THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2019-2020 45
Program Notes
but so did something else: sounds propelled by simple,
tonal ideas, hypnotic rhythms and a pulse. It was music
stripped naked, baring tendon and bone.
“Minimalism is the story not so much of a single sound
as of a chain of connections,’’ writes Alex Ross in his
book The Rest is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century. The
ambient innovator Brian Eno described it as “a drift away
from narrative and towards landscape, from performed
event to sonic space.’’ Steve Reich, one of the movement’s
founders along with Glass, Terry Riley, and La Monte
Young, likens it to “placing your feet in the sand by the
ocean’s edge and watching, feeling, and listening to the
waves gradually bury them.’’
Glass made his mark as a minimalist with such works as
Music in 12 Parts, but he also moved on to a maximalist
stage. His studies at the Juilliard School, tutelage under
the iconic Parisian pedagogue Nadia Boulanger and
sitarist Ravi Shankar all opened Glass to a wide spectrum
of sound. The insistent, cell-like phrases and perpetual
drones of his chamber works evolved into the hallucinatory
operatic style of Einstein on the Beach, the introspective
tableaux of Satyagraha, the score for the 1998 film The
Truman Show, and the banality of the Symphony No. 2. If
Glass has been criticized for losing his edge for the sake of
commercialism, he defends his choices.
“I started out being an experimental composer, but now
I’m very much a popular composer,’’ he said in the mid-
1980s. “’I reserve the right to change my work through my
career. Every artist does. My intention was always to look
for a broader public.’’
Somewhere in between lies the Concerto for Saxophone
Quartet, written in 1995 for soprano, tenor, alto and
baritone saxophones in four brief movements marked
slow, fast, slow, fast. “It’s a very hypnotic piece,’’ said TFO
Music Director Michael Francis. “It’s complicated but not
in an obvious way, and is a very beautiful piece to listen
to.’’
Although technically demanding, the concerto is
deliberate and measured. The ebb and flow of the first
and third movements almost lull listeners into a semisleep,
while the jazzy second and fourth keep us alert and
engaged.
“It’s actually not a typical Glass piece,’’ said Stuart Malina,
TFO’s principal guest conductor who designed tonight’s
program. “There’s a lot of repeated patterns but there’s
also a lyricism lacking in many of his other works. And I
think this piece goes well with American in Paris, because
the saxophone quartet will play in that, too.’’
Glass composed the work for the Raschèr Saxophone
Quartet from Germany, and wrote two versions, one for
quartet and one for quartet and orchestra.
GEORGE GERSHWIN (1898-1937)
AN AMERICAN IN PARIS
Duration: ca. 16 minutes
When George Gershwin approached the famed composer
Maurice Ravel for private music lessons, the Frenchman
turned the table, imploring the American – albeit
sarcastically – for tips on composing jazz. Gershwin didn’t
carry the weight of his European contemporaries, but they
admired him, taking note of this young “song plugger’’
from Brooklyn, whose Broadway musicals, Rhapsody
in Blue, and Tin Pan Alley piano improvisations would
help define not only the jazz age, but a new American
orchestral sound.
Gershwin was a natural. While riding a bus through New
York one day a tune popped into his head. He jotted down
what would become the hit Swanee, earning him an
unprecedented $10,000 in one year and selling 2 million
records. Gershwin was famous, rich, and a darling of both
the public and critics. After the success of Rhapsody, one
critic advised Gershwin to “go straight on, and you will
knock all of Europe silly.’’
Gershwin did just that. In 1928 he traveled to France and
soaked up the lifestyle, taking in the cafes, concerts, bustle
and people. His impressions gave birth to the tone poem
An American in Paris, what one French writer described as
“Jazzbo in Montparnasse.’’ The work would inspire the
1951 Academy Award-winning film of the same name,
starring Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron.
“My purpose is to portray the impressions of an American
visitor in Paris as he strolls about the city,” Gershwin
wrote, “listens to the various street noises and absorbs
the French atmosphere.’’
The first of five brief, connected sections takes listeners
onto the streets of Paris, the strings mimicking the
visitor’s stroll amid sounds of taxi horns. Gershwin insisted
actual taxi horns be used in performances, not trumpets
or trombones. “And that is in fact what they are,’’ said
conductor Stuart Malina. “They’re pitched horns, with the
black rubber bulbs you squeeze.’’
Next comes a slow bluesy section that expresses the
visitor’s homesickness. Hints of the Charleston can be
heard afterward, what the composer described as “a
second fit of blues,’’ and the work concludes with an
invigorating stroll down the Champs-Elysees.
“It’s loads of fun to perform and listen to,’’ Malina said.
“It’s compact, full of beautiful melodies, and very mature
orchestration. You really hear Gershwin’s ability to spin
melodies in this piece.’’
Program notes © 2020 by Kurt Loft, a freelance writer
and former music critic for The Tampa Tribune.