Post by erik on Feb 13, 2021 18:15:42 GMT -5
Modern American composer John Downey is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight with an out-of-this-world work for bassoon and orchestra.
John Downey: THE EDGE OF SPACE
The subject of space travel and alien intelligence has inspired many composers of film music, including John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith; and it has also inspired the use of great classical pieces to depict the beauty of space, as director Stanley Kubrick did when he used Johann Strauss’ ultra-famous “The Blue Danube” in his 1968 sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it has also inspired a number of contemporary classical composers as well. The American-born composer John Downey is one of the latter. A native of Chicago, Downey earned a Bachelor of Music degree from DePaul University in the late 1940’s, and studied in Paris with contemporary French composers like Darius Milhaud and Arthur Honneger. Between 1963 and his retirement in 1998, he also served as a professor of music at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. What became his best-known work was a 1978 work in the orchestral style of Joaquin Rodrigo’s 1976 composition “A La Busca De Mas Alla”, entitled “The Edge Of Space”, which he termed an orchestral fantasy for solo bassoon and orchestra. Premiered by bassoonist Stephen Basson and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra under Kenneth Schermerhorn in late 1978, the twenty minute-long work integrates the bassoon, normally only part of a larger orchestra in most outer space movie scores, into an important solo role, with sizeable instrumentation that includes harp, glass armonicas (one of that instrument’s first uses in any classical work since Mozart’s time), and even electric guitar. The work’s quirkiness has found receptive audiences in both America and in England, although it has only had one known recording made in the 1980’s by bassoonist Robert Thompson.
Bassoon: ROBERT THOMPSON
London Symphony Orchestra/GEOFFREY SIMON (Chandos)
Included:
Gordon Jacob: CONCERTO FOR BASSOON AND STRINGS WITH PERCUSSION
Jurriaan Andriessen: CONCERTINO FOR BASSOON AND WIND ENSEMBLE
Special YouTube video:
John Downey: THE EDGE OF SPACE
The subject of space travel and alien intelligence has inspired many composers of film music, including John Williams and Jerry Goldsmith; and it has also inspired the use of great classical pieces to depict the beauty of space, as director Stanley Kubrick did when he used Johann Strauss’ ultra-famous “The Blue Danube” in his 1968 sci-fi masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey. But it has also inspired a number of contemporary classical composers as well. The American-born composer John Downey is one of the latter. A native of Chicago, Downey earned a Bachelor of Music degree from DePaul University in the late 1940’s, and studied in Paris with contemporary French composers like Darius Milhaud and Arthur Honneger. Between 1963 and his retirement in 1998, he also served as a professor of music at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. What became his best-known work was a 1978 work in the orchestral style of Joaquin Rodrigo’s 1976 composition “A La Busca De Mas Alla”, entitled “The Edge Of Space”, which he termed an orchestral fantasy for solo bassoon and orchestra. Premiered by bassoonist Stephen Basson and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra under Kenneth Schermerhorn in late 1978, the twenty minute-long work integrates the bassoon, normally only part of a larger orchestra in most outer space movie scores, into an important solo role, with sizeable instrumentation that includes harp, glass armonicas (one of that instrument’s first uses in any classical work since Mozart’s time), and even electric guitar. The work’s quirkiness has found receptive audiences in both America and in England, although it has only had one known recording made in the 1980’s by bassoonist Robert Thompson.
Bassoon: ROBERT THOMPSON
London Symphony Orchestra/GEOFFREY SIMON (Chandos)
Included:
Gordon Jacob: CONCERTO FOR BASSOON AND STRINGS WITH PERCUSSION
Jurriaan Andriessen: CONCERTINO FOR BASSOON AND WIND ENSEMBLE
Special YouTube video: