Moby Dick (cantata)

Last updated

Moby Dick is a dramatic cantata for two tenors, two basses, male chorus, and orchestra by the American composer Bernard Herrmann with a libretto by Clark Harrington based on Herman Melville's eponymous novel. [1] The work was composed between February 1937 and August 1938 while Herrmann was music director at CBS and it was premiered in 1940 at Carnegie Hall in New York City by the New York Philharmonic under the conductor John Barbirolli. [2] [3] The piece is dedicated to Herrmann's friend and fellow composer Charles Ives. [1]

Contents

Composition

Hermann originally conceived Moby Dick as an opera, but found the novel too vast in scope and instead asked the librettist Clark Harrington to help him adapt the work into a cantata. While composing the work, Herrmann and Harrington took trips to Massachusetts in the summers of 1937 and 1938 to research the novel. [1] Herrmann later revised the work in 1973, having previously recorded it with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 1967. [4] The completed work lasts approximately 45 minutes in performance and is composed primarily in tonal Romanticism. [4] [2] James Leonard of the AllMusic Guide has compared the work to that of Herrmann's 20th-century contemporaries Arnold Bax, Frederick Delius, and Ralph Vaughan Williams. [2]

Reception

Phillip Scott of Limelight praised the work as "dramatic and skilfully orchestrated, befitting a born film composer, with tension deftly maintained throughout the work's 46 minutes." [5] Andrew Clements of The Guardian described the cantata as being "much closer to the world of Herrmann's later film music" and "a mix of imposing choral set-pieces, orchestral interludes and solo narrations." [3] Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times also praised the work, calling it an "unjustly neglected" cantata. [6] Malcolm Riley of Gramophone similarly opined, "It is a remarkably vivid piece, displaying the dramatic skills learnt in the composing atelier of a radio studio, and deserves to be much better known and more often performed." [4]

Discography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bernard Herrmann</span> American composer (1911–1975)

Bernard Herrmann was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest film composers. Alex Ross writes that "Over four decades, he revolutionized movie scoring by abandoning the illustrative musical techniques that dominated Hollywood in the 1930s and imposing his own peculiar harmonic and rhythmic vocabulary."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esa-Pekka Salonen</span> Finnish orchestral conductor and composer

Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Jones (composer)</span> Welsh composer

Daniel Jenkyn Jones was a Welsh composer of classical music, who worked in Britain. He used both serial and tonal techniques. He is best known for his quartets and thirteen symphonies and for his song settings for Dylan Thomas's play, Under Milk Wood.

The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."

Julian Anderson is a British composer and teacher of composition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederik Magle</span> Danish composer, concert organist, and pianist (born 1977)

Frederik Reesen Magle is a Danish composer, concert organist, and pianist. He writes contemporary classical music as well as fusion of classical music and other genres. His compositions include orchestral works, cantatas, chamber music, and solo works, including several compositions commissioned by the Danish royal family. Magle has gained a reputation as an organ virtuoso, and as a composer and performing artist who does not refrain from venturing into more experimental projects – often with improvisation – bordering jazz, electronica, and other non-classical genres.

Joseph Horovitz was an Austrian-born British composer and conductor best known for his 1970 pop cantata Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo, which achieved widespread popularity in schools. Horovitz also composed music for television, including the theme music for the Thames Television series Rumpole of the Bailey, and was a prolific composer of ballet, orchestral, brass band, wind band and chamber music. He considered his fifth string quartet (1969) to be his best work.

Howard David Blake is an English composer, conductor, and pianist whose career has spanned more than 50 years and produced more than 650 works. Blake's most successful work is his soundtrack for Channel 4’s 1982 film The Snowman, which includes the song "Walking in the Air". He is increasingly recognised for his classical works including concertos, oratorios, ballets, operas and many instrumental pieces.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Danish National Symphony Orchestra</span> Danish orchestra

The Danish National Symphony Orchestra, is a Danish orchestra based in Copenhagen. The DNSO is the principal orchestra of DR. The DRSO is based at the Koncerthuset concert hall in Copenhagen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mass (Stravinsky)</span>

Igor Stravinsky composed his Mass between 1944 and 1948. This 19-minute setting of the Roman Catholic Mass exhibits the austere, Neoclassic, anti-Romantic aesthetic that characterizes his work from about 1923 to 1951. The Mass also represents one of only a handful of extant pieces by Stravinsky that was not commissioned. Part of the motivation behind its composition has been cited by Robert Craft and others as the product of a spiritual necessity, as Stravinsky intended the work to be used functionally.

