Back in 1995, I was lucky enough to receive the Charles Ives Scholarship from the AAAL. As a student of Ned Rorem at Curtis, it was sort of understood that, at some point in your studies (if you weren’t a complete slacker), you would likely get a Charles Ives Scholarship, which was then, and remains today, a cash award of $7,500. As then, and I suspect as it has always been, a letter arrives from the AAAL advising you that you’ve been mysteriously nominated to apply for a prize. So you bundle up two scores and a CD (or in those days, a super-awesome cassette tape), throw in your resumé and a work-list, mail it off to the Upper West Side address, and hope for the best. Back then, I submitted my first-ever orchestral piece (composed when I was 18) called Four Psalms, along with a duo for flute and oboe—my first essay for Rorem. Both scores are now lying in a steamer trunk deep in a closet so overflowing with yesteryear’s things that I’m not sure I could find them if I tried. It was the first award I ever won.

When word finally arrives by mail, you’re told that you’ll receive your award at the annual Ceremonial in May. In 1995 (as a tender 20 year old), I asked my mom to fly out to accompany me. That she did, coming to Philly first, then taking Amtrak with me up the lovely NE Corridor to New York’s Penn Station. Back in those days, the Academy’s home in the West 150s was not such a hot neighborhood. So when you surfaced above ground on Broadway, you would beat your way west as quickly as possible to the Academy’s beautiful Beaux-Arts home off 155th Street. The ceremony is preceded by a reception, then followed by lunch. I’ll never forget the first person I met in the coatroom who shook my hand and introduced himself, “John Kenneth Galbraith. A pleasure to meet you!” His handshake was all wrist, no forearm, and I’ll remember it forever. Ned then took me by the hand, leaving my mom to make small talk with the girlfriends of the other winners, and lead me around, introducing me to luminaries, known and unknown (to me). “Daniel, meet Stephen Sondheim. . . This is Edward Albee. . .” As a photographer edged up to snap a pic of Ned and Sondheim (with me looking on), Ned uttered one of his classic lines, “Send me a copy of the picture. I’ll put it in my next book.”

The ceremony itself was mostly a blur. The Academy assembled onstage, along with the winners of the big prizes, while the “kids” had to sit in the front row of the house. There were speeches and plenty of applause, but the mood seemed mostly to be of anticipation for lunch. The meal was good, in that comforting institutional way, but I have no recollection of what we consumed. Mostly, one spends the meal in awe of his dining companions. At my table: Ned and Jim Holmes, Allen Ginsberg and his companion (a boy no older than I), composer Louise Talma, countertenor Russell Oberlin, and my mom. Jim, Russell Oberlin, and my mom bonded over their Mid-west roots. I mostly spent my time trying to process that I was at a table with Ginsberg. It all felt like someone had made a huge mistake, like we’d snuck in and talked our way to the table.

When lunch was finished, we collected our coats and made our way back to Penn Station via the 1 Train, then on to 30th Street Station in Philly (still my favorite train station in all the world). A short cab ride, at which my mom marveled as I deftly guided the driver in a shortcut around Rittenhouse Square, brought us back to the apartment my parents subsidized on the corner of 18th and Walnut. And the day, as all days do, quickly receded into memory.

The one that comes first to mind is found buried deep in the Haydn Variations of Brahms. Cast in the 6/8 meter of the siciliana, Variation VII typifies all that is serene in the natural world. Of course, Brahms couldn’t have been thinking exclusively of fields, flowers, and fauns. Somewhere at work in all this was a mind bent on fashioning a tightly-wrought argument in invertible counterpoint. Notice how the upper voice in the first phrase (a descending scale in the violins) is transferred to the bass in the second phrase. Brahms busied himself with all manner of Baroque procedures in this work, as much an homage to Haydn (who, of course, was not the author of the strange little theme in five-bar phrases at all—but Brahms didn’t know [or care] about that!) as to Bach, the master of the ars contrapuctus.

In this (complete) recording of the Haydn Variations, you’ll need to “scrub” ahead to 10:47 to start the seventh variation. Along the way, notice the full flowering of melody (in a classic Brahmsian hemiola) at the stroke of 11:52:

Next up, a subtle example from Beethoven. If ever I am in need of instant transport away from daily cares, this is the ticket. Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in A major, op. 101, is among my favorites, and it’s hard to imagine a more serene opening to a work—one measure is enough speed the listener on his/her way:

For those of you who know this work, you might also delight in various moments later on. Two such in the second movement, a march, always astound me. First, the manner in which Beethoven gets us from one key to another (at 05:20) is so surprising, not for it strange-sounding chords, but for the fact that, upon examination, those chords underlie nothing but a Circle of Fifths progression! Yet, upon arrival in D-flat major (the movement overall is in F), you might as well be on Mars. The next occurs a few seconds later: embedded in the middle voice, a gurgling figure in the right hand that is comprised of nothing more (or less) than the opening motive of the whole piece (05:55)!

Finally, we go back to Brahms. Since the moment I first heard it as a kid, the Trio section in the third movement of Brahms’s First Quartet in C minor, op. 51 no. 1, has fascinated me. The second violin oscillates between two strings on a unison A creating a drone effect that undergirds the very Ländler-like feel of this music. (The mediant relationship in the chords doesn’t hurt either!) Find yourself at 20:05 in this historic recording, and then stick with it to the end of the Trio:

I hope you enjoyed these little hearth-warming excerpts. Now, back to the hunkering!

Most composers get asked it on a routine basis by strangers or loose acquaintances, usually followed by unsolicited advice.

“Hey! You should write for movies!”

Funny that no one thinks twice about giving unsolicited advice to an artist. What if I were to turn that question around to my doctor and say, “Hey! You should find a cure for cancer!”? “Hey! You should invent a car that drives itself!” to my friend the engineer. No—instead those professionals are asked to give advice. “Should I get this checked out?” to his cousin’s girlfriend, the dermatologist, pointing to a blemish. “When do I really need to replace my timing belt?” to his wife’s friend’s husband, the mechanic.

The problem is this: the inquirer, whether he recognizes it or not, is hoping for a response that relates to his own experience. “Well,” he hopes I’ll say, “do you know the music of John Williams?”; or, “Do you like James Taylor?”; or, “Ever heard of A Tribe Called Quest?” Having safely pigeon-holed the composer, he can then talk about his own interests in music, and on rare occasions he might actually seek the advice of a composer: “Hey, buddy, you got a second? I have this guitar downstairs and I’m wondering if you can tell me whether it’s worth anything.”

Even worse than the what-kind-of-music-do-you-write question, however, is the inevitable follow-up: “What instrument do you play?” This is bad enough, even if you’re not a composer but a performer on one of the following: oboe, bassoon, horn (and you actually say “horn” and not “French horn” because you’ve got a modicum of self respect), viola, timpani, or (God forbid!) any period instrument. Because then you’re invariably locked into explaining your trade: whether you need to stand or sit to play your instrument; whether that’s the same thing as a violin; whether it looks like a saxophone or not; whether that’s actually spit coming out; whether you’ll teach their daughter how to play, too….

My problem—one shared by many of my brethren—is that I don’t “play” anything. I’m a passable pianist, but I have nothing that approaches real technique, and I stopped playing horn (which I was actually pretty good at) not long after grad school. Therefore, I usually say “piano,” but then run the risk of being shepherded over to the keyboard to entertain the rest of the party, which I refuse to do. There are precisely three pieces that I can play from memory: 1) Bach, Concerto Italiano (1st movement); 2) Bach, keyboard cadenza from Brandenburg 5; and 3) Ravel, Sonatine (1st movement). Let me tell you, no one at that party wants to hear any of those. True, I am probably better than your cousin Bobby, who started playing when he was 11 (“He got pretty good in college!”), but asking to hear me play piano would be a lot like asking a carpenter to watch him saw a two-by-four—the piano for me is a tool I use to do my job, but it’s not the job itself.

