English Horn Concerto (Rorem)

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The Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra is a composition for solo English horn and orchestra by the American composer Ned Rorem. The work was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic to commemorate the orchestra's sesquicentennial anniversary. It was first performed by the soloist Thomas Stacy and the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Kurt Masur at Avery Fisher Hall on January 27, 1994. [1] Rorem dedicated the piece to Thomas Stacy. [2] The work is one of the few prominent contemporary English horn concertos, along with James MacMillan's The World's Ransoming . [3] [4]

Cor anglais woodwind musical instrument

The cor anglais or English horn in North America, is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family. It is approximately one and a half times the length of an oboe.

Orchestra large instrumental ensemble

An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which mixes instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as violin, viola, cello, and double bass, as well as brass instruments such as trumpet, trombone and tuba, woodwinds such as flutes, oboe and bassoon and percussion instruments such as the triangle,snare drum and cymbals, each grouped in sections. Other instruments such as the piano and celesta may sometimes appear in a fifth keyboard section or may stand alone, as may the concert harp and, for performances of some modern compositions, electronic instruments.

Ned Rorem is an American composer and diarist. He won a Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1976 for his Air Music: Ten Etudes for Orchestra.

Contents

Composition

Background

The concerto was written over the winter of 1991–1992, predominantly while Rorem was in the hospital. Rorem described the composition process as "one of physical stress," adding, "when I worked at all it was through a hazy protestant need to meet deadlines." The composer thus originally intended to call the piece Meditations in an Emergency after the eponymous poem by Frank O'Hara. Rorem opted for a straightforward title, however, noting his lack of belief that "music, especially non-vocal music, necessarily reflects its maker's mood in medias res, or what people can agree—as they can with poetry and pictures—that a specific piece is angry or happy or noble, much less that it represents an ocean or an operating room." He added, "When a gloomy composer labors on a lengthy project he checks the gloom at his studio door, along with his aches and pains, and functions in a kind of limbo. (A definition of the Artist: One who exists outside himself, and has something to show for it. He is the least egotistical of citizens)."

<i>Meditations in an Emergency</i> book by Frank OHara

Meditations in an Emergency is a book of poetry by American poet Frank O'Hara, first published by Grove Press in 1957. Its title poem was first printed in the November 1954 issue of Poetry: A Magazine of Verse.

Frank OHara American poet, art critic and writer

Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet and art critic. Because of his employment as a curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure in the New York School—an informal group of artists, writers and musicians who drew inspiration from jazz, surrealism, abstract expressionism, action painting and contemporary avant-garde art movements.

Given his lack of mobility, this was the first piece that Rorem composed directly onto paper without any keyboard instrument. The work was started on December 6, 1991 and completed on June 13, 1992. In the score program notes, he wrote:

My sole aim in writing the concerto for English Horn was to exploit that instrument's special luster and pliability. The literature is slim, maybe because the English Horn—or, as the English say, the cor anglais—cannot hold its own against an orchestra as singularly as a piano or trumpet or cello or flute. To make the sound gleam like an opaline reed through a wash of brass and silver, catgut steel, I used an orchestra by Philharmonic standards is hardly huge, with a pair of oboes like nephews often flanking, sometimes goading, their wistful relative. [1]

Structure

The work has a duration of approximately 23 minutes and is cast in five movements:

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession. A movement is a section, "a major structural unit perceived as the result of the coincidence of relatively large numbers of structural phenomena".

A unit of a larger work that may stand by itself as a complete composition. Such divisions are usually self-contained. Most often the sequence of movements is arranged fast-slow-fast or in some other order that provides contrast.

  1. Preamble and Amble
  2. Love Letter
  3. Recurring Dream
  4. Perpetual Motion
  5. Medley and Prayer

Instrumentation

The work is scored for solo English horn and an orchestra comprising two flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, four percussionists, harp, piano (doubling celesta), and strings. [1]

Western concert flute transverse woodwind instrument made of metal or wood

The Western concert flute is a transverse (side-blown) woodwind instrument made of metal or wood. It is the most common variant of the flute. A musician who plays the flute is called a flautist, flutist, flute player, or (rarely) fluter.

Piccolo small musical instrument of the flute family

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The modern piccolo has most of the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written. This gave rise to the name ottavino, which the instrument is called in the scores of Italian composers. It is also called flauto piccolo or flautino.

Oboe musical instrument of the woodwind family

Oboes belong to the classification of double reed woodwind instruments. Oboes are usually made of wood, but there are also oboes made of synthetic materials. The most common oboe plays in the treble or soprano range. A soprano oboe measures roughly 65 cm long, with metal keys, a conical bore and a flared bell. Sound is produced by blowing into the reed at a sufficient air pressure, causing it to vibrate with the air column. The distinctive tone is versatile and has been described as "bright". When the word oboe is used alone, it is generally taken to mean the treble instrument rather than other instruments of the family, such as the bass oboe, the cor anglais, or oboe d'amore

Reception

Reviewing the world premiere, Alex Ross of The New York Times wrote, "The concerto is simply a sequence of five sketches, with melody interspersed; the orchestral fabric is subtle enough for the mild-mannered English horn to assume a convincing solo role. Nothing goes on too long, and some movements seem too short." He added:

Alex Ross (music critic) American music critic

Alex Ross is an American music critic. He has been on the staff of The New Yorker magazine since 1996, and he has written the books The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007) and Listen to This (2011).

<i>The New York Times</i> Daily broadsheet newspaper based in New York City

The New York Times is an American newspaper based in New York City with worldwide influence and readership. Founded in 1851, the paper has won 125 Pulitzer Prizes, more than any other newspaper. The Times is ranked 17th in the world by circulation and 2nd in the U.S.

The introduction, coda and third movement ("Recurring Dream") have the most appealing music, wistful and songful. "Love Letter," the intriguingly enigmatic second movement, drifts toward restrained anguish, and then sudden silence. The first, fourth and fifth movements are rapid and assertive, churningly complex at times, but on Thursday night they seemed curiously fragmentary and unfocused. Mr. Stacy tied these disparate impressions together with a rich tone and dazzling technique. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

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The Concerto for Piano and Orchestra is a musical composition by the American composer Aaron Copland. The work was commissioned by the conductor Serge Koussevitzky who was then music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It was first performed on January 28, 1927, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Koussevitzky with the composer himself as the soloist. The piece is dedicated to Copland's patron Alma Morgenthau Wertheim.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Rorem, Ned (1992). "Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra". Boosey & Hawkes . Retrieved November 6, 2016.
  2. 1 2 Ross, Alex (January 29, 1994). "Review/Music; The English Horn Steps Forward". The New York Times . Retrieved November 6, 2016.
  3. ↑ Kozinn, Allan (April 22, 1999). "Creating a Mystique of the English Horn". The New York Times . Retrieved November 6, 2016.
  4. ↑ Woodard, Josef (January 12, 2003). "The underdog concertos: Veteran composer William Kraft likes to write pieces that champion unheralded instruments. Now it's the English horn's turn to shine". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved November 6, 2016.
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