Symphony No. 1, Op. 3 (1958)

Symphony No. 1, Op. 3 (1958) By Kyle Gann Written for the concert Nadia Boulager: Teacher of the Century, performed on May 13, 1998 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Easley Blackwood has been associated with the University of Chicago for over three decades, and is also a phenomenal pianist, known for his performances…

Read More

Nadia Boulanger: Teacher of the Century

Nadia Boulanger: Teacher of the Century By Leon Botstein Written for the concert Nadia Boulanger: Teacher of the Century, performed on May 13, 1998 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. If one imagines a history of twentieth-century music written around 1970, one would assume that such a history would describe twentieth-century musical modernism as…

Read More

D’un matin du printemps (1918)

D’un matin du printemps (1918) By Kyle Gann Written for the concert Nadia Boulager: Teacher of the Century, performed on May 13, 1998 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Nadia Boulanger’s life was one lived surrounded by composers. Arguably, the most crucial composer in her life was her younger sister Lili, with whom her…

Read More

Orchestral Variantions (1957)

Orchestral Variantions (1957) By Kyle Gann Written for the concert Nadia Boulager: Teacher of the Century, performed on May 13, 1998 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. If Nadia Boulanger became famous for teaching American composers, one of her first remained her most famous: Aaron Copland (1900-1990). Copland, who sailed to France to study…

Read More

Icare (1952)

Icare (1952) By Bernard Jacobson Written for the concert Nadia Boulager: Teacher of the Century, performed on May 13, 1998 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Was Igor Markevitch himself Icarus? Irresistibly evoking the legend of the young pioneer who flew too near the sun, Markevitch’s composing career looks in hindsight very much like…

Read More