A Brandenburg Autumn
inspired by Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1
For orchestra consisting of 3 oboes, bassoon, two horns, harpsichord, and strings. Approximately 16 minutes
Carnegie Hall Premiere: December 12, 2006
Stephen Hartke’s new work, A Brandenburg Autumn, is the first installment of Orpheus’ New Brandenburgs project, a series of commissions from today’s leading composers to create companion works to the six original "Brandenburg" Concertos. While this work borrows Bach’s instrumentation from "Brandenburg" Concerto No. 1, it departs into a wholly separate sound world. Hartke composed this work while in residence at the American Academy in Berlin, in the heart of Germany’s Brandenburg region. As in many of his works, a sense of the local landscape factors heavily in this piece’s unique musical language. The composer writes of this work: "It's an autumnal, valedictory sort of piece, and it has turned out to be very much about my strolling through the parks of Potsdam (the capital of Brandenburg, in fact) and the many Hohenzollern palaces and other buildings there. It is all very beautiful to see, especially in the autumn with the trees changing color and the sky dark and feeling so very close." The most overt references to Bach come in the final movement, with harpsichord figurations inspired by the English Suites, and a quotation of a melody by Frederick the Great that Bach elaborated in the Musical Offering.
–Aaron Grad
Stephen Hartke was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1952, and grew up in Manhattan. Hailed by Paul Griffiths in the New York Times as one of America's "Young Lions," Hartke's music reflects the diversity of his musical background, from medieval and renaissance polyphony, of which he was once quite an active performer, to very personal syntheses of diverse elements from non-Western and popular music.
Since settling in California in the 80s, his music, both chamber and orchestral, has come to circulate widely. He has enjoyed commissions from such groups as the New York Philharmonic, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Fromm Music Foundation, Music from Angel Fire, Chamber Music America, the Hilliard Ensemble, and recent grants from the Institute for American Music (based at the Eastman School of Music), Meet the Composer, and Opera America to compose a full-length opera for Glimmerglass Opera. Orchestral performances have included those by the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the Moscow State Philharmonic, the Kanagawa Philharmonic the Canadian National Arts Centre Orchestra, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, as well as numerous others.
In 2004, he was awarded the Charles Ives Living from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the purpose of which is to free him from the need to devote his time to any employment other than music composition. In announcing the award, Ezra Laderman, chair of the selection committee said: “Stephen Hartke's magnificent musicality has brought forth a series of exquisitely crafted compositions. As the recipient of the third Charles Ives Living, he is recognized as a composer of unusual gifts that exemplify what is wonderfully exciting about the music being created today.”
Most of Hartke's music is available on CD on CRI, ECM New Series, EMI Classics, Naxos American Classics, and New World Records. Stephen Hartke lives in Glendale, California, with his wife, Lisa Stidham, and young son, Sandy, and is Professor of Composition at the University of Southern California.
Alan Kay
Discovering the “Brandenburg” Concertos is practically a rite of passage for most composers. When did you first find them?
SH: My father loved “Brandenburg” Concerto No. 5, and he had a 78 recording of it with Wanda Landowska that I remember hearing when I was very small, perhaps six or seven years old. But the real musical revelation for me was when I bought the recording of the Collegium Aureum playing the concertos on period instruments on the recommendation of a friend. I know that we both completely wore out our copies in no time.
How did Orpheus come to embark on this New Brandenburg Project?
AK: I have been into new music for a long time, and I have been disturbed by the usual way of doing things: all that build-up, work and excitement only to have a single performance and then see the poor thing shelved, possibly for all eternity. I started wondering how to create a commissioning project that would have some long-term traction, build some buzz, and get other people interested in performing the works that came out of it. At the same time, I saw a growing trend in classical music circles of offering “Brandenburg” sets around the holidays. At some point I put the two together and thought to myself, why not create a new "set" of “Brandenburgs” inspired by the original set, but involve six different composers? It was not until I became the Orpheus Program Coordinator that I had the means to realize this project.
What finally sparked the project into motion?
AK: Orpheus had asked Stephen to write a piano concerto, but that did not work out. In exploring other ideas, Stephen independently came up with the idea of writing a piece in the same orchestration as Bach's First “Brandenburg” Concerto.
SH: Yes, quite separately, I had developed the same idea of commissioning composers to write companion pieces to the “Brandenburgs,” which I proposed unsuccessfully to the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra when I was composer-in-residence there from 1988 to 1992. My own preference in that original proposal had been to write a piece based on the instrumentation of the first concerto, because of the curious asymmetry of the ensemble with its trio of oboes, pair of horns and its lone bassoon. For my part, I do not look at this piece as adding to or being in competition with the “Brandenburgs,” but rather it is a personal exploration of a quirky and highly interesting instrumental combination.
AK: Stephen's idea for his new piece gave Orpheus the impetus to move on the New Brandenburg project for real. Now we have the amazing Christopher Theofanidis and Pulitzer Prize-winning Paul Moravec lined up for the next two seasons, with others about to be finalized. At the end of the series in the 2009-10 season, we plan to celebrate with two special performances combining the new and old “Brandenburgs.”
What is the geographic connection to Brandenburg in your new piece?
SH: I am fortunate this autumn to be a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, with an apartment in a villa overlooking the Wannsee, the beautiful collection of connected lakes that sits right in the center of the Brandenburg region. Indeed, Bach sent his offering to the Margrave Christian Ludwig at the Charlottenburg Palace—just six or seven stops on the S-Bahn from where I am now—and there the manuscript languished. My piece reflects on the thoughts and emotions stirred up by this landscape, from the lake to the amazing opulence of the many Hohnzollern palaces here in this part of Berlin and in neighboring Potsdam.
Interview conducted by composer Aaron Grad has been the Program Annotator for Orpheus since 2005. To comment or to read his blog about music, please visit www.aarongrad.com.