{ program notes
Arturo Toscanini and his fiery interpretations of the great symphonic and operatic literature . In 1933 , the 23-year-old composer used his status as nephew of the celebrated operatic contralto Louise Homer , one of Toscanini ’ s favorite singers , to pay a visit to the maestro at his summer retreat on Lake Maggiore in northern Italy . To Barber ’ s delight , they struck up an immediate friendship , and the old conductor expressed interest in performing a work by Barber despite the fact that he generally shunned contemporary music . But Barber was by no means a typical contemporary composer . Only recently graduated from Philadelphia ’ s Curtis Institute , he was a precocious artist who had already found his own creative voice : lyrical , deeply expressive and rooted in the harmonic language of the late 19 th century — a voice even the conservative Toscanini could love .
It took Barber several years to produce two works he thought worthy of the conductor ’ s attention . Finally , early in 1938 , Barber sent Toscanini his newly completed First Essay for Orchestra and the Adagio for string orchestra he had fashioned from the slow movement of his String Quartet of 1936 .
Toscanini ’ s selection of both pieces for his evening radio broadcast with the NBC Symphony on November 5 , 1938 , was the ultimate promotional coup for Barber . By the next morning , Samuel Barber was a household name among American music lovers .
Barber had truly embodied his uncle ’ s advice , especially in the Adagio , which remains his most beloved and frequently performed composition . Using the simplest of musical means , it is a work whose sincerity and depth of feeling shoot directly to the heart . Called our “ national funeral music ,” it has eloquently expressed Americans ’ grief at the ceremonies for Franklin D . Roosevelt in 1945 and John F . Kennedy in 1963 . In 1986 , it moved a new generation in the Academy Award-winning film Platoon , mourning the young lives taken by the Vietnam War .
Instrumentation : String orchestra .
Beautiful Passing : Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
Steven Mackey
Born in Frankfurt , Germany , February 14 , 1956 ; now living in Princeton , New Jersey
Though today Steven Mackey sits in the heart of the musical establishment as a professor of music at Princeton University ( once the academic bastion of the most severe forms of 12-tone serialism ), his path there was exceedingly unusual . He did not grow up playing the piano or the violin but , instead , the Baroque lute and the electric guitar . He still performs regularly on the guitar and has written a number of pieces for that instrument . Rock bands rather than youth orchestras provided his formative performing experiences . At the University of California-Davis , he originally planned to major in physics , but greater exposure to classical music shifted him to composition . A PhD from Brandeis University followed , then an appointment to the Princeton faculty . In 1991 , he was given the first distinguished teaching award from Princeton .
Mackey is also one of America ’ s most honored composers : he has won two of the prestigious Friedheim awards from the Kennedy Center , as well as a host of other prizes including a Grammy Award in 2012 . Commissions come to him regularly from great orchestras like Chicago , Los Angeles and San Francisco , and from ensembles and soloists such as the Kronos Quartet , soprano Dawn Upshaw and violinist Leila Josefowicz .
Mackey likes shaking up an audience and pushing listeners to relate to the music in ways that are new to them . Thus , in a 1998 Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performance , his Eating Greens featured an unforgettable interruption when a pizza deliveryman appeared on stage to hand over an order to one of the musicians ! Audience members , of course , burst out laughing , but Mackey ’ s real motive was to trick them into paying closer attention to the music once it resumed .
Beautiful Passing is a far more serious and moving work than was Eating
Greens ; in fact , it relates to his mother ’ s death , and its title incorporates the last words she said to him . Jointly commissioned by the BBC and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra , it had its world premiere by violinist Leila Josefewicz and the BBC Symphony in Manchester , England on October 24 , 2008 .
Steven Mackey has provided the following guide to the Concerto :
“ Beautiful Passing is in two halves separated by a violin cadenza . The first half deals with the interaction between the sharply contrasting materials of the violin and the orchestra . The orchestra develops something of a group mentality , a mass hysteria that is both scary and funny . It isn ’ t so much malevolent as it is mechanical and oblivious to the nuance of the violin . That insensitivity is threatening but , like a bull in a china shop , also somewhat funny to observe with enough distance . Gradually , a few members of the orchestra hear the voice of reason and become supportive of the violin . After a cadenza that impresses the orchestra with fluttering delicacy , the violin introduces its own version of brutality — crushing triple stops — which command , for the first time , a consensus between the orchestra and soloist . In this second part , they retain their individuality but conspire toward common goals , unlike in the first part .
“ The governing metaphor of the work has to do with the violin gaining control of its own destiny , competing with , commanding , and ultimately letting go of the orchestra . This metaphor arises from my experience , during the composition of the piece , watching my mother gain control of her destiny to the point of predicting the day she would let go , predicting the day of her death . Her last words to me were , ‘ Please tell everyone I had a beautiful passing .’”
Instrumentation : Three flutes including piccolos , two oboes including English horn , two clarinets including E-flat clarinet , bass clarinet , two bassoons including contrabassoon , four horns , two trumpets , two trombones , tuba , percussion , timpani , harp , piano , strings .
28 Overture | bsomusic . org