timp, 3perc, hrp; strings
60 Depot Street, Verona, NJ 07044
mail@subitomusic.com • 973-857-3440
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra • Gennady Rozhdestvensky, conductor
Heinz Hall for the Performing Arts; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
When Gennady Rozhdestvensky made his first and only guest appearance with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, he insisted on premiering a new work by a local composer. He selected Nancy Galbraith's newly completed "Morning Litany," and the work was performed at four subscription series concerts in April 1988.
After a slow introduction, quietly launched by divided violins and violas, the pace increases to allegro, with a short theme proposed by the brass. Clarinets are assigned the following motive, tranquilly and evenly falling and rising. Cellos in unison provide a still livelier, somewhat chromatic, movive based on sixteenth notes. This is passed on the violas, violins, and then bass clarinet in a fugato-like passage. Molto crescendo, the motives combine and result in a high point, triple forte, terminating the first of the four sections comprising the work that is characterized by certain liturgical sonorities.
The second section begins in a lively manner in the brass and builds up to a summit, ending on the notes E and B, an open fifth. After a fermata, the third division begins with a melody in the bassoons (triplets against divided chords in the cellos).
The fourth, and final, section is initiated by first and second violins divided into three parts, playing softly. The music amounts to a modified recapitulation, in which material from the opening section returns. Towards its close, the music again builds to a strong climax, now maintaining to the final bars. —N.G.