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Oliver Knussen in Boston and New York

Apr. 02, 2013

Oliver Knussen in Boston and New York

On April 12 and 13, composer and conductor Oliver Knussen leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in two performances of his Violin Concerto and Whitman Settings. Pinchas Zukerman is violin soloist and soprano Claire Booth sings Knussen's 12-minute orchestral song cycle. 

Co-commissioned by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra and written for Zukerman, the Violin Concerto had its premiere under Knussen leading the Pittsburgh musicians in May of 2002. The 17-minute concerto flows in three movements played without pause. “One possible clue to the nature of the piece,” Knussen shares, “is that I was tempted to write ‘in three scenes,’ and to mention that despite the classical associations with the movement titles, the expressive world is sometimes wildly at odds with expectation…At times the violinist resembles a tightrope walker progressing along a (decidedly unstable) high wire strung across the span that separates the opening and closing sounds of the piece…”

The orchestral version of Whitman Settings premiered in May 1992 with Knussen leading soprano Lucy Shelton and the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a performance at London’s Barbican Hall. Knussen elaborates:

Whitman Settings, commissioned by the Amphion Foundation and written for Lucy Shelton, were originally composed for voice and piano [in] 1991. These characteristically powerful but unusually short poems of Walt Whitman attracted me because they deal with grand natural phenomena on small canvases. The idea of making a parallel version with orchestra came later, while puzzling over how some unusually wide chord spacings could be achieved without a piano. As it turned out, the original vocal line is supported by the most intricate and kaleidoscopic orchestral score I’ve ever done (although the actual notes remain faithful to the original), and I like to think of the result as a concise four-movement vocal symphony. All four poems muse on things in space or the sky, and all four songs grow out of the idea heard in the very first bar.

Miller Theatre's "Composer Portraits" series features Oliver Knussen on April 18 with an offering of select chamber works from the composer's oeuvre. Brad Lubman leads the Ensemble Signal with mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway, soprano Jamie Jordan and violinist Courtney Orlando through the composer's Requiem - Songs for Sue, Songs Without Voices, Secret Psalm, Hums and Songs of Winnie-the-Pooh and Ophelia Dances, Book I. More details on the Composer Portrait can be found at www.millertheatre.com

For concert and ticket details, visit the Boston Symphony website.

For more information about Oliver Knussen, go to www.fabermusic.com.

Oliver Knussen
Violin Concerto (2002)
for violin and orchestra
3.1.ca.2.1.cbsn-3.2.2.0-timp-2perc-pno(cel)-hp-str
17’ 

Whitman Settings (orchestral) (1992)
text (Eng.) by Walt Whitman
for soprano and orchestra
3(3.pic).1.ca.2.cbcl.2.cbsn-4.2.0.0-4perc-cel-hp-str
12’

Songs without Voices (1992)
for ensemble
fl.ca.cl-hn-pno-vn.va.vc
11'

Ophelia Dances, Book I (1975)
for ensemble
fl.ca.cl-hn-pno.cel-vn.va.vc
8' 

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