Thomas Stacy, English horn; Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Palmer; String Orchestra of New York, Vincent Persichetti; Eastman Musica Nova, Paul Phillips
Ned Rorem wrote his Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra for Thomas Stacy, who premiered the work in early 1994 with his orchestra, the New York Philharmonic.
"My sole aim in writing the Concerto for English Horn was to exploit that instrument's special luster and pliability. The literature is slim, maybe because the English horn ... cannot hold its own against an orchestra as singularly as a piano or trumpet or cello or flute. To make the sound gleam like an opaline reed through a wash of brass and silver, catgut and steel, I used an orchestra which by Philharmonic standards is hardly huge, with a pair of oboes, like nephews, often flanking, sometimes goading, their wistful relative. "Each of the five movements is to some degree a Passacaglia, a neutral or redundant background, a canvas upon which the soloist will limn his pictures.”
The impetus for the late Vincent Persichetti's Concerto for English Horn and String Orchestra (1977) parallels that of Rorem. Persichetti directed his Opus 137 to Thomas Stacy's nonpareil talents and the New York Philharmonic's request for new music for its principal players. Persichetti:
"The thematic core and heart of the work occurs in the opening of the second movement (Amabile). The English horn song stems from the alto solo of [my work, The Creation, Op. 111]:
He knows the paths of the birds,
the sky-lark, the blackbird;
A butterfly asleep on the mountainside
—on a temple bell.
"A rustling central section combines various strands of tones from the opening of the Concerto and ends with an affirmation of the `Butterfly Song.' In the agile and swift finale (Spiritoso), fragments of the core-subject take flight as sound levels shift quickly. The English horn, recalling the uneasiness of the earlier part of the work, interrupts with an accompanied cadenza of retrospection. A coda emerges, growing in vigor as it sheds all sorrow and sadness in dance."
Both the title and thrust of Sydney Hodkinson's The Edge of the Olde One, Chamber Concerto for Electric English Horn, with Strings and Percussion (1977), derives from the work of the English Romantic poet John Clare (1793-1864): "... I eagerly wandered on and rambled along the furze the whole day til I got out my knowledge ... often wondering to myself that I had not found the edge of the olde one the sky still touched the ground in the distance and my childish wisdom was puzzled in perplexities..."
"If the piece is `about' anything, I suppose [it's] an elaborate journey of the mind, a trip: often meandering, thorny and dense, that threads itself vaguely across the subconscious; any clear definition is largely obfuscated until one attempts, at least, to break out into a `clearing.' It is not unlike the eyes (of the lunatic?), constantly darting from image to cloudy image, from insanity to a super-saneness. But then, which is which? Is the landscape altered at all?"
Three Concerti for English Horn
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Track Listing
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Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra: I. Preamble and Amble
Ned Rorem
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Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra: II. Love Letter
Ned Rorem
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Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra: III. Recurring Dream
Ned Rorem
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Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra: IV. Perpetual Motion
Ned Rorem
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Concerto for English Horn and Orchestra: V. Medley and Prayer
Ned Rorem
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Concerto For English Horn And String Orchestra, Op. 137: I. Con fantasia
Vincent Persichetti
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Concerto for English Horn and String Orchestra, Op. 137: II. Amabile
Vincent Persichetti
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Concerto for English Horn and String Orchestra: Op. 137: III. Spiritoso
Vincent Persichetti
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The Edge of The Olde One
Sydney Hodkinson
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