Tone Poem Tuesday

I like it when I get in the car and hear just a few minutes of a piece with which I am unfamiliar, and then I either do a music search using Google’s listening and “ID a song” feature, or I take a quick photo of the name of the piece on the screen of my car’s stereo system, if the name is featured there. The problem is that I usually then forget about said piece of music until much later when I’m going through the Screenshots folder on my phone, or looking through my camera roll, and by that point I have no memory of the piece I listened to. So, over the next few weeks, I’m going to feature works that I “discovered” in this way!

We’re starting with a work by composer Jonathan Leshnoff. Leshnoff, based in Baltimore, is apparently a prolific composer whose work has been featured by many orchestras and ensembles in America, and yet, until I heard a few minutes of this particular piece, I’d not heard of him, to my knowledge. From his website:

Distinguished by The New York Times as “a leader of contemporary American lyricism,” GRAMMY-nominated composer Jonathan Leshnoff is renowned for his music’s striking harmonies, structural complexity, and powerful themes. The Baltimore-based composer has been ranked among the most performed living composers in recent seasons with performances by over 100 orchestras. He has received commissions from Carnegie Hall, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Kansas City, Nashville, and Pittsburgh, among others. Leshnoff’s compositions have also been premiered by classical music’s most celebrated soloists, including Gil Shaham, Johannes Moser, Manuel Barrueco, Noah Bendix-Balgley and Joyce Yang.

Of this particular piece, called Elegy, Leshnoff writes:

Elegy is scored for the unusual combination of horns, harp, timpani and strings. These instruments were selected for their darker color, a natural fit for this composition which is introspective and somber. Elegy is written in memory of the thousands of nameless people who suffered under oppression.

Writing a new composition for the Harmony from Discord series, I chose to musically depict these two contrasting moods with two contrasting ideas: a somber, dark theme that dominates the beginning of the work and a hopeful, brighter theme that is heard in the middle. Elegy starts with this lonely and contemplative theme first played by the violins and then slowly spreading throughout the string section, with the harp offering a haunting echo. After a brooding cadence, the hopeful theme is introduced in the horns. Full of moving lines and sweeping harmonies the music builds to a resounding climax, accompanied by the timpani grounding the ensemble in successive strikes. After a cascading cadence, the dark opening theme again returns, but this time, the hopeful theme intertwines itself with the darker theme, symbolic of the hope that has emerged through the dark, discordant eras of history. The piece notably ends on a major chord.

The piece seems initially reminiscent of Barber’s famous Adagio for Strings, though that comparison quickly falls by the wayside. Leshnoff’s work is less brooding and, I think, more meditative than the Barber piece, blending as Leshnoff indicates hopeful passages along with the darker ones and ending on a more peaceful note. Still, it is a very compelling work, and the odd instrumentation gives it a unique sound-world and emotional life.

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