Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (b. 1939)
Violin Concerto • Rituals
Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, who is represented here by two
widely divergent compositions, has earned an
international reputation for producing music that is at
the same time recognisable, yet different. Like the great
masters of bygone times, she creates works “with
fingerprints”, pieces that are peculiarly American and
that combine craft and inspiration in reflecting the
composer’s optimistic and humanistic spirit.
Encyclopedia entries do not often make judgements or
assessments, but the Eighth Edition of Nicolas
Slonimisky’s Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of
Musicians effectively describes Zwilich’s position
among contemporary composers: “There are not many
composers in the modern world who possess the lucky
combination of writing music of substance and at the
same time exercising an immediate appeal to mixed
audiences. Ravel was one, and so in a quite different
way, were Bartók and Prokofiev. Zwilich offers this
happy combination of purely technical excellence and a
distinct power of communication, while a poetic element
pervades the melody, harmony, and counterpoint of her
creations.”
Born in Miami, Florida, Zwilich studied at the
Florida State University and the Juilliard School where
her major teachers were Roger Sessions and Elliott
Carter. Before turning exclusively to composition, she
was a professional violinist and for seven years a
member of the American Symphony Orchestra under
Leopold Stokowski. She is the recipient of numerous
prizes and honours, including the 1983 Pulitzer Prize in
Music (the first woman ever to receive this coveted
award), the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Chamber Music
Prize, the Ernst von Dohnányi Citation, the Arturo
Toscanini Music Critics Award, and many others
including four Grammy nominations. She has been
elected to the Florida Artists Hall of Fame, the American
Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American
Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 1995 she was named
to the first Composer’s Chair in the history of Carnegie
Hall, and she was designated Musical America’s
Composer of the Year for 1999. She holds the Francis
Eppes Distinguished Professorship at Florida State
University.
A prolific composer in virtually all media, Ellen
Taaffe Zwilich’s works have been performed by most of
the leading American orchestras and by major
ensembles abroad. Writing in The New York Times,
critic Tim Page commented that “she has created a
handful of exquisitely honed works in a variety of
mediums from string trio to symphony. She writes in an
idiosyncratic style that, without ostentation or
gimmickry, is always recognizably hers.” Although her
output to date includes four symphonies, the medium
that has most preoccupied her in recent years has been a
concerto or concerto-like structure pitting one or more
solo instruments against a full ensemble or orchestra,
and instruments thus featured have been one and two
pianos, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet,
trombone, violin, and even a double (violin and cello)
and triple (piano trio) concerto. Among the more exotic
instrumentations is her 2003 Rituals for 5 percussionists
and orchestra, commissioned by the IRIS Chamber
Orchestra, Michael Stern, music director; the percussion
ensemble NEXUS; the Pearl Corporation; Kathleen
Holt; Stephen Lurie; and Adams Musical Instruments.
About this piece, the composer has written: “One of
my greatest pleasures in writing a concerto is exploring
the new world that opens for me each time I enter the
sometimes alien, but always fascinating, world of a solo
instrument or instruments. For me, the challenge is to
discover the deepest nature of the solo instrument (its
‘karma,’ if you will) and to allow that essential character
to guide the shape and form of the work and the nature
of the interaction between soloists and orchestra.
“In recent years, many of us have become more
aware of the musical world outside the Western tradition
— of musics that follow different procedures and spring
from other aesthetics. And contemporary percussionists
have opened many of these worlds to us, as they have
ventured around the globe, participating in Brazilian
Samba schools, studying Gamelan and African
drumming with local experts, collecting instruments
from Asia and Africa and South America and the South
Pacific, widening our horizons in the process. …
“After long consideration, I decided that it would
not only be impossible, but even undesirable for this
Western-tradition-steeped composer to attempt to use
[Nexus’s exotic array of] instruments in a culturally
‘authentic’ way. My goal was an existential kind of
authenticity: searching instead for universal ideas that
would be true to both myself and the performers while
acknowledging the traditional uses of the instruments.”
Rituals is in four movements, each issuing from a
ritual associated with percussion, but with the orchestral
interaction providing an essential element in the musical
form. I. Invocation alludes to the traditions of invoking
the spirit of the instruments, or the gods, or the ancestors
before performing. II. Ambulation moves from a
processional through march and dance to fantasy based
on all three. III. Remembrances alludes to traditions of
memorializing. IV. Contests progresses from friendly
competition — games, contests — to a suggestion of a
battle of “big band” drummers, to warlike exchanges.
How different a work is the 1998 Concerto for
Violin and Orchestra! Commissioned by Carnegie Hall,
it was first heard there with soloist Pamela Frank and the
Orchestra of St. Luke’s conducted by Hugh Wolff.
Zwilich writes in a programme note: “For me, the soul
of the violin shines through in the repertoire it has
inspired, revealing a nature both sensuous and
intellectual. While the tremendous athleticism of the
violin can sometimes overshadow its deeper nature, the
violin has shown itself capable of expressing the most
profound aspects of music. And this is what drew me, as
a young composer, to play the violin.” For Zwilich, it is
“important that the orchestra play a crucial rôle in the
dialogue, but I also want the violin to be free to be
expressive in its mezzo piano range. So, achieving good
balances in a rich musical setting is a major challenge in
writing a violin concerto.” That she succeeded in this
challenge is evidenced by the critical reaction to the
work’s première, the headline of The New York Times
reading “With Warmth and Lyricism, A Love Song to
the Violin”. And the late Shirley Fleming, reviewing
in The New York Post (“Straight-from-the-heart strings
solo”) called it “a wonderfully engaging work …
Zwilich’s tour de force is the second movement, taking
Bach’s great solo violin Chaconne as its point of
departure and transforming Bach’s opening notes into a
motif that grows almost menacing — a theme of fate —
towards the end. The movement’s emotional tension,
building slowly, takes one by surprise and lingers in the
mind long afterward.”
George Sturm,
Music Associates of America