Run is a brief and exhilarating orchestral showpiece written by American composer Michael Torke in 1992.
The work is filled with boundless energy and forward motion. It evokes a bright, gradually shifting landscape. The work is launched into motion with string flourishes and the crack of the woodblock. The short, repeating motif takes shape through a pulse-driven additive process reminiscent of the music of Steve Reich.
Here is the composer’s program note:
Run is a six minute concert opener commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for their 150th anniversary season. Out of short staccato rhythms come longer melodies, meant to create an uninterrupted sequence, a continous course, a progression onward to the sense of arrival in the final bars, stirring expectations in the listener of later pieces to come on the evening’s program. Though this music is not meant to be programmatic, one could imagine the moving panorama and feeling of uplift in a morning jogger breathing in the still fresh urban air.
This recording features Yoel Levi and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra:
Recordings
- Torke: Run, Yoel Levi, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra michaeltorke.com
Featured Image: San Francisco sunrise, photograph by Gabrielle Lurie, San Francisco Chronicle