Program Notes

Prelude No.1, from Three American Preludes for Orchestra

Detlev Glanert
BORN: September 6, 1960. Hamburg, Germany

COMPOSED: 2014

WORLD PREMIERE: July 20, 2015 at Seiji Ozawa Hall in Lenox, MA. Ruth Reinhardt led the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra

INSTRUMENTATION: 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets and bass clarinet, 2 bassoons and contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, suspended cymbal, sizzle cymbal, cymbals, snare drum, bass drum, tam-tam, temple blocks, tom-toms, glockenspiel, harp, and strings

DURATION: About 5 mins

The work of German composer Detlev Glanert is characterized by a lyrical musical language and an affinity with the Romantic tradition, explored from a contemporary point of view. He studied composition under Diether de la Motte, Hans Werner Henze, and Oliver Knussen, and spent ten years in Italy, where he worked as artistic director of the Istituto di Musica and the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte in Montepulciano and was a fellow of the German Academy Villa Massimo in Rome. He was 2003 composer-in-residence at Mannheim National Theatre and at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo in 2005. From 2011 until 2017, he was house composer of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He has also given lectures and taught composition classes in Aspen, Genoa, Montepulciano, Melbourne, Jakarta, and Sapporo, among others. Glanert has written three symphonies; solo concertos for piano, piano duo, violin, and tuba; as well as numerous orchestral and chamber works. His ten stage works have seen many productions around the world and received several awards.

A few years ago, Glanert received three requests from the United States for short, orchestral pieces, resulting in the idea for a small cycle. During their conception they became increasingly intertwined and can almost be thought of as a short, three-movement symphony. The movements nevertheless remain independent, although the basic material—inspired by the American tradition (Ives, Copland, Bernstein)—is related. The styles range from fanfare to jazz, with waltzes, art songs, and other amiable visitors from Old Europe.

—Thomas Tangler

Reprinted by kind permission of Boosey & Hawkes

(November 2017)