Ravinia 2022, Issue 3

A more complex chord, constructed on the drone pitch D, provides a background fabric for the “expressive and song-like” first-violin melody, which is the actual “source code.” Montgomery guided this material through a continuous process of transformation—“as if you took a spiritual and spread it along the entire page”—before the strings taper away to a final single pitch (G). MICHAEL DAUGHERTY (b. 1954) Time Machine The full orchestra is divided into three chamber orchestras; each orchestra has its own conductor. The three chamber orchestras combined call for four flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, three B-flat clarinets, one E-flat clarinet, and one bass clarinet, four bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, four C trumpets and piccolo trumpet, four trombones and bass trombone, tuba, woodblocks, small gongs, sleigh bells, tambourines, mark trees, tenor drums, large bamboo windchimes, xylophone, glockenspiel, claves, crystal glasses, rainsticks, bass drum, small anvil, large and small whips, suspended cymbal, finger cymbals, and crash cymbals, timpani (five drums), harp, piano/ celesta, and strings. Critically acclaimed composer Michael Daugherty blends jazz, rock, blues, pop kitsch, classical, and avant-garde elements in his eclectic and engaging style. A native of Cedar Rapids, IA, Daugherty studied jazz pi- ano and classical composition at North Texas State University before pursuing amaster’s de- gree in composition at the Manhattan School of Music. A Fulbright Grant supported work abroad at Paris’s center for electro-acoustic music, Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), directed by Pierre Boulez. After returning to the United States, Daugherty completed his doctorate in composition at Yale University, where his teachers included Earle Brown, Jacob Druck- man, Bernard Rands, and Roger Reynolds, while working independently with jazz ar- ranger Gil Evans. He later studied with Györ- gy Ligeti in Hamburg. Daugherty taught for four years at Oberlin College before joining the University of Michigan composition fac- ulty in 1990. Daugherty often chooses pop icons for his musical subject matter: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (the opera Jackie O! ), Elvis Presley ( Dead Elvis and others), Superman ( Me- tropolis Symphony ), Jimmy Cagney ( Snap! ), the Barbie doll ( That Spell? ), Liberace ( Le tombeau de Liberace ), Detroit city ( Motown Metal ), a motorcycle gang ( Hell’s Angels), four stone-faced presidents ( Mt. Rushmore ), Mr. Spock on Star Trek ( Vulcan ), writer Er- nest Hemmingway ( Tales of Hemingway ), singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie ( Made for You and Me ), the biblical first man and first woman ( The Diaries of Adam and Eve ), and numerous others. He has received awards from the Kennedy Center (Friedheim Award), American Acade- my of Arts and Letters (Goddard Lieberson Fellowship), National Endowment for the Arts, Guggenheim Foundation, and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (Stoeger Prize), as well as multiple Grammy Awards. The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, which commissioned Time Machine for Three Conductors and Orchestra, gave the world premiere under conductors Mariss Jansons, Lucas Richman, and Edward Cumming on November 24, 2003. In this score, Daugherty exploited dimensions of space and time by dividing the ensemble into three chamber orchestras of equivalent register, volume, and intensity (I = stage right, II = stage left, and III = center stage) and providing each orchestra with a distinctive tempo or meter. Because these differentiations occur simultaneously, each orchestra requires its own conductor. “When the three orchestras play together,” wrote the composer, “the three-dimensional music creates a time machine, in which trav- el through time (or the fourth dimension) in forward or reverse is possible.” The first movement, Past , begins with the dis- jointed motion of woodblocks playing differ- ent rhythms “like mechanical clocks or met- ronomes.” A nostalgic trip through historical musical epochs follows, as orchestras I and II offer polymetric dance music evoking the Re- naissance while orchestra III exudes the long, luxurious melodic lines and plush harmonies of the Romantic era. Listeners are reminded of human mortality when “two percussionists play large rainsticks, which sound like sand running through ancient hourglasses.” Time leaps forward to the 8027th century in the second movement, Future , in which Daugherty portrays the dystopian future in H.G. Wells’s 1898 novel, The Time Machine . Inequities and injustices driven by differences in social class emerge symbolically in the Michael Daugherty simple-minded Eloi, descendants of the Vic- torian elite who live in communes, eat only fruit, and decorate themselves with flowers (bourgeoisie/capitalists), and the subterra- nean Morlocks, fearful and furry creatures evolved from the poor factory workers (pro- letariat/communists). The Eloi experienced stunted physical growth and diminished intellectual capacity due to a lack of stimulation, since all their needs have been met. By contrast, the Morlocks require continual nutrition provided by meat, so they cultivate and eat the Eloi. The Victorian social class structure has been upended. Daugherty distinguished these dissimilar populations in highly contrasting music: “lyrical, hypnotic, dreamy music for the Eloi, and brutal, pulsat- ing, dissonant music for the Morlocks. Rattling bamboo windchimes suggest a terrible reality.” SERGEI PROKOFIEV (1891–1953) Romeo and Juliet Suite (assembled by Marin Alsop) Scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes and English horn, two clarinets and bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, two bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, two trumpets and cornet, three trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, glockenspiel, bass drum, triangle, tambourine, cymbals, maracas, xylophone, harp, piano, celesta, and strings The world learned of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet ballet music years before the choreo- graphed work reached the stage. An intrigu- ing series of political maneuvers, assassina- tions, and canceled productions in the Soviet Union delayed the danced debut. Director Sergei Radlov first suggested the scenario to Prokofiev in late 1934 for a production at the Leningrad State Academic Theater of Op- era and Ballet (formerly the Mariinsky The- ater). In December 1934, the theater’s name changed to the Kirov State Theater after the assassination of Sergei Kirov, head of the H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine Communist Party in Leningrad. Radlov lost his position at the theater, and plans for a Leningrad production of the Romeo and Juliet ballet collapsed. By spring 1935, Prokofiev and the unflappable Radlov had arranged a contract with the Bol- shoi Theater in Moscow. The two-man team ballooned to a handful of collaborators on the story line alone. Their unwieldy product was a five-act, 24-scene scenario. Nevertheless, work on the score progressed with amazing swiftness in the quiet environs of Polenovo: “The colony is very pleasant, the locale is pic- turesque and all the inhabitants have some connection or other to the Bolshoi Theater.” Sketches for the ballet—replete with a happy, non-Shakespearean ending (this “original” conception was revived at Bard Summer- Scape 2008)—evolved over a five-month pe- riod ending on September 8, 1935. The pro- duction, however, met an abrupt end when the Bolshoi canceled the premiere. With no immediate hopes of staging his bal- let, Prokofiev fashioned two orchestral suites of seven excerpts each in 1936. (Prokofiev ar- ranged a third suite in 1946 and compiled a set for piano in 1937.) The long-frustrated staging of Romeo and Juliet first occurred not in the Soviet Union, but in Brno, Czechoslovakia (present-day Czechia), at a performance by the Yugoslav National Ballet of Zagreb on December 30, 1938. Just over a year later, the Kirov opened its memorable production with Galina Ulanova dancing the role of Juliet on January 11, 1940. Soviet Art acclaimed the production: “The success of Romeo and Juliet , a production of rare beauty, content, and interest, is not just an ordinary success for Leningrad ballet, it is a success for all of Soviet choreography, and a testament to its colossal creative and ideolog- ical growth.” The Kirov troupe took its pro- duction to Moscow during the summer. Ula- nova recreated her interpretation of the title Sergei Prokofiev (1953) RAVINIA.ORG • RAVINIA MAGAZINE 43