Program Notes: The Pines & Fountains of Rome

Adolphus Hailstork’s Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed

World Premiere January 17, 1980; Baltimore, Maryland (8 Minutes)

• Adolphus Hailstork has been a major figure in American music for more than five decades.
• His music fuses African, American and European traditions.
• Hailstork studied violin, piano, organ and voice in addition to composition.
• He has taught at Michigan State, Norfolk State and Old Dominion University.
• Hailstork’s best known works include Celebration and An American Port of Call for orchestra.

Virginia-based Adolphus Hailstork received his doctorate in composition from Michigan State University, where he studied with H. Owen Reed. His other composition teachers included Nadia Boulanger in France, Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond at the Manhattan School of Music and Mark Fax at Howard University. Hailstork has written widely for band, orchestra, chorus, chamber ensembles and solo voice. His choral works, including the cantata I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes and the oratorio, Done Made My Vow, are among his best-known compositions. His first opera, Paul Laurence Dunbar: Common Ground, was premiered by the Dayton Opera in 1995. His music has been performed and recorded by many major American orchestras, including the Detroit Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. 

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 prompted several composers to write music in his memory. Hailstork’s tribute is one of the most heartfelt. Originally composed in 1979, it was revised in 1995, at which point the composer assigned it its subtitle: Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed, honoring every American’s association with King’s most famous speech. The church bells that sound at the end of this tribute remind us to hope for the prospect of a better tomorrow, and the message of his music still resonates strongly today.

Michael Daugherty’s American Gothic

World Premiere May 4, 2013; Cedar Rapids, Iowa (22 Minutes) 

• Iowa native Michael Daugherty grew up with classical, jazz and popular music.
• His father was a jazz drummer who also played country and western.
• Daugherty’s mother sang in musical theater productions and tap danced.
• Initially a self-taught pianist, Daugherty eventually took up drumming as well.
• For his compositions, he has found inspiration in people, places and popular icons.

As a teenager, Daugherty played keyboard in rock, jazz and funk bands. The son of a dance band drummer, he has always had his feet planted in multiple musical cultures. He takes delight in commingling these cultures in his scores. Since the mid-1980s, his compositions have challenged expectations, tearing down boundaries that once separated popular culture from the concert hall.  American Gothic takes its title from the Iowa artist Grant Wood’s most famous painting, but the piece is also a loving salute to Daugherty’s upbringing in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Grant Wood lived and worked from 1922 to 1935. Daugherty has written, “The first movement, ‘On a Roll,’ suggests the vivid colors of Wood’s paintings of rural Iowa. ‘Winter Dreams’ is inspired by the bleak winter scenes in Wood’s black and white lithographs of the 1930s. ‘Pitchfork’ refers to the tool gripped by the dour farmer who stands alongside his spinster daughter in Wood’s American Gothic. For me, this iconic painting reveals the ambiguities of our culture and Wood’s dry wit. For this movement, I have composed playful, toe-tapping music. Like the gothic window in the background of Wood’s painting, this movement is a window into my contemporary musical vision of American Gothic.” 

Ottorino Respighi’s Fountains of Rome

World Premiere November 12, 1920; Rome, Italy (15 Minutes) 

Pines of Rome

World Premiere December 14, 1924; Rome, Italy (23 Minutes) 

• Unlike most of his Italian contemporaries, Ottorino Respighi did not focus on opera.
• He visited Russia twice, playing viola in the Imperial Opera Orchestra.
• While in Russia, he studied orchestration with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
• He taught for many years at Rome’s Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia.
• Respighi’s music is celebrated for its colorful orchestration.

Mention the name Respighi to music-lovers, and the immediate, almost Pavlovian response is likely to be the Fountains of Rome or the Pines of Rome. These two magnificent tone poems are by far Respighi’s most frequently performed works. They identify him rightfully as a programmatic composer, whose finest music drew inspiration from landscape, nature and works of art. These pieces are part of Respighi’s three tone poems known collectively as his Roman Trilogy. All are brilliant orchestral evocations of the Eternal City. Fountains came first, in 1916. Anyone who has visited Rome knows that fountains abound as beautiful, sculptural jewels that seem to adorn each public square, street corner and private courtyard. The Fountains of Rome comprises four sections, each of which illustrates one of Rome’s beautiful and sculptural fountains. Respighi’s delicate orchestration evokes the interplay of water and light at various times of day, from dawn to dusk. The Pines of Rome is more landscape-oriented, reflecting the magnificent natural and architectural beauty of the city that became Respighi’s home. The inner movements of the Pines of Rome have their own magic, drawing on the timelessness and variety of Rome itself. He also focuses on aspects of Roman life, such as children playing in the Borghese gardens. Listen for the sweet voice of the nightingale at the end of the Janiculum movement. The finale, Pines of the Appian Way, is an imagined recollection of Rome’s glory days. One of classical music’s most dramatic crescendos, it builds to a thrilling, triumphant conclusion. Respighi’s brasses will raise the hairs on the back of your neck! 

