber Orchestra

Michael Burritt (born in 1962)

Composed in 2001-2004.

Premiered on November 10, 2004 in Nashville, with Victor Yampolsky conducting the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra at the 2004 Percussive Arts Society International Convention and the composer as soloist.

Michael Burritt, Professor and Director of Percussion Studies in the School of Music at Northwestern University, is one of the world’s leading percussion soloists and teachers and a composer of distinction for his instruments. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees as well as a prestigious Performer’s Certificate from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York; his teachers have included John Beck, Gordon Stout, Paul Yancich and Herbert Flower. Burritt has performed on four continents and in nearly forty states. He presented his New York debut in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in 1992 and made his London debut in the Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1998. He has appeared as concerto soloist with the Omaha Symphony, Dallas Wind Symphony, Chautauqua Festival Orchestra, Eastman Wind Ensemble and other noted ensembles, and has been guest artist with the Ju Percussion Group (Taiwan), Percussion Art Quartet (Germany), Amores Percussion Group (Spain), Global Percussion Network (Sweden) and Tempus Fugit Percussion Ensemble (United States). He has been a featured artist at seven Percussive Arts Society International Conventions, including premiering his Marimba Concerto in 2004 with Victor Yampolsky and the Northwestern University Chamber Orchestra, and has made three solo recordings on the Resonator Records label of his original compositions as well as works written expressly for him (Perpetual, Shadow Chasers and Waking Dreams).

Michael Burritt has composed two concertos (the second was premiered in 2005 and first heard in Europe in Paris in fall 2006), as well as many solo and chamber works for marimba and percussion, including two books of etudes. His works for solo marimba have become standard repertory for the instrument and consistently appear on required repertory lists for international competitions. Burritt is an artist/clinician and product design consultant for Malletech, with whom he has developed his own line of signature marimba mallets, and artist/educational clinician with the Zildjian Company, the world’s leading maker of cymbals. He is also a member of the Percussive Arts Society Board of Directors, a contributing editor for Percussive Notes Magazine, and chairman of the PAS Keyboard Committee.

The composer writes, “Concerto for Marimba and Chamber Orchestra was composed between 2001 and 2004. My approach was to start with writing solo works for marimba that I would ultimately orchestrate as movements of a concerto. The first of these solo pieces was Scirocco, written in June 2001. Scirocco is one of the few pieces I have composed with another performer in mind. It came about as a result of a conversation I had with my good friend and fellow marimbist She-e Wu. She-e implored me to write an ‘over the top’ solo piece for my next venture. From this challenge I drew inspiration from the virtuosic compositions of Paganini. As I moved forward with the formulation of the piece I decided that it would work perfectly as the opening movement of the Concerto. ‘Scirocco’ means hot desert wind and refers to the swirling passage work that characterizes much of the movement.

“Movement 2, The Offering, was also initially a short solo piece written with no intention of using it in the Concerto. After having performed the work on several concerts, however, I began to envision it becoming the catalyst for the slow movement. No matter how many times I explored other thematic possibilities I continually returned to The Offering as the material that worked best in following the virtuosity and density of the Scirocco movement. The marimba writing is primarily homophonic in texture and captures an ‘organ like’ quality. The middle section of the movement is a moderate dance variation that foreshadows the harmonic language heard in the third movement. The Offering was written in December 2001 as a dedication to my grandparents, Clayton and Arres Burritt. They had a profound impact on me and all of our family and serve as the paradigm for much of my life.

“Halu is an ancient word that means ‘to dance’ or ‘writhe,’ and serves as the highly energetic conclusion to the Concerto. It draws from the sonorities of the Scirocco movement but is more rhythmically and metrically animated and explores the percussive and what I like to call ‘drummy’ characteristics of the marimba. This movement is also highlighted by the use of a ‘mini percussion ensemble’ to aid in defining the rhythmic complexity and support the visceral character of the movement. The percussion instruments are so integral that they become soloists with the marimba in several sections of the movement. The strings are often treated in a similar way, with static rhythmic activity in dialogue with the soloist and percussion.

“The Concerto for Marimba could not have been realized without the support and encouragement of my wife, Christine, to whom I dedicate this work.”

Symphony No. 9 in E minor, Op. 95,

“From the New World”

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904)

Composed in 1892-1893.

Premiered on December 16, 1893 in New York, conducted by Anton Seidl.

When Antonín Dvorák, aged 51, arrived in New York on September 27, 1892 to direct the new National Conservatory of Music, both he and the institution’s founder, Mrs. Jeanette Thurber, expected that he would help to foster an American school of composition. He was clear and specific in his assessment: “I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. They can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States.... There is nothing in the whole range of composition that cannot find a thematic source here.” Dvorák’s knowledge of this music came from Henry Thacker Burleigh, an African-American song writer and student of his who sang the traditional melodies to the enthralled composer. Burleigh later recalled, “There is no doubt that Dr. Dvorák was very deeply impressed by the Negro spirituals from the old plantation. He just saturated himself in the spirit of those old tunes, and then invented his own themes.”

The “New World” Symphony was not only Dvorák’s way of pointing toward a truly American musical idiom but also a reflection of his feelings about his own country. “I should never have written the Symphony as I have,” he said, “if I hadn’t seen America,” but he added in a later letter that it was “genuine Bohemian music.” There is actually a reconciliation between these two seemingly contradictory statements, since the characteristics that Dvorák found in Burleigh’s indigenous American music — pentatonic (five-note) scales, modal minor keys with a lowered seventh degree, rhythmic syncopations, frequent returns to the central key note — are common to much folk music throughout the world, including that of his native Bohemia. Because his themes for the “New World” Symphony drew upon these cross-cultural qualities, to Americans, they sound American; to Czechs, they sound Czech.

The “New World” Symphony is unified by the use of a motto theme that occurs in all four movements. This bold, striding phrase, with its arching contour, is played by the horns as the main theme of the sonata-form opening movement, having been foreshadowed (also by the horns) in the slow introduction. Two other themes are used in the first movement: a sad, dance-like melody for flute and oboe that exhibits folk characteristics, and a brighter tune, with a striking resemblance to Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, for the solo flute.

Many years before coming to America, Dvorák had encountered Longfellow’s epic poem The Song of Hiawatha, which he read in a Czech translation. The great tale remained in his mind, and he considered making an opera of it during his time in New York. That project came to nothing, but Hiawatha did have an influence on the “New World” Symphony: the second movement was inspired by the forest funeral of Minnehaha; the third, by the dance of the Indians at the feast. That the music of these movements has more in common with the old plantation songs than with the chants of native Americans is due to Dvorák’s mistaken belief that African-American and Indian music were virtually identical.

The second movement is a three-part form (A–B–A), with a haunting English horn melody (later fitted with words by William Arms Fisher to become the folksong-spiritual Goin’ Home) heard in the first and last sections. The recurring motto here is pronounced by the trombones just before the return of the main theme in the closing section. The third movement is a tempestuous scherzo with two gentle, intervening trios providing contrast. The motto theme, played by the horns, dominates the coda.

The finale employs a sturdy motive introduced by the horns and trumpets after a few introductory measures in the strings. In the Symphony’s closing pages, the motto theme, Goin’ Home and the scherzo melody are all gathered up and combined with the principal subject of the finale to produce a marvelous synthesis of the entire work — a look back across the sweeping vista of Dvorák’s musical tribute to America.

©2007 Dr. Richard E. Rodda