Flute Concerto (Kernis)

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The Flute Concerto is a composition for flute and orchestra by the American composer Aaron Jay Kernis. The work was jointly commissioned for the flautist Marina Piccinini by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chautauqua Institution, and the Peabody Conservatory of Music. It was first performed in Detroit on January 21, 2016, by Piccinini and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin. The piece is dedicated to Marina Piccinini "with warmth and admiration." [1] [2] [3] [4]

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.

Orchestra large instrumental ensemble

An orchestra is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families, including bowed string instruments such as the violin, viola, cello, and double bass, brass instruments such as the horn, trumpet, trombone and tuba, woodwinds such as the flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon, and percussion instruments such as the timpani, bass drum, 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.

Aaron Jay Kernis is a Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy Award-winning American composer serving as a member of the Yale School of Music faculty. Kernis spent 15 years as the music advisor to the Minnesota Orchestra and as Director of the Minnesota Orchestra's Composers' Institute, and is now currently the Workshop Director of the Nashville Symphony Composer Lab. He has received numerous awards and honors throughout his thirty-five year career. He lives in New York City with his wife, pianist Evelyne Luest, and their two children.

Contents

Composition

Background

Kernis composed the concerto specifically for the flautist Marina Piccinini and said the composition was "inspired by the beauty and elegance of her playing." Kernis conceived the piece in two halves, comprising the darker first and third movements and the lighter second and fourth movements. In the score program notes, the composer wrote, "The movements are very connected to each other musically, and share ideas between them that keeps the musical thread continuous, even with the varied feel of each movement. Some elements the movements have in common (with the possible exception of the last) is that each begins with calmly and wind up spiraling out of control in some way. Three of the movements are based around dance rhythms from centuries long past. Pastorale is a gentle dance of the land and field, Barcarolle evokes the undulating music of a gondola traveling on water, Pavan is a slow, dignified dance in double time (though I have set it in triple!), and a Tarantella is a continuously fast dance in 6/8 that often accelerates." Additionally, the fourth movement draws inspiration from the Ian Anderson-lead British rock group Jethro Tull. [1]

Triple metre is a musical metre characterized by a primary division of 3 beats to the bar, usually indicated by 3 (simple) or 9 (compound) in the upper figure of the time signature, with 3
4, 3
2, 3
8 and 9
8 being the most common examples. The upper figure being divisible by three does not of itself indicate triple metre; for example, a time signature of 6
8 usually indicates compound duple metre, and similarly 12
8 usually indicates compound quadruple metre.

The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats (pulses) are contained in each measure (bar), and which note value is equivalent to a beat.

Ian Anderson Scottish musician, leader of Jethro Tull

Ian Scott Anderson is a Scottish musician, singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist best known for his work as the lead vocalist, flautist and acoustic guitarist of British rock band Jethro Tull. Anderson plays several other musical instruments, including keyboards, bass guitar, bouzouki, balalaika, saxophone, harmonica, and a variety of whistles. His solo work began with the 1983 album Walk into Light, and since then he has released another five works, including the sequel to the Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick (1972) in 2012, entitled Thick as a Brick 2.

Structure

The concerto has a duration of approximately 25 minutes and is cast in four 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. Portrait
  2. Pastorale – Barcarolle
  3. Pavan
  4. Taran-Tulla

Instrumentation

The work is scored for a solo flute and an orchestra consisting of two flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), two oboes (2nd doubling English horn), two clarinets (2nd doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons (2nd doubling contrabassoon), two horns, two trumpets, two trombones, tuba, timpani, three percussionists, piano (doubling celesta), harp, and strings. [1]

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

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.

Reception

The concerto has been praised by music critics. Reviewing the world premiere, Mark Stryker of the Detroit Free Press said the piece "proved to be a corker" and wrote, "The concerto was more abstract, with more dissonance and density than much of Kernis' music, which tends to traffic in lush melody and easily digestible harmony. Here the dominant feeling was one of mercurial mood swings, as the flute skittered quickly between dreamy reveries, sprightly dances and intense furies. All proceeded smoothly, including a charming use of a mandolin, until the last movement Tarantella, where the drum set and 'ride' cymbal beat and rock-inspired bass lines stumbled like an awkward teen trying to dance." [5]

<i>Detroit Free Press</i> newspaper

The Detroit Free Press is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the Sunday Free Press. It is sometimes referred to as the "Freep". It primarily serves Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, Livingston, Washtenaw, and Monroe counties.

Mandolin musical instrument in the lute family (plucked, or strummed)

A mandolin is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is usually plucked with a plectrum or "pick". It commonly has four courses of doubled metal strings tuned in unison, although five and six course versions also exist. The courses are normally tuned in a succession of perfect fifths. It is the soprano member of a family that includes the mandola, octave mandolin, mandocello and mandobass.

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Jadwiga Kotnowska is a Polish flautist. A winner of many important international competitions, she was educated in Poland, Switzerland and France. She studied flute with Aurèle Nicolet, Alain Marion and Jean-Pierre Rampal. Today, in turn, she is often invited to give Master Classes in flute performance in Poland, France, Scandinavia, United States and, recently, in Great Britain at the Royal College of Music.

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Carl Nielsen's Concerto for Flute and Orchestra was written in 1926 for Holger Gilbert-Jespersen, who succeeded Paul Hagemann as flautist of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. The concerto, in two movements, was generally well received at its premiere in Paris in October 1926 where Nielsen had introduced a temporary ending. The first complete version was played in Copenhagen the following January. The flute concerto has become part of the international repertoire.

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The Viola Concerto is a composition for solo viola and orchestra by the American composer Nico Muhly. Composed in 2014, the work was jointly commissioned by the Orquesta Nacionales de España, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Festival de Saint Denis, and the National Arts Centre Orchestra. It was first performed on February 6, 2015 by the violist Nadia Sirota and the Orquesta Nacionales de España under the conductor Nicholas Collon. The piece was later given its United States premiere on October 23, 2015, by Sirota and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin.

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The Viola Concerto is a composition for viola and orchestra by the Scottish composer James MacMillan. The work was jointly commissioned by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Its world premiere was given by the violist Lawrence Power and the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Vladimir Jurowski in the Royal Festival Hall, London, on 15 January 2014. The piece is dedicated to Lawrence Power.

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The Piano Concerto No. 4 for Left Hand and Orchestra is the fourth piano concerto by the American composer Ned Rorem. It was commissioned by the Curtis Institute of Music for the pianist Gary Graffman. The work was first performed by Graffman and the Curtis Institute of Music Orchestra conducted by André Previn at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, on February 4, 1993. Its New York City premiere was performed the next day by the same ensemble at Carnegie Hall. A then-unknown Hilary Hahn performed a solo violin section for both performances.

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 Kernis, Aaron Jay (2015). "Flute Concerto". G. Schirmer Inc. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  2. ↑ Stryker, Mark (January 20, 2016). "DSO to premiere flute concerto by Aaron Jay Kernis". Detroit Free Press . Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  3. ↑ "News - A New Flute Concerto by Aaron Jay Kernis". Music Sales Classical. January 19, 2016. Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  4. ↑ Nyffeler, Jann (January 29, 2016). "RPO to premiere flute concerto by Pulitzer winner". Democrat and Chronicle . Retrieved September 16, 2016.
  5. ↑ Stryker, Mark (January 22, 2016). "DSO tackles virtuoso new concertos by Kernis, Williams". Detroit Free Press . Retrieved September 16, 2016.
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