Aaron Jay Kernis
Concerto with Echoes—inspired by Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6
The essential element in Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 that inspired this work comes from its opening passage, in which two spiraling solo violas, like identical twins, follow each other breathlessly through a hall of imitative mirrors. Like the Bach, it begins with only violas, cellos and basses, but gradually adds reeds and horns.
The first movement begins with a soft introduction that lays out some of the important building blocks of the concerto’s harmony, followed by a fiery, toccata-like virtuosic display. The lines in the movement are constantly mirrored and layered in a maze of sound. The slow movement, the heart of the piece, is essentially a passacaglia built on slowly moving bass lines, mirrored layers of melody, and open harmonic spaces. Rather than closing with a fast movement, the brief, slow Aria suggests a courtly dance. It is expressive and pensive, ending with a sigh rather than a flourish.
Aaron Jay Kernis
Melinda Wagner
Little Moonhead: Three Tributaries—inspired by Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.4
Commissioned with funds provided by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust
Wagner’s “New Brandenburg” plays with the translation of the name Bach, meaning brook or stream. Subtitled Three Tributaries, the work unfolds in flowing movements organized in a typical fast-slow-fast pattern. Little Prelude (with Rills) features cascading scale fragments and arpeggios. The second movement, Moon Ache, explores music that the composer describes as “a bit melancholy,” with haunting muted strings and simple, airy melodies. The finale, Fiddlehead, races at a tempo marked “scrubby and impertinent.” A Fiddlehead is an edible frond of an unfurled fern plant, resembling the scroll of a violin. In addition to the pun of the movement title, this fanciful piece has one more inside joke in the final measures, when Bach’s signature motive of B-flat, A, C, B-natural – or, as spelled in German notation, B, A, C, H – appears first in the violas and then throughout the ensemble.
Aaron Grad
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Sea Orpheus—inspired by Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5
Sea Orpheus takes its inspiration from a poem by George Mackay Brown, the Orcadian poet. The three movements, played without a break, are based on a Gregorian chant, “Tantum Ergo Sacramentum,” which is subject to constant transformation processes, and is present throughout in some form. The work was commissioned as a companion piece to Bach’s Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, and has a similar orchestration, with flute and violin solos, and a virtuoso keyboard part, taking full advantage of the modern grand piano. This is the first time that I have attempted to write a strictly neo-Classical work, and I have borrowed techniques from the Brandenburg Concerto and from Bach’s Musical Offering and The Art of Fugue.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
Christopher Theofanidis
Muse—inspired by Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3
Commissioned with funds provided by the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust
Much of Theofanidis’s music references early music and liturgy, so in a sense he and Bach have dipped from the same wellspring. With an instrumentation based on the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, Muse further subdivides the triplicate string parts and grants the harpsichord an independent and prominent role.
The brisk first movement seems to expand on Bach’s own kaleidoscopic prelude style. Theofanidis establishes a dark, neo-Gothic harmonic spectrum of old church modes, darting through surprising pivots and chord changes, all whirled together with nearly perpetual motion handed off among the sections. The second movement, marked with the indication to perform it “with a light touch, ornate,” is quintessential Theofanidis: cascading major scales and arpeggios, nostalgic ornaments and patient elaboration of material. The third movement explores directly Bach’s relationship to the past, specifically the Gregorian chant “Veni, redemptor gentium,” which he adapted in the chorale “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland.”
Aaron Grad
Stephen Hartke
A Brandenburg Autumn—inspired by Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 1
Jointly commissioned by The Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra
A Brandenburg Autumn emerged as something of a musical diary of my impressions living not far from the palace where the dedicatee of Bach’s Brandenburgs lived, as a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin. The area of Brandenburg is a land of lakes, and my studio was quite close to Wannsee, the lake that borders on western Berlin, as well as Potsdam, the capital of Brandenburg. The first movement—Nocturne: Barcarolle—is a musical sketch of the lake, even incorporating suggestions of the sound of halyards striking the masts of the sailboats moored at a nearby marina. The second movement— Scherzo: Colloquy— is a more playful piece about conversation and, more particularly, the speech rhythms and dynamic of a dinner table discussion among scholars. The most autumnal movement —Sarabande: Palaces —is very much about my strolling through the parks of Potsdam admiring the many Hohenzollern palaces and other buildings there. The final movement—Rejouissance: Hornpipe— was inspired by a desire to hear three English horns playing in unison fortissimo, and thus it begins, setting off a celebratory dance that I hope is reminiscent in spirit of the more outdoor sort of High Baroque orchestral pieces.
Stephen Hartke
Paul Moravec
Brandenburg Gate—inspired by Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.2
Commissioned with support from the New York State Music Fund established by the New York State Attorney General at Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
The title suggests a portal through which we enter Bach’s world of exuberant invention. It also refers to the actual monument in Berlin, which I associate primarily with the astonishing images of the opening of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989.
There are three movements in this piece—fast-slow-fast—and they are played attacca, that is, without interruption between the movements. The name Bach, B-A-C-H, can be represented in German musical notation as B-flat, A, C, B-natural. Bach himself used this device occasionally in his own music, and various composers since then have followed his lead in tribute to the master. This piece is, among other things, a musical meditation and elaboration on the motive. As the B-A-C-H motive is a chromatic four-pitch collection, it well suits my characteristically chromatic harmonic language. Occasionally, the motive serves as the foundation of various twelve-tone rows treated in the general context of my own particular tonality.
Paul Moravec