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Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed

Adolphus Hailstork 

Born April 17, 1941, in Rochester, New York | Currently residing in Norfolk, Virginia 

Instrumentation: Hailstork’s score calls for three flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp and strings.  

 

American Gothic

Michael Daugherty

Born April 28, 1954, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa | Currently residing in Ann Arbor, Michigan

Daugherty holds degrees from the University of North Texas, Manhattan School of Music and Yale. He also studied computer music at Pierre Boulez’s IRCAM Studio in Paris from 1979 to 1980. Since 1991, he has taught at the University of Michigan School of Music. Daugherty’s penchant for programmatic music that addresses cultural and political topics has made him both popular and controversial. He has held many residencies with American orchestras and summer festivals, and dozens of commercial recordings of his music are available. 

American Gothic takes its title from the Iowa painter Grant Wood’s most famous painting, but the piece is also a loving salute to Daugherty’s upbringing in Cedar Rapids, where Grant Wood lived and worked from 1922 to 1935. Daugherty’s composer’s note explains. 

American Gothic for orchestra is a contemporary musical reflection on the creative world of Iowa artist, Grant Wood (1891-1942). Composed in memory of my father, Willis Daugherty (1929-2011), the music also reflects on the years when I grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, as the oldest of five sons in the Daugherty family. With a bustling downtown and opulent movie palaces, with first-rate art and music programs in the public schools and with a wonderful symphony orchestra, art museum, public library and community theater, Cedar Rapids is a Midwestern center for the arts. My father was a self-taught dance band drummer in the area, while my mother Evelyn Daugherty (1927-1974) appeared in community theater productions such as Gypsy. They encouraged their sons to pursue studies in music and art in Cedar Rapids, and all the Daugherty brothers played in local bands, including The Soul Company.  

I first became aware of Grant Wood when I was a 10-year-old boy enrolled in art classes at the old Cedar Rapids Public Library (now the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art). Prominently displayed in the room where we learned to draw and paint was Grant Wood’s original painting of his mother, entitled Woman with Plant (1928). I realized that Grant Wood was everywhere in Cedar Rapids: his paintings and lithographs at the Museum of Art; his farm mural at the old Montrose Hotel; his carved wooden Mourner’s Bench in the principal’s office at McKinley Junior High School; his stained-glass Memorial Window at the Veteran’s Memorial Building. I often rode my bicycle past the artist’s studio at 5 Turner Alley, where Grant Wood created his most famous painting, American Gothic (1930).  

My father was a fan of Grant Wood’s regionalist art. He was a tour guide at the Grant Wood Studio, and he displayed reproductions of American Gothic along with Stone City (1930) at his home. Much like a character in the background of Grant Wood’s paintings from the 1930’s, my father milked the cows and fed the horses every morning on the farm before walking several miles down a desolate gravel road to a one-room country grade school located in Walker, Iowa…In 2012, I returned to Cedar Rapids to revisit the small towns of Eastern Iowa. I drove along the back roads and farms where my father grew up and where Grant Wood found inspiration for the people and places captured in his art. All the while, I was collecting musical ideas and mental images to create an emotional framework for my composition.  

“On a Roll,” the first movement, features a rollicking melody with colorful orchestration, suggesting the vivid colors and dynamic curves of Grant Wood’s paintings of rural Iowa. Just as Grant Wood simplified elements of the Iowa landscape into a precisely placed compositional design, I have created an abstract musical pattern. Like the modernist geometric patterns imposed on rolling hills in Young Corn (1931) and in Spring Turning (1936), the music rolls along in a continuous ascending and descending melody that moves from one instrument to the other, from the tuba to the string pizzicato. The percussion crackles like the sound of the corn growing in row after row on a hot summer day. 

