Contemporary/Twenty-First Century

Haydn’s Symphony No. 60 in C Major, “Il Distratto”: Music for the Comic Stage

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Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 60 in C Major, Il Distratto, (“The Absent-Minded Gentleman”) has been called “the funniest piece of symphonic music ever written.” (Kenneth Woods) The six-movement Symphony was conceived originally as incidental music for a 1774 German-language adaptation of Le Distrait, a farcical comedy by the French playwright, Jean François Regnard. The play centers around the buffoonish misadventures of a man who is so absent-minded that he nearly forgets …

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Thomas Adès’ “Polaris,” Voyage for Orchestra: Music of Sea and Sky

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Polaris, a tone poem written in 2010 by the British composer Thomas Adès (b. 1971) evokes the vastness and majesty of the sea and the sky. A shifting kaleidoscope of color, it is music in which elemental forces are in play. Subtitled, “Voyage for Orchestra,” Polaris can give you the cinematic sensation of drifting over a gradually shifting landscape. The title is a reference to Polaris, the North Star, long a navigational tool for …

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Anna Clyne’s “DANCE”: A Concerto for Cello and Orchestra Inspired by Rumi

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Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you’re perfectly free. – Rumi  These lines by the 13th century Persian poet, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, inspired DANCE, a cello concerto written in 2019 by the English composer, Anna Clyne (b. 1980). The Concerto is set in five movements, each of which corresponds to a line in the …

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Anna Clyne’s “This Midnight Hour”: A Cinematic Journey Through the Night

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This Midnight Hour, an evocative tone poem by the English composer, Anna Clyne (b. 1980), suggests the shadowy nocturnal world of film noir. Written in 2015, the single movement orchestral work unfolds as a haunting cinematic journey. Growling low strings initiate a spine-chilling “chase” down desolate alleyways. Amid the throb of an elevated heartbeat, we find ourselves alone with shadowy specters of the night. Distant, indistinguishable sounds echo across an alienating landscape. Suddenly and …

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New Release: Michael Torke’s “Time”

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In architecture, our perception of space is influenced by repeating elements which provide a sense of structure, form, and scale. A particularly sensuous example can be found in the crisp geometric lines which form the bronze curtain wall of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s 1958 Seagram Building in New York. While architecture occupies the spacial realm, music unfolds through time. Time is the title of the newest composition by American composer, Michael Torke (b. 1961). …

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Pavel Karmanov’s “Get In”: A Sunny Post-Minimalist Quintet

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Born in Siberia in 1970, the Russian composer, Pavel Karmanov, has been called “a romantic dressed in a minimalist gown.” Perhaps more accurately, Karmanov’s music inhabits the sunny, uninhibited world of post-minimalism. Influenced by the repeating patterns and pulse of the 1970s works of Steve Reich and Philip Glass, this music embraces tonality and the language of contemporary popular music. Karmanov is equally at home as a flutist, pianist, and rock musician. …

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Arvo Pärt’s “Da Pacem Domine”: A Timeless Meditation

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Time has a deep meaning, but it is temporary, like our lives. Only eternity is timeless. –Arvo Pärt A sense of mysticism and timelessness pervades the music of the Estonian composer, Arvo Pärt. Emerging from the currents of twentieth century minimalism, it is music which inhabits the quiet, meditative space of Gregorian chant and early polyphony. “The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity,” said Pärt, who …

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