BILLY THE KID

Program Notes

"City Scape"

"City Scape" is a metropolitan sound picture written in orchestral tones. Every city has a distinctive downtown skyline: That steely profile that juts into the sky, with shapes and monumental buildings that represent a particular signature for each city. The steel structures present an image of boldness, strength, and growth, teeming with commerce, and the people who work and live there. This is the first movement, "SkyLine".

In contrast to the metallic and concrete structures lay the parks….both large and small, filling acres or sometimes just a few square feet. Feeding this greenery and sometimes lush carpet are tributaries, hidden streams, small creeks and occasionally rivers. The waters represent constant change, under calm waters and over powerful currents, doing so with exquisite beauty. This is "river sings a song to trees".

The final movement, "Peachtree Street", is a representation of all those roadways and main arteries that flow through cities (Peachtree Street is the main street that runs through downtown Atlanta, the city of my childhood). Every main street that runs through a city is loaded with the energy and bustle of commerce, reflecting the needs and wants of its citizens through businesses. Because there is so much diversity in city streets, I’ve created a movement that explores the diverse sections of the orchestra, their relationships, and their combination in creating a larger voice.

This work was commissioned and premiered in 2002 by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano, Music Director.

Jennifer Higdon

---

Piano Concerto No. 3
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943)

Sergei Rachmaninoff has been described as the composer who carried on where Tchaikovsky left off. He was not concerned with breaking new ground musically, feeling that the old forms brought him the direction he needed. As a Russian, he was possessed of a Russian temperament and outlook. His music was a product of that temperament and was certainly Russian music. On the other hand, he refused to produce works to any formula or preconceived theory. “ Music,” he said, “should be the expression of a composer’s complex personality.”

In comparison to earlier works, Rachmaninoff’s third piano concerto is a more loosely constructed composition, with a theme that makes a statement but seems to be less concerned with its development. In his own words, Rachmaninoff said that his third piano concerto “simply wrote itself.” He wrote to a friend “If I had any plan in composing this theme, I was thinking only of sound. I wanted to ‘sing’ the melody on the piano, as a singer would sing it – and to find a suitable orchestral accompaniment, one that would not muffle the singing.”

The new work was composed during the summer of 1909, and on a Sunday afternoon in November of 1909 he played the work himself with the New York Symphony Orchestra as his United States debut. Critics’ impressions were mixed. It was simply so different from previous offerings. Some said that it was too long, that it lacked rhythmic and harmonic contrast, that it was too melancholy and did not rise to a level of passion typical of Russian music. They struggled with its honesty and simplicity, its lack of attempt to impress, finally coming to the conclusion that it must be taken as “a purely personal utterance of the composer,” with the character of an impromptu, unstudied and informal. It reached its height of popularity when Vladimir Horowitz included it in his repertoire.

Rachmaninoff himself was a man who valued peace, avoided conflict, and got along well with his family, his friends and his public. He was a popular figure in the United States, who grew in fame and made money from his work. His death in 1943 at age seventy did not diminish the public’s interest in his music. It remains his personal monument.

Beryl McHenry

---

Billy the Kid Suite
Aaron Copland (1900 - 1990)

Aaron Copland was born in Brooklyn and grew up in his family's apartment over their general store on Washington Avenue. He went to school in Brooklyn and was the only musician in his family. His first exposure to composition was in high school, where he took lessons in the basics. It was enough to fire his imagination, and, when he graduated, he chose to go to Paris to study, staying four years and mastering the art of sophisticated composition. He was always interested in folk tunes and how they could be presented in fresh ways. In the mid-1930s he visited Mexico and adapted many of the tunes he heard into El Salon Mexico. This was so well-received that he was encouraged to do the same with American folk tunes. The perfect opportunity came when prominent director Lincoln Kirstein commissioned a suite of music for a ballet based on the young outlaw Billy the Kid. The result was an amazing evocation of the old west in America, incorporating old cowboy tunes, as well as original music, into a brilliant mix.

The suite of music that Copland pulled from the one-act ballet and adapted for orchestra was first performed in New York in 1941. "Street in a Frontier Town" is the most extensive section, where we first meet Billy as a boy of twelve. He and his mother encounter a street brawl which turns ugly, and Billy's mother is killed. Billy quickly grabs a knife from a cowhand's belt and stabs his mother's attackers. He runs away, beginning his brief career of crime, and the music describes crowd scenes, card games, gunfire, and reflective moments. In the section called "Running Gun Battle", Billy is ambushed by his former friend, Sheriff Pat Garrett. The music reflects a crowd of townspeople celebrating the outlaw's capture, complete with an out-of-tune piano. The ballet tells of his escape from jail and eventual death when he is once again caught by "the law." Copland chose to omit this ending from his orchestral suite.

The account of Billy's life is fictional, of course. The real Billy, Henry McCarty, who was born in New York as Copland was, headed west with his family in search of silver. His mother died of tuberculosis, not a gunshot, and his father abandoned him, after which he fell in with bad company and began his infamous criminal career. His life ended in a shoot-out at age 22. Legend has transformed him into a larger-than-life figure and the icon of the Old West we know.

Copland tells us he resolved to keep his music for the ballet simple - helping, but never pushing itself into the main event. Yet he clearly produced a work that has held its own as a beloved example of truly American music.

Beryl McHenry