Contemporary Classics October 8, 2019 - Contemporary Classical Music In Memorium

This past month we lost two major figures in Contemporary classical music, composer Christopher Rouse and soprano Jessye Norman. Tonight we pay tribute to these two giants of classical music.

Christopher Rouse, a Pulitzer- and Grammy-winning composer known for vibrantly orchestrated works that explore extremes of expression died on Saturday, September 21 from complications of renal cancer in hospice care in Towson, Md. He was 70.

Throughout his life Rouse said he was concerned with the human condition – and often that meant death. Musicians in the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, with whom he was closely associated in the 1980s, began calling him "Mr. Sunshine" as a joke because Rouse had written a string of pieces inspired by the loss of friends and family. "That really had a profound effect on me and then I felt I needed to respond to it in some ways," he said. Among these works was the Trombone Concerto dedicated to the memory of Leonard Bernstein who died in 1990.     He won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1993, for the Trombone Concerto, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, which gave the premiere with Leonard Slatkin conducting and Joseph Alessi, the Philharmonic’s principal trombone, as soloist.   in it Mr. Rouse quotes from Bernstein’s “Kaddish” Symphony, named after the Jewish prayer of mourning.

Reviewing the performance in The New York Times, Edward Rothstein wrote that the trombone, an instrument usually associated with “slides and energy and swing,” turned introspective in this work, “lyrically mourning, then raging, and mourning again.”

Jessye Norman’s contemporary music credentials were established with her support and performance of modern opera such as Robert Wilson and “The Civil Wars” and her definitive recording of Richard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs,” Her last major project was in 2012, when she participated in a San Francisco Symphony performance of John Cage’s “Songbooks,” forming an improbable trio with the vocalist-composers Meredith Monk and Joan La Barbara.

Jessye Norman died a week ago yesterday of complications following a stroke.  The New York Times obituary said “the majestic American soprano . . . brought a sumptuous, shimmering voice to a broad range of roles at the Metropolitan Opera and houses around the world”.  Mark Swed of the Los Angeles Times wrote “had a voice that, in her prime, filled any room or arena with a glorious sound capable of taking over your psyche. She had a presence that could hypnotize an audience.”

Jessye Norman has left us a rich catalog of opera, lieder, spirituals and recital recordings. One of her most acclaimed recordings was a one of the finest interpretations and recordings of Strauss’s “Four Last Songs,” backed by Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra. Gramophone wrote in its review “Her generous heart, dignified manner and noble voice seem ideally suited to Strauss’s valedictory utterances”.  

The funeral will be at the William B. Bell Auditorium in Augusta on this coming Saturday. A private interment will follow. There are two public viewings -- on Thursday and Friday.