for large orchestra

Scoring

2-2-2-2 / 4-2-2-0 / timp+3 / pno(cel) / hp / strings

Duration 25 Minutes

Movements

1. Adagio-Moderato-Adagio

2. Allegro (Scherzo)

3. Adagio (in Memoriam Stephen Albert)

4. Allegro

Recording

Album Title

The Symphonic Works of Daniel Asia: At The Far Edge

Label

Summit Records [product id: DCD256]

Sound File

Adagio (in Memoriam Stephen Albert)

Commissioned by

the Phoenix Symphony with support of the National Endowment for the Arts

Performances
OCTOBER 27 & 28, 1993

WORLD PREMIERE
Phoenix Symphony
James Sedaris, Music Director
Daniel Asia, conductor
Program Notes

This Symphony, in four movements, is my most ‘classical in structure and sound. Also, after the more coloristic effects and ‘clouds of sound’ found in my previous orchestral works, in this piece I was rediscovering old formal ideas, and perhaps laying more bare the primary motivic ideas and their development. The movements are marked Adagio con rubato-Andante, Allegro scherzo, Adagio, and Allegro.

The opening movement begins with a light and delicate introduction, which gives way to a middle section of increasing momentum, followed by a return to the atmospheric opening. The second movement is a true scherzo. There are refractions of Beethoven scherzos, but sometimes a beat is chopped off, creating a skipping effect. Also everything is in threes in the trio-section; the harmony is three-voiced, and the instrumentation is also in threesomes. The slow movement begins and ends with the sounds of bells tolling, and is elegiac in character, having been written shortly after the death of Stephen Albert, a teacher and then colleague. The slightly bumptious finale is a classical rondo with a recurring section of full orchestration, and contrasting sections of a more delicate nature.

This work was commissioned by the Phoenix Symphony with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Reviews

K. LAFAVE, THE PHOENIX GAZETTE
The Fourth’s first three movements are each in their way lovely…This elegy (of the fourth movement) shares with its predecessors an honesty of expression.

J. REEL, THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR
With its open harmonies, thin textures, classical structures, reduction of metric complexities….this score lies on the page as tidily as a Haydn symphony.