This Harp Which I Wake Now (SATB*) Secular Mixed

SKU: AP.36-A888801

ISBN 9798888529911. UPC: 659359989490. English.

The ballet La Bayadère (The Temple Dancer or The Temple Maiden) was created in 1877 for famed French choreographer Marius Petipa to music by Ludwig Minkus (1826-1917). In four act and seven tableaux, the ballet tells the story of the bayadère Nikiya and the warrior Solor, lovers who are beset by jealous rivals, arranged marriages beyond their control, murder, an opium-fueled hallucination of the afterlife, and a vengeful god that destroys the temple and everybody in it as revenge for Nikiya's murder. It was first performed on February 4, 1877, by the Imperial Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia. It was hailed as a success and masterpiece immediately after the premiere, particularly The Kingdom of the Shades scene in Act II, an excerpt which remains a major standalone work for the ballet repertoire. Modern performances of La Bayadère are almost always derived from a 1941 version sated for the Kirov/Mariinsky Ballet by Vladimir Ponomarev and Vakhtang Chabukiani, which incorporates additional music by Minkus, Drigo, and Pugni. Act II takes place after Nikiya is killed by a concealed venomous snake. A depressed Solor smokes opium, resulting in a vision of Nikiya's spirit dwelling in the Kingdom of the Shades, a nirvana in the Himalayas. The two lovers reconcile among the shades of other bayadères in a Pas de deux, then Solor is awakened just in time for his arranged marriage to another woman. This orchestration of Act II has been completed by William McDermott. Instrumentation: 2.2.2.2: 4.2.3.0: Timp.Perc(2): Harp: Str (4-4-3-3-3 in set).

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SKU: PR.164002390

UPC: 680160038091.

I became interested in the work of Plato through my friend and collaborator, the writer and philosopher Paul Woodruff. Paul's new translation, with Alexander Nehamas, of the Symposium gave me insights into ancient Greek ways of thinking about Love, Beauty, and Wisdom -- and managed to keep the earthy, and often bawdy side of it all in full view. But their new translation of Plato's later dialogue Phaedrus went even further: the beauty of the speeches is breathtaking, and the discourse itself is enough to keep one awake at night. Basically the Great Speech of Socrates in the Phaedrus dialogue has to do with the place of Eros in the world, and with the conflict in the soul between fleshly pleasure and philosophic discovery. I will not attempt to encapsulate this brilliant discourse in a program note: suffice it to say that reading it gave rise to my two-sided work for clarinet, violin, and piano, Phaedrus. The first movement represents the Philosophic life, and is thus subtitled Apollo's Lyre (Invocation and Hymn). It begins with an unaccompanied melody for the clarinet, which (after a pair of harp-like flourishes for the piano, expands into an accompanied canon. The voices in the dialogue (clarinet and violin) follow each other by a prescribed number of beats, but the music is totally devoid of any meter at all. The piano, representing the lyre, accompanies this lyric love-feast with repeated strummed chords. The canon has three large sections, and ends with violin echoing the unaccompanied clarinet invocation as the sound of the lyre fades. The second movement, called Dionysus' Dream-Orgy (Ritual Dance) presents, after a brief introduction, another kind of unmetered music. Rather than long lyric flights of philosophic song, however, this time we hear a unison dance of unbridled energy and sensual transport. The piece soon forms itself into a loose arch form, with contrasting metered dance sections divided by the unison unmetered orgy tune. Midway through the movement, Apollo's melody returns from the first movement, but it is a temporary reminiscence. The orgiastic dance returns, reaches a climax, and ends with a stomping of feet. While Plato asserts that a proper balance between lust and reason is necessary in all men, he (naturally) gives the nod to Philosophy as the better choice in which to live. Not so in my music: the two sides are meant to coexist and to complement each other. No sides are taken. Phaedrus was commissioned of the Verdehr Trio by Michigan State University. It is dedicated to the Vedehr Trio with great affection and admiration.