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To learn more about James
Coleman, please click here.
Dmitri Shostakovich: from Symphony
No. 10 (1953: Portrait of Stalin)
Michael Daugherty: The Metropolis Symphony (1988-1993:
Lex, Red Cape Tango)
John Williams: from Superman (1978)
Length of Program: 75 minutes
After its triumphant concert held at New York
City's The Town Hall to
capacity audiences, One World Symphony returns to embrace
eclecticism in music. Infused by classical, rock, and pop
culture, Michael Daugherty's Metropolis Symphony celebrates
one of America's most beloved superheros and his arch-nemesis
Lex Luthor. Dmitri Shostakovich's monumental Tenth Symphony,
considered to be a "portrait of Stalin," may have
been a profoundly personal expression what life was like,
not just for Shostakovich himself, but for millions of individuals
during Stalin's regime. Even to the present, is Stalin considered
a hero, villain, or beyond category? For the soaring and
heroic Superman by John Williams, elementary school
violin students from The Promise Academy from the Harlem
Children's Zone will join One World Symphony. This diverse
program is both a tribute and a remembrance for an outstanding
musician and friend, James Coleman.
Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) is one of the most
performed and commissioned American composers of his generation.
Daugherty came to international attention with his Metropolis
Symphony (1988-93), a tribute to the Superman comics. Daugherty
has received numerous awards for his music, including the
Stoeger Prize from the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center,
recognition from the American Academy and Institute of Arts
and Letters, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation
and National Endowment for the Arts.
Daugherty describes The Metropolis Symphony (1988)
as:
"The Metropolis Symphony evokes
an American mythology that I discovered as an avid reader
of comic books in the fifties and sixties. Each movement
of the symphony -- which may be performed separately --
is a musical response to the myth of Superman. I have used
Superman as a compositional metaphor in order to create
an independent musical world that appeals to the imagination.
The symphony is a rigorously structured, non-programmatic
work, expressing the energies, ambiguities, paradoxes,
and wit of American popular culture. Through complex orchestration,
timbral exploration, and rhythmic polyphony, I combine
the idioms of jazz, rock, and funk with symphonic and avant-garde
composition.
Lex derives its title from one of
Superman's most vexing foes, the supervillain and business
tycoon Lex Luthor. Marked "Diabolical" in the
score, this movement features a virtuoso violin soloist
(Lex) who plays a fiendishly difficult fast triplet motive
in perpetual motion, pursued by the orchestration and a
percussion section that includes four referee whistles
placed quadraphonically on stage.
Red Cape Tango was composed after
Superman's fight to the death with Doomsday, and is my
final musical work based on the Superman mythology. The
principal melody, first heard in the bassoon, is derived
from the medieval Latin death chant Dies irae. This
dance of death is conceived as a tango, presented at times
like a concertino comprising string quintet, brass trio,
bassoon, chimes, and castanets. The tango rhythm, introduced
by the castanets and heard later in the finger cymbals,
undergoes a gradual timbral transformation, concluding
dramatically with crash cymbals, brake drum, and timpani.
The orchestra alternates between legato and staccato sections
to suggest a musical bullfight."
In March 1953, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
awoke to the news that Stalin was dead. His first professional
act was to release the works he had withheld from performance;
that summer he cleared his desk and began a new symphony,
which he wrote at lightning speed. Even though Shostakovich
may have sketched his Tenth Symphony as early as 1946,
it seems clear that he worked extensively and urgently on
the symphony only after Stalin1s death. This is music of
a new beginning, at once summing up all that Shostakovich
had to say, releasing everything that the years of Stalin's
oppression had buried and anticipating a fresh and enlightened
era ahead. The Tenth Symphony premiered in Leningrad
in December 1953 to a mixed response. In March 1954 the Moscow
branch of the Union of Soviet Composers even called a special
three-day conference to debate this important symphony, already
recognized as a pivotal work in the history of Soviet music.
Many didn't know how to place it within the context of Social
Realism that had governed Soviet composers since 1932. Some
were put off by its apparent pessimism. Finally, in the elaborately
ambiguous language that often springs from political gatherings,
the young composer Andrei Volkonsky pronounced the Tenth
Symphony an "optimistic tragedy." Continuing
a One World Sympony tradition, conductor Hong and the orchestra
will share their insights and demonstrations for curious
minds.
Some of John Williams' (b. 1932) iconic film
scores have been Superman, Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark,
Star Wars, Schindler's List and recently, the first three Harry
Potter films. Williams first composed the Superman score
for the first motion picture in 1978, and the themes have
become instantly recognized and identified with the character,
used subsequently for both the film Superman Returns and
the hit TV show Smallville.
The opening title march literally soars off
the screen, accompanying the opening title sequence of credits
flying through space. In composing the theme, Williams was
inspired by previous themes for the character, which relied
heavily on the relationship of the dominant fifth. By using
this melodic arrangement, the music itself seems to sing
the name "Superman" as if it were a lyric. The
rising trumpets triumphantly proclaim the name Superman,
while the soaring violin arpeggios give the sensation of
joining Superman in flight.
In the love theme Williams scores a complete
scene that plays without dialogue, effectively communicating
the story of Lois Lane's first night flying with Superman.
Starting calm and reserved, the music takes flight as the
couple does. The call-and-response of the music develops
the relationship between them, ultimately leading to the
full rendition of Can You Read My Mind. The music
follows the pair into a gentle landing, before Superman flies
into the night sky leaving a love-struck Lois standing on
her balcony.
-- Sung Jin Hong, Michael Daugherty, and
Nick Martorelli
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