SKU: PR.466411770

UPC: 680160640850. 9 x 12 inches.

Mississippi I. Father of Waters: born of the Highlands and the Lakes; the Glaciers, the Mountains, and the Prairies. The picture of your birth is clounded in the ice and mists of ancient ages but your spirit remains our life stream. II. The Red Man knew your bountiful gifts and gave thanks to the Great Spirit on your banks. -- The Spanish and French Fathers brought the glory of Christianity to America on Mississippi. But all men, white and dark; -- Indian, Spaniard, and Negro; Bourbon and Yankee, combined to make Mississippi the heart of America. Saga of the Mississippi Harl McDonald Born near Boulder, Colorado, July 27, 1899 Now living in Philadelphia The original suggestion for a symphonic work on the subject of the Mississippi came indirectly from the late Booth Tarkington who saw in it color and movement and atmosphere translatable into the terms of music. In the course of time, by the mysterious processes of composers' chemistry, it took shape as a tone-poem of two sections, one representing the rise of the great stream from its primeval geologic sources, the other the human history of the river. Mr. McDonald devised the following verbal outline of the general scheme of his diptych: I. Father of Waters: born of the Highlands and the Lakes; the Glaciers, the Mountains, and the Prairies. The picture of your birth is clounded in the ice and mists of ancient ages but your spirit remains our life stream. II. The Red Man knew your bountiful gifts and gave thanks to the Great Spirit on your banks. -- The Spanish and French Fathers brought the glory of Christianity to America on Mississippi. But all men, white and dark; -- Indian, Spaniard, and Negro; Bourbon and Yankee, combined to make Mississippi the heart of America. The first of the two movements, beginning molto andante, is vaguel modal to hint at antiquity. It is built upon the conventional two themes, with an episode, poco piu mosso, misterioso, for prehistoric murk and muck. There are various changes of pace and mood. The second, Allegro ma vigorosamente, prefigures an Indian ceremony. A theme presented by flute, clarinet and bassoon is a Canadian Indian fishing call collected by the late J.B. Beck. A later passage of quasi-Gregorian chant identifies the French and Spanish priests who made the great river their highway. The fishing-call is altered in rhythm and harmony to represent Negro field hands and roustabous. A turbulent close brings all these elemts together in the muddy swirling currents of the Mississippi. The work was begun in the summer of 1945, and was revised and completed in the summer of 1947. Harl McDonald, who is the manager of The Philadelphia Orchestra, has concerned himself with music as an art, as a science and as a business in course of his career. He was born on a cattle ranch in the Rockies, but since his was a musical family, his up-bringing combined piano lessons with ranch life. Years of study and professional experience followed in Los Angeles and in Germany. In 1927 he was appointed lecuter in composition at the University of Pennsylvania and he has since then made is home in Philadelphia. In 1933 under a grant of the Rockefeller FOundation he collaborated with physicists in research dealing with the measurement of instrumental and vocal tone, new scale divisions and the resultant harmonies. In that same year he was named head of the University's music faculty and conductor of its choral organizations. In 1939, having been a member of the Board of Directors for five years, he was appointed manager of The Philadelphia Orchestra. He continus to write, but otherwise his entire attention is now devoted to managerial duties. Chief items in the catalogue of his compositions are four symphonies, three orchestra suites, a half-dozen tone-poems, three concertos and considerable quantity of choral music.

SKU: SS.50600030

Commissioned by the Colonial Symphony, Paul Hostetter, Music Director and Conductor. First performed in 2006. Composer's Note: My inspiration for Smiling Dennis is the great bass clarinet virtuoso Dennis Smylie. I have had the pleasure of getting to know Dennis over the past several years owing to our mutual affiliation at Montclair State University. We would meet unintentionally in the halls and begin conversations regarding all manners of topics: from the colorful history of the bass clarinet - and bass clarinetists - to the furious appetite of the New Jersey groundhog. Dennis inevitably finds the humor in things - he revels in discovering the comic story that can often be found, just underneath the topic. When Maestro Hostetter asked me to compose a new piece during his initial season with the Colonial Symphony, and mentioned the possibility of a work related to humor, I immediately thought of the Dennis. When I spoke with Maestro Hostetter the following day, I had already conceived of the title (very unusual for me - I'm much more a musical/visual thinker than a verbal one) as well as the overall musical narrative. Smiling Dennis is a concerto in one movement for one bass clarinetist and twenty string players. Somewhat unusually, each performer has a unique musical assignment - that is, the string players are not aligned into their typical alliances of first violins, second violins and so forth. This permits a more complex string texture, allowing each performer to assert his or her individuality. Indeed, the notion of individuality is essential to this concerto, as it often is in concerti. For example, Smiling Dennis begins with the bass clarinet not quite obeying the conventions of tuning to the orchestra. Rather than simply take the A offered by the Concertmaster, the soloist playfully performs a gently descending series of notes. Offered another A, the soloist repeats this gesture (though with a different descending series). This exchange occurs four times. In the final one, members of the string orchestra join the soloist in the first significant statement of one of the central melodies. The bass clarinet completes this introductory section alone, playing all the way down to a low A, a third below the lowest note in the celli. Following the introduction, Smiling Dennis consists of six sections, somewhat along the lines of a dance suite: an energetic Allegro, a lyric Arioso, a forward Piu mosso, a light-hearted and syncopated dance, a even more energetic passage for strings alone, and finally a modified return to the introduction. In the return, the string ensemble is no longer at all oppositional to the soloist. Rather, in response to the soloist's gentle cajoling and supportive commentary, the strings accompany - with pleasure, you might say - the quiet, individual playfulness of the bass clarinet. The work ends with a return to the soloist's substratum A, accompanied quietly by the strings.