Double Concerto No. 2 (2023)

For Two Solo Violas and String Orchestra

Co-Commissioned by Yellow Barn, Seth Knopp, Artistic Director, as part of Yellow Barn’s commissioning project in memory of Roger Tapping
Co-Commissioned by The Juilliard School
Co-Commissioned by the New York Classical Players, Dongmin Kim, Music Director
Co-Commissioned by Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts
for Misha Amory, Hsin-Yun Huang and members of the Ariel, Jupiter and Parker String Quartets

Dedicated to Misha Amory and Hsin-Yun Huang, and to the memory of Roger Tapping

Duration: 25 minutes

Listen

I. A dialogue; intimately [00:00]
II Brilliantly; vibrantly [04:39]
III. Vigorously; racing [07:56]
IV. Embracing; with warmth [14:07]
V. Dancing, joyous [18:23]
Coda: Freely, with rubato, like wind [23:01]

Performed by Hsin-Yun Huang, Misha Amory, solo violas | Eric Nathan, conductor
Members of the Ariel, Jupiter, and Parker String Quartets
joined by violinists Sammy Andonian, Emma Frucht, Abigail Hong, Jesse Irons, Valerie Kim,
Yiliang Liang, and KJ McDonald, violists Hannah Burnett and Maren Rothfriz,
cellist Coleman Itzkoff, and double bassists Lizzie Burns and Sam Suggs

Recorded at Jordan Hall by Eric Engler and Antonio Oliart.

View Online Score

Program Note

I took daily walks as I wrote this piece. I walked along a path that sits atop a ridge in the Italian countryside and is lined with trees on both sides: towering cypresses that stand tall and erect like ancient living pillars or guarding giants, and younger lindens that reach across to each other and gently entwine their branches above. The path stretches straight from a castle on one end across the ridge and through a gate to a forest beyond where the eye can see. Walking down this path evoked in me a sense of a procession through time. It was only after completing this work did I realize how much the experience of my daily walks had seeped into my conception of this concerto, both consciously and unconsciously.

At its heart, Double Concerto No. 2 is an exploration of the intertwining relationships between discrete and opposing forces. I contemplate various acts of weaving-together: of one life with another, of the human and natural worlds, of stasis and movement, of the past and present, and of feelings such as love, loss, joy and remembrance.  While the concerto is symphonic in scope, its central focus is the two soloists and their interactions between each other and the orchestra.

The work is structured in five movements and a coda. The movements are woven together without pause by five interludes. In each interlude, waves of sound ripple and rustle across the ensemble, which often are “painted” by the conductor’s sweeping gestures. The two solo violists are often put into conversation with a consort of three violists from the orchestra. In movements II and V, this trio consort introduces quotations from music of the past, which are reimagined and reframed throughout the concerto: 16th-century composer John Dowland’s Flow My Tears (originally Lachrimae Pavan, c. 1596 A.D.), and 11th-century composer Pérotin’s Viderunt Omnes (“All the Ends of the Earth,” c. 1198). Dowland’s lamenting lute song was originally composed in the form of a pavane, which is a slow processional dance for couples that often precedes a faster, joyous dance. Pérotin’s luminous setting of a Gregorian chant is one of the first instances of polyphony in Western European music.

Double Concerto No. 2 was composed for violists Misha Amory and Hsin-Yun Huang and was co-commissioned by Yellow Barn, Seth Knopp, Artistic Director, as part of Yellow Barn’s commissioning project in memory of Roger Tapping; co-commissioned by The Juilliard School; co-commissioned by the New York Classical Players, Dongmin Kim, Music Director; and co-commissioned by Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts.

Double Concerto No. 2 is dedicated to Misha Amory and Hsin-Yun Huang, and to the memory of violist Roger Tapping. This work was composed during a residency at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, situated in a 16th-century Italian castle on the site of an 11th-century church.

- Eric Nathan