Of course, among the most dreaded of follow-ups (and it’s a toss up as to which one is worse) are: “What have you written that I know?” and “Play us one of your songs!” Truthful responses here are mostly embarrassing. “Nothing, really” to the former, and “I can’t really play my own music” to the latter. These are embarrassing because they actually expose your shortcomings right there out in the open. (I usually save mulling over this stuff for when I’m lying awake at night, or for a well-timed rant to my spouse.) On the one hand, it would be nice to tell the person that they likely know your wildly successful “such-and-such,” the one that made you both wealthy and esteemed by your colleagues, but you don’t have any of those. Also, you can’t play your own music because it’s too complex, which is why (you now realize) it doesn’t get played very often—or else you just simply don’t have much in the way of performing chops at all, which is actually really bothersome, though mostly you’ve been telling yourself the lie that it’s “okay because you’re a composer, not a performer.”

Here’s what I’m secretly dying to say: “Well, Tom, the reason you haven’t heard any of my music is probably due to one of two reasons. First, the kind of music I write doesn’t get played a million times all over the air waves, which is to say, I’m not exactly raking it in hand-over-fist in my chosen profession that I spent one decade in school pursuing advanced degrees for, and another decade working my ass off for meager compensation and little public recognition! Or second, you haven’t heard any of my music because, in a perfect illustration of the slow death of my beloved Art, you don’t have the least interest in classical music. You’ve never even been to the symphony, ballet, opera, or any kind of chamber music concert before, and MOST of us in this world are KIDDING OURSELVES in thinking that, in as little as FIFTY YEARS from now, there will even be ANY ORCHESTRAS LEFT AT ALL!! Your entirely vague notion of a classical composer is of a guy who writes the music to movies, or else someone who stands in front of an orchestra waving a baton, because you’re confusing COMPOSER with CONDUCTOR!! And now, ONLY NOW, do I finally see why aallllll my former teachers seemed so BITTER AND DISILLUSIONED!!!”

Now, when I began this little essay, I thought I would endeavor to provide some guidance to my fellow composers as to how one might answer this question. After all, in my best moments, I sometimes take the opportunity to engage my audience in a little demonstration of what it is I do. I might say, “Well, the kind of music I write you would probably think of as classical, though it doesn’t really sound like the kind of classical music you might be familiar with. If you’re curious, you could go to my website and listen to some of my music, or check out a new music concert at (Le) Poisson Rouge sometime—they have food there!” But when I’m feeling weak, I usually will just simply avoid the issue altogether. Before the conversation even gets as far as “What kind of music do you write?”, I’ll just tell the person I’m a college professor. That’s usually the verbal equivalent of this sound. Of course, they’ll then ask me what I teach, and I’ll say “music,” which will bring to mind their old music appreciation professor who gave them a C- freshman year. That’s sure to leave me hugging the corner of the room in isolation faster than you can say “post-minimalist impressionistic haze” (or else send me to the fridge for another beer)….

In reality, there’s not that much to complain about, even if, as a composer, I have to dodge a few questions here and there. After all, isn’t it a tad unbecoming to moan about doing for a hobby living that which most people consider a hobby? Your high school friend, the highly successful trader, who decided to quit the trumpet when he went to business school, still wishes he could make music—it’s what he’s daydreaming about right now, even as he dozes on a beach in the Caymans.

At any rate, one issue I had not considered, until I received this e-mail message from the AAUP (American Association of University Professors), is that of academic freedom. (I should point out that I am not a member of the AAUP, since neither Fordham University nor Juilliard’s faculty are unionized, though I do read their e-mail thread.) Here’s the message as it relates to Yale University’s planned expansion into Singapore. It’s a long read, so I highlighted a few areas of interest in bold.

We are writing to the Yale University community—its faculty, administrators, staff, students, and alumni—to express the AAUP’s growing concern about the character and impact of the university’s collaboration with the Singaporean government in establishing Yale-National University of Singapore College; we are concerned about the implications of the undertaking for academic freedom and the maintenance of educational standards at Yale and elsewhere.

The 2009 joint statement by the American Association of University Professors and the Canadian Association of University Teachers—“On the Conditions of Employment at Overseas Campuses”—was explicit in warning that “as the U.S. and Canadian presence in higher education grows in countries marked by authoritarian rule, basic principles of academic freedom, collegial governance, and nondiscrimination are less likely to be observed. In a host environment where free speech is constrained, if not proscribed, faculty will censor themselves, and the cause of authentic liberal education, to the extent it can exist in such situations, will suffer.” As the statement continued, “the movement for international education can rest on laudable educational grounds. But those grounds will be jeopardized if hard-earned standards and protections are weakened rather than exported.”

The statement thus urged that college and university administrations provide faculty, students, and other key constituentss with “detailed updates on all aspects of the project” as it proceeds and guarantee “provisions to ensure academic freedom and tenure and collegial governance,” including not only faculty assessment of programs, curriculum, and appointments, but also anti-harassment and anti-discrimination provisions and rights to procedural fairness. The statement drew further attention to working conditions for all campus employees: “The treatment of nonacademic employees involved in the construction, service, and maintenance of foreign campuses is another area of concern. Colleges and universities as employers and contractors should uphold the full observance of internationally recognized standards governing the rights and working conditions of nonacademic employees who build and maintain classrooms and offices and meet other needs that keep the institutions functioning. Universities operating internationally should adopt a code of conduct governing the workplace conditions and rights of all nonacademic employees, even and especially if these workers are employed directly by a local subcontractor.”

Yale’s planned Singapore campus highlights many of the concerns we expressed in the 2009 statement. Given the issues raised in numerous detailed critiques of the plan by faculty members and others, we believe that a healthy atmosphere for shared governance at Yale can only be restored if the Yale Corporation begins by releasing all documents and agreements related to the plan to establish the Yale-National University of Singapore campus. We recognize there may be no legal requirement to do so. Nonetheless, all members of the larger Yale community have a stake in Yale’s future and the impact the new campus will have on it. The faculty collectively has a special responsibility for the academic programs on the Singapore campus, the degree to which academic freedom and shared governance will be honored, and the character of all appointments. The larger Yale community also needs to know the nature of all financial arrangements for the project. While we believe this sort of transparency is always desirable, Yale-NUS presents a special challenge to Yale’s capacity to maintain the trust and dedicated commitment of its many constituents.

We believe Yale also needs to establish appropriate and genuinely open forums in which the academic and political implications of the new campus can be reviewed, discussed, and modified as necessary. Among the many issues that might be reviewed are these:

(a) what are the political implications of Yale’s decision to assist the Singapore government in achieving greater financial strength and cultural legitimacy through the establishment of the new campus?

(b) what risks to students and faculty are inherent in forms of campus speech, from Internet postings and email messages to broadcast lectures, that may be critical of the government, its laws, and its officials, including members of the Singapore judiciary?

(c) will all faculty, staff, and students of Yale-NUS (including Singaporean nationals) be guaranteed immunity from prosecution for defamation or sedition for writings or statements that would be protected under the provisions of the UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel?

(d) will the other protections called for in the UNESCO Recommendation Concerning the Status of Higher Education Teaching Personnel be implemented on the Singapore campus?

(e) will all faculty, staff, and students of Yale-NUS (including Singaporean nationals), as well as the institution’s libraries, be exempt from all restrictions on importation of publications or periodicals?

(f) will independent Internet access—not subject to Singapore’s firewalls or to its monitoring systems—be guaranteed for all members of the Yale-NUS community?

(g) can Yale-NUS community email be protected from government surveillance, even if email is sent unencrypted?

(h) will the right to invite speakers to campus be compromised by restrictions on visitors to Singapore?

(i) what risks to students, staff, and faculty with various sexual orientations are posed by Singapore’s laws?

(j) what may the impact on free speech on campus be of any surveillance protocols put in place by Singapore authorities?

(k) what policies could Yale put in place to ameliorate educational problems arising from the political self-censorship that pervades Singapore society?

(l) will Yale seek to address, even overcome, the separation between academic freedom in the classroom and limits to political speech both on and off-campus in Singapore? (m) do employees at Yale-NUS who are not American citizens face working conditions that would be unacceptable in the United States?

(n) how will working conditions for non-American citizens be monitored and reported to members of the Yale community?

(o) will American faculty teaching at the Singapore campus be assured the protections for academic freedom and shared governance embodied in AAUP’s Policy Documents and Reports that faculty have in New Haven?

(p) under what, if any, conditions violative of academic freedom or human rights would Yale consider it appropriate and necessary to withdraw from its Singaporean partnership?

In short, one needs to give serious consideration to whether academic freedom, and the personal freedoms that are a necessary prerequisite to its exercise, can in fact be sustained on a campus within what is a substantially authoritarian regime. This fundamental question is relevant whether one characterizes Yale-NUS as a satellite of the New Haven campus or as “the first new college to bear the Yale name in 300 years.” We do not claim that the list of issues above is complete, but it does identify some of the unusual concerns that are raised by plans to establish a Yale outpost in Singapore.

Some Yale administrators have argued that they have no choice but to obey the laws of another country, but if the laws are odious—such as criminalizing sexual orientation—the relevant choice is whether to collaborate with the country that espouses them. At stake are not simply “cultural differences” but whether Yale recognizes universal human rights and the protections for academic staff enunciated in the UNESCO Recommendation. Singapore is a modern, industrialized city whose leaders and citizens fully understand these values. How Yale addresses these issues has implications not only for the Yale community but also for higher education as a whole. The AAUP will remain willing to address any problems of academic freedom or shared governance that Yale faculty bring to our attention.

–Joan Bertin, Marjorie Heins, Cary Nelson, & Henry Reichman

On behalf of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom & Tenure

But then . . . what? I grew out of it? At a certain point it all started to sound terse, square, and, well, lame. And because of my association with violists in those days, I heard a lot of it. What’s worse, I became acutely aware of all the new music I was hearing that sounded “Hindemithian.” By the way, that had become a term of derision within my circle—it meant stuffy, angular, scant of tune, and (worst of all) German.

(In fact, some of my friends and I had a whole bit we used to do called the “Dancing Square.” You can do it, too! First, hold up one hand with your index finger extended as if to proclaim “We’re #1!” at a sporting event. Then extend your middle finger ["tall man"] straight out so as to be perpendicular to your index finger—the 90˚ angle is key here—keeping your thumb folded over your fourth and fifth fingers. Mirror that with the opposite hand. Now carefully bring your hands together to meet, joining index finger to index finger, middle finger to middle finger. You should have made a neat little outline of a box. Now . . . make him dance! Something jaunty! Side to side!! The Dancing Square would make his appearance at concerts, stealthily bumping along on his little jig during angular bits of music—old or new didn’t matter; it’s all the same to the Dancing Square! Sometimes a simple flash of the square to one’s friends, gangsta style, is enough to indicate your attitude about a given passage. Hint: he likes fugati the best. You’ll see!)