“Winter Dreams” is inspired by the bleak winter scenes of rural Iowa depicted in Grant Wood’s black and white lithographs of the 1930’s, such as January and February. The violins play a haunting melody in harmonics, and the cellos respond with a melancholy countermelody, evoking a cold winter wind whistling down the valley. The title of this movement hearkens back to Jay Sigmund (1885-1937). As an Iowa poet and close friend of Grant Wood, Sigmund was instrumental in persuading Wood to turn his attention from France back to Iowa for artistic inspiration. In a poem entitled “Grant Wood,” Sigmund describes how “time found a new son / Dreaming on the plain.”  

The title of the third movement refers to the pitchfork gripped by the dour farmer who stands alongside his spinster daughter in Grant Wood’s painting, American Gothic. Many have speculated on the hidden meanings of this American masterpiece: is it a homage to the farmers of Iowa? A social satire? A political critique? A private joke? For me, this iconic painting reveals the ambiguities of American culture and Grant Wood’s dry wit. After all, Grant Wood was a founding member of the infamous Grant Wood Garlic Club in Cedar Rapids and a practical joker, like my father. For this movement, I have composed playful, toe-tapping music. A quirky melody played by the woodwinds is punctuated by spiky chords in the brass section and bluegrass riffs in the string section. Like the gothic window in the background of Grant Wood’s painting, this movement is a window into my contemporary, musical vision of American Gothic. 

– Michael Daugherty 

American Gothic is wonderfully evocative, each of its movements evoking a different aspect of Cedar Rapids and Iowa. We might think of it as three facets of rural Iowa: at work, in communion with nature and at play. The finale is downright fun with snatches of country fiddling and a riotous mix of rhythms and dances, all in a madcap competition for center stage. The piece concludes in a majestic salute to Americana. Orchestra Iowa commissioned American Gothic. Timothy Hankewich conducted the world premiere in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on May 4, 2013.  

 

Instrumentation: the composition is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, a large percussion complement, harp, piano and strings. 

 

Fountains of Rome  

Ottorino Respighi 

Born July 9, 1879, in Bologna, Italy | Died April 18, 1936, in Rome

The composer included the following note in the published score of the Fountains of Rome: 

In this symphonic poem, the composer has endeavored to give expression to the sentiments and visions suggested to him by four of Rome’s fountains, contemplated at the hour in which their character is most in harmony with the surrounding landscape, or in which their beauty appears most impressive to the observer. 

He spaces his observations throughout the day, describing in music the Fountain of Valle Giulia at dawn, the Triton Fountain at morning, the Trevi Fountain at midday and the Villa Medici Fountain at sunset. Thus, we not only get a glimpse of four different locations but also four ways the sunlight can play upon the spray of water in the fountains and the surrounding cityscape.   

Always a master at impression, Respighi paints vividly colored pictures: the languid calm of water splashing gently as the sun breaks, followed by the brilliant, flirtatious spray of the Triton. Each musical image prompts thoughts of another facet of Roman life. These fountains are a practical source of water as well as tourist attractions and works of sculpture. Only Rome boasts so many that are so beautiful. Only Rome has inspired such glorious music for her fountains.  

 

Instrumentation: the score calls for three flutes (third doubling piccolo), three oboes (third doubling English horn), three clarinets (third doubling bass clarinet), two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, two harps, celesta, piano, optional organ and strings.  

 

Pines of Rome

Ottorino Respighi 

Born July 9, 1879, in Bologna, Italy | Died April 18, 1936, in Rome

Respighi and the Italian Operatic Tradition 

Respighi is deservedly famous for the three tone poems known as his Roman Trilogy: Fountains of Rome, Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals. But he is also part of a great Italian tradition in music. Though his operas Belfagor (1923), La fiamma (1934) and Lucrezia (1937) have never known the success of the tone poems, they link Respighi more directly to the operatic heritage of Giuseppe Verdi, Ruggero Leoncavallo, Umberto Giordano, Pietro Mascagni and particularly Giacomo Puccini. His rich orchestral palette, the ease and plenitude of the melodies and the forthright text-painting all relate the Pines of Rome to the great theatrical masterpieces of the Italian operatic stage.  

