Blue Cathedral
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
“. . . I found myself imagining a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky,” writes Jennifer Higdon of “blue cathedral,” her orchestral meditation on her brother’s untimely death.
Even our one selection from a non-American composer, Offenbach’s “American Eagle Waltz,” celebrates our nation. We hear from Ketelby, McBride, Ives, and Rzewski before finally settling on Copland, whose “Appalachian Spring” evokes the archetypal images of pioneers given to us by that other great American, Martha Graham, for whose dance troupe the work was composed. Copland himself conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a recording from April 1959.
Jennifer Higdon composed “blue cathedral” as a memorial to her recently deceased brother. She is represented by a flute, and he by a clarinet; the two instruments seem to hold a dialogue on the vicissitudes of life and time.
Ernst Bacon says “Tumbleweeds” is a “cycle of freely used Americana.” Commissioned by violinist Dorothy Bales, whom we hear tonight, its eight separate movements call to mind Appalachia, the prairies, covered-wagon days, and other inherited images buried in our common national psyches.
Even our one selection from a non-American composer, Offenbach’s “American Eagle Waltz,” celebrates our nation. We hear from Ketelby, McBride, Ives, and Rzewski before finally settling on Copland, whose “Appalachian Spring” evokes the archetypal images of pioneers given to us by that other great American, Martha Graham, for whose dance troupe the work was composed. Copland himself conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a recording from April 1959.
Jennifer Higdon composed “blue cathedral” as a memorial to her recently deceased brother. She is represented by a flute, and he by a clarinet; the two instruments seem to hold a dialogue on the vicissitudes of life and time.
Ernst Bacon says “Tumbleweeds” is a “cycle of freely used Americana.” Commissioned by violinist Dorothy Bales, whom we hear tonight, its eight separate movements call to mind Appalachia, the prairies, covered-wagon days, and other inherited images buried in our common national psyches.