So why am I writing about der arme Paul now? Have I come back around to liking Hindemith? Yes and no. I’ve come to realize something that I find fascinating, which is this: that while I generally still think of Hindemith as a composer I’m not that interested in, when I hear an individual work of his, I actually do like it. In other words, it’s as if I don’t care for the overall output of the composer, but I seem to find things to like—even love—in the individual works. Hmmm. I know. It makes little sense. But here’s a thought experiment for you:

Would you rather listen to some Hindemith, or listen to any other composer who ever lived, anywhere . . . ever? If you’re like me, it’s the latter. But, oh, wait! Now you’re in your office; the internet is down; you have nothing to listen to except this one Hindemith disc that you somehow have (I don’t know, maybe you’re in someone else’s office, it’s not important!), and it’s got this piece on it:

Wow! That’s Hindemith? I like that! It’s not square. It’s passionate. It goes somewhere. Yes, there’s a fugato (hit up around 02:17). But it’s not angular and predictable. It’s . . . creepy and weird! It’s awesome!!

So now you’re thinking, “Wait a minute. You can’t fool me. That was an early work, still under the heady influence of Brahms & co. Sooner or later he’s going to bust out one of his dry sets of variations or some sort of passacaglia. Play me something of his that’s a little later and we’ll make that Dancing Square come out.”

Okay, fair enough. Here’s another (later) quartet, rife with fugue:

What did you think of that? It was squarish, right? But wasn’t it also a little exciting? (Not sure what those two little guys Frenchin’ was all about, but whatever!) The Dancing Square was out, but he was head banging.

What’s all this supposed to prove? Nothing. Except perhaps that, even though we might outgrow something, occasionally we discover that there’s still some love left there. We still might need to really test that love—I’m thinking Konzertmusik, op. 50. If you find something to love in that, then perhaps you should re-consider your stance vis-à-vis Paul Hindemith. I know I will.

A brief obituary can be found here.

“I could get so much done, if only I didn’t have to _________!”

At most I produce one or two works per year. That’s not very much music, but then again, I have never been able to churn it out. At various times in my life I have beat myself up about this fact. Ringing in my ears are two quotes from past teachers:

“A composer composes.” (Ned Rorem)

“I can’t make you write music––you have to want to be a composer!” (John Corigliano)

And those came while I was still a student! If I wasn’t cranking out the music then, WHAT WAS I DOING?

Still, I don’t want this to sound like a complaint; it isn’t. Along the way from school to real life, certain things presented themselves: a job, a marriage, another job, some children. And the fact of the matter is I am pretty lucky to be (so far) gainfully employed in this day and age. But if you had told me in 1996 that in 2012, a typical day for me would look like the following, I think I would’ve jumped ship, maybe tried to get this guy’s job.

Here’s one day’s agenda:

MONDAY, 30 APRIL 2012

0400: Rise to coffee already made; retreat to studio upstairs; poke around on computer for about 30 mins.; try to compose until something good finally starts to present itself around 0600.

0615: Child #1 awakes, comes to find me in studio; requests a cup of dry Cheerios, feigns interest in Daddy’s music; composing effectively drowned out by sounds of cartoons.

0630: Morning ritual begins in earnest; Child #2 now a part of the equation.

0830: Child #1 delivered to school; Child #2 sufficiently entertained with Star Wars Legos (the good guys won).

0911: Depart for Job #1.

1000: Observe colleague’s class at Job #1; write report of said observation.

1115: Collect thoughts.

1130: Teach Classes #1 and #2.

1400: Lunch alone in office; 90 mins. of mindless paperwork and correspondence (no composing).

1530: Arrive at Job #2.

1600: Teach Class #3.

1700: Dinner alone.

1715: Weekly departmental meeting for Job #2.

1745: Excuse self early from meeting.

1800: Class #4––conduct orchestral reading of student orchestrations.

2200: Reading concluded; orchestral studio picked up and in order; students happy.

2249: Train home from Penn Station.

2315: Arrive home; pretty much beat but oddly energized.

0010: Pass out.

0400 (Day 2): Rise . . . .

Again, this is not an “I’m soooo busy!” post. Especially in light of this recent article making the rounds. Rather, it’s an illustration of what I think many, many artists deal with day to day. We take jobs, occasionally outside of our preferred fields, to sustain life. We have families. We do all these things that are required of us (and we should do them joyfully, I believe, or else, what’s the point?). And the essential often gets lost in the mix.