Respighi’s opening section, The Pines of the Villa Borghese, shares the insouciance of Puccini’s Act II in La Bohème; and who will not be reminded, at least momentarily, of the great Te Deum scene at the close of Tosca’s first act, when hearing the magnificent, hair-raising crescendo of The Pines of the Appian Way? 

Four Snapshots of Rome, Then and Now 

Respighi opens the Pines of Rome at the Villa Borghese, a 17th-century palace with elegant pleasure gardens. Today, the building houses masterpieces of Italian painting and sculpture, and the Villa’s expansive grounds are one of Rome’s most popular public parks. We hear children playing, running this way and that, singing children’s ditties (Respighi asked his wife Elsa, who was 15 years his junior, to sing him the nursery songs she had grown up with; he incorporated some of these Italian tunes into the movement). 

Pines Near a Catacomb evokes the somber atmosphere of the underground Christian burial chambers in the Second and Third centuries. It is a brilliant dramatic stroke: total contrast after the exuberant young life depicted in the opening movement. Respighi’s music proceeds in a long, slow crescendo, sedate, serious and march-like, as if we were auditing the prayers of those early Christians.  

From this solemn section, Respighi moves to the serenity of the great outdoors. The Janiculum is one of Rome’s seven hills. A rhapsodic piano introduction and a clarinet theme establish the scene: far from the hubbub of the central city, on a moonlit night. At the end of the movement, we hear the song of a nightingale. In Respighi’s day, this interpolation of birdsong was wildly controversial.  

The steady build of Pines of the Appian Way is one of music’s great crescendos, suggesting the approach of Roman legions that tramped on those stones two millennia earlier. Respighi’s triumphant closing chords, dominated by brass, affirm the might of the Roman empire.  

Pines of Rome is a stunning example of Respighi’s expertise in orchestration. He had secured an early foundation in Bologna under the tutelage of Giuseppe Martucci (1856-1909), a disciple of Richard Wagner. Respighi’s experience as an orchestral violinist and violist served him especially well in his handling of the strings. For two winters – 1901/1902 and 1902/1903 – he worked in St. Petersburg as a violist in the imperial opera orchestra. He took advantage of those sojourns to seek out lessons with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The legendary Russian composer honed Respighi’s instinctive sense of orchestral color, and the young Italian started to come into his own.  

A Momentous Premiere 

Elsa Respighi, the composer’s widow, attended the premiere of the Pines of Rome on December 14, 1924, at Rome’s Teatro Augusteo, with Bernardo Molinari on the podium. In her biography of her husband, she recalled: 

The hall was packed, the atmosphere electric. At the end of the first part, there were protests in the form of booing and hissing which subsided with the sudden pianissimo of the second section. The audience was gripped by the second and third parts, while frantic applause such as had never before been heard in the Augusteo drowned the last bars of the poem.

According to Elsa Respighi, the Pines of Rome was one of the compositions in which her husband was most emotionally involved. His success in immersing us in the beauty of his beloved city is a compelling testimony to that involvement. 

 

Instrumentation: Three flutes (Third doubling piccolo), two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, four trombones, timpani, triangle, finger cymbals, Basque tambourine, maracas, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, harp, glockenspiel, celeste, gramophone, piano, organ, six buccine (Roman trumpets) and strings. 

 

In the Composer’s Words 

The score to the Pines of Rome includes Respighi’s descriptive program for the four sections of his tone poem. 

The Pine Trees of the Villa Borghese. Children are at play in the pine groves of Villa Borghese; they dance round in circles, they play at soldiers, marching and fighting, they are wrought up by their own cries like swallows at evening; they come and go in swarms. Suddenly the scene changes to  

Pines Near a Catacomb. We see the shades of the pine trees fringing the entrance to a catacomb. From the depth rises the sound of mournful psalm-singing, floating through the air like a solemn hymn, gradually and mysteriously dispersing. 

The Pines of the Janiculum. A quiver runs through the air: the pine trees of the Janiculum stand distinctly outlined in the clear light of a full moon. A nightingale is singing. 

The Pines of the Appian Way. Misty dawn on the Appian Way; solitary pine trees guarding the magic landscape; the muffled, ceaseless rhythm of unending footsteps. The poet has a fantastic vision of bygone glories. Trumpets sound and, in the brilliance of the newly risen sun, a consular army bursts forth toward the Sacred Way, mounting in triumph to the Capitol. 

 

Program Notes by Laurie Shulman © 2024