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Bernard Rands's Chains Like the Sea and Henri Dutilleux's Le temps l'horloge at UC Berkeley

Sep. 05, 2013

Bernard Rands's <em>Chains Like the Sea</em> and Henri Dutilleux's <em>Le temps l'horloge</em> at UC Berkeley

The University of California at Berkeley Department of Music hosts Bernard Rands as visiting composer in September. On September 27, Rands presents a colloquium on his music, followed by a performance of his orchestral work Chains Like the Sea, by the University of California at Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, conducted by David Milnes. The concert, which also features a performance of Henri Dutilleux's Le temps l'horloge with soprano Ann Moss, receives a repeat performance on September 28.

Chains Like the Sea, a two-movement orchestral work inspired by Dylan Thomas’s poem “Fern Hill,” was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic and premiered in 2008 conducted by Lorin Maazel. Rands comments:

The first movement articulates its 10-minute duration with periodic pealing of bells beginning softly and on a single pitch, gradually increasing in volume and density to a final bellpeal chord of 28 pitches. Each bell toll is followed by a prolongation of its resonance, melodically and harmonically, in the orchestra. The suggestive imagery of the second movement is that of leaves caught in sunlight and formed into rivulets by gentle breezes and forceful winds. Beginning with a Ritornello which features complex rhythmic patterns on three trumpets, its opening appearance is skeletal but on each recognizable return (there are five of them) it is more elaborate in orchestral density which celebrates the extraordinary virtuosity of a great orchestra.

Dutilleux’s Le temps l'horloge, an orchestral song cycle composed as five episodes for soprano and orchestra, features French texts by Jean Tardieu, Robert Desnos and Charles Baudelaire. The work was written for soprano Renée Fleming and co-commissioned by the Saito Kinen Festival (Japan), the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Radio France. Le temps l'horloge premiered (in its initial three-movement version) in Japan in September 2007, led by Seiji Ozawa, followed by the American premiere in November with Fleming joining James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2009, Fleming and Ozawa gave the world premiere of the complete cycle (which included an additional interlude and fouth poem) with the Orchestre National de Radio France in Paris.

For more information on Bernard Rands, please visit www.schott-music.com 

Detail on Henri Dutilleux can be found at www.schott-music.com    

To learn more about the University of California at Berkeley performance, visit music.berkeley.edu

Bernard Rands
Chains Like the Sea (2008)
for orchestra
4(3.afl, 4.pic).2.ca.4(4.bcl).3(3.cbsn)-4.3.2.btbn.1-4perc-2hp.cel.pno-str
22’

Henri Dutilleux
Le temps l'horloge (2006-2009)
pic.2.2.Ebcl.2.bcl.2cbsn-3.3.3.1-2perc-hp.cel.cemb.acc-str
18’

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