Donemus Webshop — Symphony III

Author(s):
Straesser, Joep (Composer)
Contains:
Sinfonia
Tombeau
Riflessione e scherzo -
Finale
Description:
Program note (English): (Première: 20-2-1993 - Concertgebouw, Amsterdam - Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Edo de Waart, conducting) - My Symphony III, with respect to the first and second symphonies, has a certain central status. The first symphony, Tableaux vivants from 1988, is entirely based on the music from my opera Über Erich M. The second symphony, Symphony for strings from 1989, on the other hand is its 'own' music. 'Original' music is heard in parts one and four of Symphony III, whereas parts two and three are based on earlier composed works. The second movement Tombeau, in which no woodwinds participate, is based on the third movement from Quintuplum for five brass instruments (1988) and the movement, scherzo is an orchestral - and therefore entirely instrumental vision of the third movement from the cycle An die Musik (1991) for mezzo-soprano and string quartet on texts by Rainer Maria Rilke. In Symphony III I have now used this 'internal' recurrence technique, working with the material
within the piece itself, combined with an 'external' recurrence technique, using material from previous works. That provides interesting possibilities in the sense that 'old' material in another context can be combined and co-exist with 'new' material. It is important here to realize that such a manner of work is in the first place especially interesting for the composer. An audience unaware of the original context of the old material can only assess the musical development as is. The reason for using this internal and external repetitive technique in the third symphony, has to do with the fact that I was informed that my piece would be programmed in combination with the Fourth symphony by Gustav Mahler. Searching for a link in Mahler's work I got the idea, as he did in his first Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and also in his fourth Antonius von Padua Fischpredig, to use elements from other work. Mahler, too, must have realized that the Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, at earlier
performances of the first symphony, was mainly unknown to the public, so that also in that case, the musical functioning of the ' old ' material could be assessed only in itself. - JOEP STRAESSER

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