Concert Notes
Spatial Explorations
Spatial Explorations By Leon Botstein Written for the concert Spacial Explorations, performed on June 1, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. This final concert of our 2007-2008 season was inspired in part by the death of György Ligeti, who died two years ago on June 12. His biography can serve as a mirror…
Read MoreTōru Takemitsu, Cassiopeia
Tōru Takemitsu, Cassiopeia By Frank J. Oteri Written for the concert Spacial Explorations, performed on June 1, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Percussionists have only recently emerged as viable soloists with orchestras. Throughout the twentieth century there have been a few top-shelf concertos for marimba—including works by Milhaud, Creston, and Takemitsu—and even occasional…
Read MoreAndrzej Panufnik, Sinfonia di Sfere
Andrzej Panufnik, Sinfonia di Sfere By Peter Laki Written for the concert Spacial Explorations, performed on June 1, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Andrzej Panufnik and his friend Witold Lutosławski (1913-1994) were the two leading figures in Polish music in the years immediately following World War II. After his defection in 1954, Panufnik…
Read MoreRued Langgaard, Sfaerernes musik (Music of the Spheres)
Rued Langgaard, Sfaerernes musik (Music of the Spheres) By Peter Laki Written for the concert Spacial Explorations, performed on June 1, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, Denmark apparently had room for only one composer—Carl Nielsen (1865-1931). The author of the “Inextinguishable” Symphony completely dominated the…
Read MoreGyörgy Ligeti, Apparitions
György Ligeti, Apparitions By Paul Griffiths Written for the concert Spacial Explorations, performed on June 1, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. When Ligeti left Hungary, in 1956, he took with him his scores and also his hopes—in particular, his hopes for a kind of music corresponding to a dream he had had as…
Read MoreGyörgy Ligeti, Atmosphères
György Ligeti, Atmosphères By Paul Griffiths Written for the concert Spacial Explorations, performed on June 1, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. What Ligeti heard in his Apparitions was the possibility of composing “a canon so dense that it creates a texture, a static tissue.” Gesture and incident could now fade, to leave textures…
Read MoreA New Italian Renaissance
A New Italian Renaissance By Leon Botstein Written for the concert A New Italian Renaissance, performed on April 18, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Commenting on the death of Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936), Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) observed that despite the different musical paths they had taken, which led to a breach in their…
Read MoreGian Francesco Malipiero, Pause del Silenzio I
Gian Francesco Malipiero, Pause del Silenzio I By Harvey Sachs, writer, journalist, and music historian Written for the concert A New Italian Renaissance, performed on April 18, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. “The 1880 Generation:” thus musicologist Massimo Mila dubbed Ottorino Respighi, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Alfredo Casella, and Gian Francesco Malipiero, collectively, because all…
Read MoreGiuseppe Martucci, Symphony No. 2 in F, Op. 81
Giuseppe Martucci, Symphony No. 2 in F, Op. 81 By Harvey Sachs, writer, journalist, and music historian Written for the concert A New Italian Renaissance, performed on April 18, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. In late nineteenth-century Italy, the word “music” was practically synonymous with the word “opera.” During the single decade of…
Read MoreIldebrando Pizzetti, Per L’Edipo Re di Sofocle: tre preludii sinfonici (Three Preludes to Sophocles’ Oedipus)
Ildebrando Pizzetti, Per L’Edipo Re di Sofocle: tre preludii sinfonici (Three Preludes to Sophocles’ Oedipus) By Frank J. Oteri Written for the concert A New Italian Renaissance, performed on April 18, 2008 at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center. Although he lived well into the twentieth century, Italian composer Ildebrando Pizzetti (1880-1968) created music which was…
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