Tre Canzoni Senza Parole
Bernard Rands
About this work:
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(Published by: Helicon Music Corp)
“The Italian composer Ferruchio Bussoni expresssed the notion that all music results from
an act of transcription,” wrote Bernard Rands of his Tre Canzoni when the work was first performed at the Riccardo Muti Gala Tribute Concert in April 1992. The concert was offered
on Music Director Muti’s departure from the Philadelphia Orchestra at the close of the
1991-92 season.
Rands notes that the Tre Canzoni were not direct transcriptions from the Canti d’Amor, but that they used musical material from three of these works to express sentiments appropriate to Muti’s work with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The tuneful first piece, says Rands is a reflection of the centrality of song to Muti’s musicianship the immediacy and directness of
vocal art. “In rehearsals he was always asking the musicians to ‘sing,’” Rands says. The dancelike quality of the second piece reflects the way in which Muti was “corporeally involved in
music-making.” And the third movement is “a lament for losing him.”
“The human voice,” Rands has said, “possibly the most subtle, complex, flexible and persuasive carrier of musical ideas and meanings, has always been an inspiration for, and influence upon my entire musical thinking.”
“These are not like Mahler songs,” he says of the Tre Canzoni.“They are ‘common currency
songs’,” he says, “songs that always have a singable melody that have a lot of rhythmic energy,
even though at the same time they are quite lyrical. These songs are easy to listen to, very
direct in their expression.”
Additional Instrumentation Notes:
Percussion (3 players) includes vibraphone, tubular bells, triangle, bongos, tambourine, bass drum, and tam-tam
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Year composed: 1992
Duration: 00:20:00
Ensemble type: Orchestra:Standard Orchestra
Instrumentation: 3 Flute, 3 Oboe, 4 Clarinet, 2 Bassoon, 4 Horn in F, 3 Trumpet, 3 Trombone, 1 Tuba, 1 Timpani, 3 Percussion (General), 1 Strings (General), 2 Harp
Instrumentation notes: 3 . 3(3. ca) . 4 . 2 - 4 . 3 . 3 . 1 - timp . 3perc . 2hp - str - 1 harp version available