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This work is my second concerto, following my 1973 Flute Concerto by two years. But the first movement had been written earlier, in the late summer and fall of 1972 following my first season with the Aspen Music Festival. I had played second bassoon all summer next to the celebrated American bassoonist Leonard Sharrow, who had been Toscanini's youngest principal player in the NBC Symphony, and I wanted to thank him for that experience. The Flute Concerto and two other works intervened before I was able to complete the second and third movements, however, and I had undergone something of stylistic change in the meantime. What surprises me now, writing these words some twenty years later, is how similar the musical language is despite that pause in the creation of the work. When the musical signature of Dmitri Shostakovich (D-E flat-C-B) makes its appearance in the last movement, one has the sense that it was present in the other two as well---and in fact, it was. Shostakovich had always been a favorite composer of mine, in no small part because of his masterful writing for the bassoon, and I had heard of his illness while working on the final movement of this work. When I made the deliberate insertion of his initials in the piece at that point, I had forgotten that those same pitches were integral to the entire scherzo, and in lesser ways to the first movement as well. In a way, then, the entire composition became a memorial to Shostakovich, who died as I was writing the last pages. I revised this piece in the summer of 2006, tightening several passages that needed tightening, and correcting a host of pitches that thirty years of composing have taught me how to fix. The Concerto da Camera is symphonic in scope, despite the rather limited sonic and acoustic range of the solo bassoon. Many passages are scored with the bassoon virtually unaccompanied, and those that are accompanied are very transparent---early critics remarked that this was one of the few bassoon concerti where one could actually hear the soloist!---but the overall effect is of a 25-minute chamber symphony with a very prominent bassoon part. The first movement is a sonata-allegro form, with an introduction, a cadenza, and an epilogue-coda. The mood is brooding and introspective, with a sad little waltz as a second theme. It begins and ends in a loose version of b-minor. The scherzo, which contains some of the first music I wrote for the piece, was originally going to be a tragic play on the "clown of the orchestra" sobriquet, which bassoonists despise. There is even a recurring motive in a dotted rhythm which is lifted from Leoncavallo's sad-clown opera PAGLIACCI ---but that is all that survived of what was intended as a pastiche. The rest of the music is original, and follows a traditional scherzo-with-trio form. The bassoon, which had been primarily lyrical in the first movement, is given a rigorous technical workout here. The tone is serious, but very animated., and after the climax the entire orchestra rushes down to a single note. The finale begins with an extended interlude over this note, B-natural. Again, this is an in-joke for bassoonists: in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, there is a surprisingly difficult passage where the solo bassoon links the first movement to the second with a held B-natural that (depending on the conductor) can feel like the end of the world. But here, the solo violin has a hypnotic soliloquy that prepares the way for the bassoon's re-entry---a reversal of the Mendelssohn trick. A gentle lullaby ensues, in F-major. The tone becomes more earnest, and finally the orchestra breaks out in a highly charged fugue, in which the soloist participates as interloper rather than collaborator. At the very height of the action, the bassoon literally screams his three-note lullaby motive, and the orchestra shouts him down. He persists, however, and in an accompanied cadenza, the soloist succeeds in bringing the lullaby music back. The epilogue uses this music again, but in a kind of lost, otherworldly way. The final utterances of the three-note tune by the soloist have the effect of singing someone to sleep, which in fact is the case: Dmitri Shostakovich's initials, played pizzicato, form the last music we hear. The Concerto da Camera was premiered by Leonard Sharrow, with the Louisville Orchestra conducted bythe composer, in 1975. The revised version was premiered by bassoonist Kristen Wolfe-Jensen, with the University of Texas New Music Ensemble under the composer's direction, on October 3, 2006.
The Planets Prior to writing The Planets, English composer Gustav Holst had never written anything of its kind, and he would never write anything like it in the years after its completion. Following the immense success of The Planets, the public wanted more of the same from Holst compositionally. One of his best qualities, however, was his refusal to write anything but what he wanted to write, rather than succumbing to the pressures of his audience. Holst took two years to write The Planets. He finished ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ in 1914, but its completion predated the outbreak of World War I, rather than being a response to it. There are seven movements; Earth and Pluto are absent. The planet Pluto was not discovered until 1930, and although Holst was alive during its discovery, he demonstrated no interest in adding it into the fold. In his mind, the work was complete as it was. Holst’s deep interest in and understanding of astrology explains the absence of Earth in The Planets. Astrologists study how celestial bodies impact life on Earth, a geocentric allusion still able to embrace heliocentric fact. With that in mind, Holst was far more interested in musical representations of the seven planets surrounding our own. Had Holst drawn inspiration from astronomy rather than astrology, the result might have included a movement titled Earth. The movements in The Planets are unique tone poems, with no musical thematic material linking them. The influences of Schoenberg, Debussy, and even Stravinsky are well documented, but the scope, grandeur, and individuality of The Planets are still incomparable to the works Holst said inspired him. “Mars, the Bringer of War” opens The Planets with its familiar ostinato. The pattern begins quietly, but Holst wrote it in an odd meter of 5/4; even the more peaceful moments of “Mars” seem unsettled as a result. “Mars” is a large ABA form, ending with loud unison orchestra. “Venus, the Bringer of Peace” brilliantly follows “Mars.” In stark contrast to the blazing brass and pounding ostinato of the previous planet, “Venus” contains sweeping melodic lines in the strings and winds. The harp and glockenspiel are particularly nice, calm touches to “Venus.” There are passages of falling intervals that seem to pay homage to the previous “Mars,” but Holst handles them so carefully, as if “Venus” tamed the angry “Mars.” The opening of “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity” is as well known as the opening of “Mars.” The themes of “Jupiter” form an ABACABA rondo, each being eminently recognizable. The majesty of the C theme elegantly captures the grace and power of the planet Jupiter. “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age” is a slow, stately march. Holst’s wife, Isobel, sent him concert reviews of The Planets while he was teaching in Constantinople. Of the reviews, he wrote back to her, “It’s all quite nice, except that people seem to dislike Saturn which is my favorite.” “Uranus, the Magician” is easily comparable to Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, although Holst hadn’t heard the piece before he wrote “Uranus.” “Uranus” reaches a similar authority to “Mars” with its loud brass and pounding percussion. For “Neptune, the Mystic,” Holst says that the women’s chorus should be “placed in an adjoining room, the door of which is to be left open until the last bar of the piece, when it is to be slowly and silently closed." The Planets is thought to be the first symphonic piece with an ending that merely fades out on repetition. Holst’s daughter, Imogen, called the ending “unforgettable.” Holst influenced an entire generation of film score composers, directly and indirectly; George Lucas gave John Williams movements from The Planets to demonstrate what he wanted for the music of Star Wars. The Planets was so popular that the cities of New York and Chicago were arguing over who should get the American premiere in 1921. The agreement was reached that the two cities would premiere The Planets on the same night; Chicago was still slightly irritated that, due to the difference in time zones, New Yorkers heard the piece an hour sooner than Chicagoans.
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