Bernard (George) Stevens was a British composer who first became known to a wider public when he won a newspaper composition prize for a 'Victory Symphony' in post-war 1946. The broader success was not sustained, but Stevens went on to become a respected composer and teacher at the Royal College of Music, using traditional forms for his compositions while extending his essentially tonal harmonic language towards serialism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Hesketh</span> British composer

Kenneth Hesketh is a British composer of contemporary classical music in numerous genres including dance, orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo. He has also composed music for wind and brass bands as well as seasonal music for choir.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gloria (Rutter)</span>

John Rutter's Gloria is a musical setting of parts of the Latin Gloria. He composed it in 1974 on a commission from Mel Olson, and conducted the premiere in Omaha, Nebraska. He structured the text in three movements and scored it for choir, brass, percussion and organ, with an alternative version for choir and orchestra. It was published in 1976 by Oxford University Press.

Richard Edgar-Wilson is an English tenor who has had an international career on the concert platform and the opera stage. He is particularly known for his oratorio work, especially as a Bach Evangelist and as an interpreter of the music of Benjamin Britten.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kenneth Alwyn</span> British conductor and composer (1925–2020)

Kenneth Alwyn was a British conductor, composer, and writer. Described by BBC Radio 3 as "one of the great British musical directors", Alwyn was known for his many recordings, including with the London Symphony Orchestra on Decca's first stereophonic recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. He was also known for his long association with BBC Radio 2's orchestral live music programme Friday Night is Music Night, appearing for thirty years as a conductor and presenter, and for his contribution to British musical theatre as a prolific musical director in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and married the actress Mary Law in 1960. His website and the first volume of his memoirs A Baton in the Ballet and Other Places were both published in 2015. The second volume Is Anyone Watching? was published in 2017. A Book of Remembrance was opened on his website in December 2020.

Symphony No. 1 is a four-movement orchestral composition by American composer Bernard Herrmann. The work was jointly commissioned in 1940 by CBS and the New York Philharmonic and was completed March 29, 1941, though Herrmann revised the work in 1973. It premiered July 27, 1941 at the CBS Radio Theater, with Herrmann conducting the CBS Symphony Orchestra. Though he would continue to compose concert music and film scores throughout his later life, the symphony would be Herrmann's last foray into nonprogrammatic music.

Music for Orchestra is a one-movement orchestral composition by the American composer Jerry Goldsmith. The piece was commissioned by Leonard Slatkin and the St. Louis Symphony in 1970 and premiered later that year.

L.A. Variations is an orchestral composition by the Finnish composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. The work was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, of which Salonen was then music director. It was first performed at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, on January 16, 1997, with Salonen conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The piece is dedicated to the orchestra, about which Salonen remarked, "I wrote LA Variations specifically for the players of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. I'm very proud of the virtuosity and power of my orchestra."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scenes from the Saga of King Olaf</span> Cantata by Edward Elgar

King Olaf is a cantata by British composer Edward Elgar scored for soloists, chorus and orchestra. It was commissioned for the North Staffordshire Music Festival of 1896, where it was well received. It went on to be performed by choral societies in other parts of the country.

"Look at the world" is a sacred choral composition by John Rutter, a harvest anthem to his own words. He offered versions for children's choir in unison or a four-part choir, with keyboard or orchestra. It was commissioned by the Council for the Protection of Rural England. The work was published by Oxford University Press in 1996.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Smith, p. 53-56.
  2. 1 2 3 Leonard, p. 601.
  3. 1 2 Clements, Andrew (September 29, 2011). "Herrmann: Moby Dick Cantata; Sinfonietta – review". The Guardian . Retrieved March 23, 2015.
  4. 1 2 3 Riley, Malcolm (December 2011). "Herrmann: Moby Dick". Gramophone . Retrieved March 23, 2015.
  5. Scott, Phillip (April 26, 2012). "HERRMANN: Moby Dick; Sinfonietta (Danish NSO & Choir/Schonwandt)". Limelight . Retrieved March 24, 2015.
  6. Swed, Mark (October 3, 2013). "'My Moby Dick' comes to Broad Stage". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved March 23, 2015.

Sources