Still, somehow I managed in the past 24 months to compose a 30-min. string quartet, a 4-min. septet, and I’m wrapping up work on a 15-min. piano duo. (I’m now about to embark on a 25-min. ballet score.) But if my catalog strikes anyone as a little lean, that’s okay with me.

After all, that’s my blood on those pages.

The three pieces of mine performed on that concert were my First String Quartet, my oboe quartet, and my viola-and-piano piece. Those three pieces were paired with three by Britten for the same forces. The cool composer-geek thing about that for me was the way the two halves of the show were like inverse images of each other:

Ott: viola piece
Britten: oboe quartet
Ott: string quartet
[intermission]
Britten: viola piece
Ott: oboe quartet
Britten: string quartet

I dug this, since I tend to write a lot of music thinking along these lines. (Made for a long program, though!) At any rate, the Arnica Quartet (Charles’s group) did an amazing job. (Some of that performance is here on the site in various places.) So, check out the short interview when you’ve got a couple minutes to kill!

Related show

• Artist: Arnica String Quartet & guests
• Date: Friday, September 30th 2011
• Time: 7:30pm
• City: Arnica String Quartet & guests in Portland, OR
• Venue: Community Music Center
• Address: 3350 SE Francis Street
• Venue phone: (503) 823-3177
• Country: US
• Admission: $20
• Box office: (503) 228-1353
• Notes: “Parallels: Music of Benjamin Britten and Daniel Ott” presented by Arnica Quartet, with guest artists Susan DeWitt Smith (piano) and Erin Gustafson (oboe).
• Add to Google Calendar | Download iCal

But hey, enough of my yackin’. It’s time to take matters into my own hands. Therefore, I am presenting you with the first work on what I hope will serve as a guide to exploring a corner of the literature you might not otherwise encounter––the kind of work that isn’t going to get programmed a whole lot on most subscription series, but probably should.

LUTOSLAWSKI, SYMPHONY NO. 3

You can read all about it here, so I will dispense with the background. But there are a couple of cool things worth pointing out:

1) It was composed over a ten- to eleven-year period (depending on where you choose to get your info.), which officially makes this work the “slow food” of orchestral repertory. I like this. I like this because I consider myself the “slow food” version of composers under 40, and knowing that this work was a decade in the making makes me feel better about myself.

2) It was the first recipient of the Grawmeyer Award, which is kind of cool because it consists of a cash prize of $150,000.00 $200,000.00 $100,000.00, thereby setting a nearly impossible benchmark for future award seekers.

There are several recordings out there. Initially, it was the B-side of a CSO disc, coupled with the Concerto for Orchestra. I bought this CD in high school, and used to hit stop before the symphony really got going. That was a mistake. It took several years of maturing and the guidance of one Samuel Adler to reveal the work’s charms to me. (It was presented to us in an Advanced Orchestration class when I was a grad student at Juilliard.) It has been said before, no doubt better than I am about to say it now, but this music has a way of fooling you. There are some immediately appealing sounds, such as the four-note blast of brassy Es (which I totally ripped off alluded to in my band piece), followed by a tangle of wind-and-horn bugle calls. But it also contains some very long stretches of sound that can make the listener weary, such as the various moments of extended clarinet-bassoon noodling.

And yet, something about this music gets under the skin. It doesn’t happen overnight––I’m convinced it requires repeated hearings. But, if you hang in there for the long haul, you’ll be rewarded by the tumultuous climax that crowns this work. Few pieces of music leave me as emotionally drained as this (in the best possible sense). And while the highpoint of the music represents, to me, the crumbling of one’s entire emotional edifice, it is eventually rebuilt in the Mahlerian luster of the closing minutes: all horns, harps, and Viennese inniger Empfindung.

So, dim the lights, open a bottle of something halfway decent, and give this work a listen or five. And let me know what you think!