New Recordings
Two important new recordings of the music of Benjamin Lees - Albany Music has released a fabulous new recording of the Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Albany Symphony Orchestra, David Alan Miller, conductor, and a strong advocate of Mr. Lees' music, pianist Ian Hobson. It's catalog number Troy 441 and you can find more about it (and even order the disk online) at the Albany site - http://www.albanyrecords.com/.
Albany Records said of this release, "The great American composer Benjamin Lees wrote his Piano Concerto No. 2 for the Boston Symphony Orchestra who premiered it in Boston on March 15, 1968. It is great to see more and more of Lees' music showing up on disc."
American Record Guide agreed in their September/October 2001 issue, saying that the Piano Concerto No. 2 is, "typical of this master composer. Lees always delivers a powerful sense of inevitability; every phrase seems to grow out of the previous one…Ian Hobson, a heroic advocate for Lees' tough-minded music, plays the hell out of this piece. Both the concerto and performance are very exciting, and alone worth the price of this recording."
Albany already has a bit of Lees' other music as well. You can also find information about his Complete Violin Sonatas with violinist Ellen Orner (Troy 138) and Ian Hobson's recording of the solo piano music (Troy 227) at http://www.albanyrecords.com/.
Upcoming Recordings
2002 will bring the much anticipated release of Stephen Gunzenhauser and the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz's recording of the composers Symphonies 2, 3 and 5, "Kalmar Nyckel"). Along with the Naxos release of Symphony No. 4 "Memorial Candles", this will mark the first integral set of Mr. Lees' complete symphonies.
It is especially appropriate that Steven Gunzenhauser has recorded these three works, as he has been a strong advocate of Mr. Lees'symphonies, and it was the conductor's Delaware Symphony that commissioned Symphony No. 5 to honor the founding of the city of Wilmington by Swedish immigrants from the ship Kalmar Nyckel. Special thanks to our friends at the Aaron Copland Fund for Music and the Swedish Information Service for helping make this recording possible.
Plans are also underway for the Cypress String Quartet to record all five of Mr. Lees' superb string quartets. More about this in future issues of Perspective.
Performances & Commissions
A major commission has been received from the Cypress String Quartet for Mr. Lees' String Quartet No. 5. The composer has described the recently completed work thusly:
"The String Quartet No. 5 was completed in late summer 2001 for the Cypress String Quartet. It was commissioned by them as part of their Call and Response series and is in four movements. The first is marked "Measured" and is the most complex of the four. The second movement is marked "Arioso." The third movement is the shortest of all, barely two minutes in duration. Marked "Quick, quiet," it is like a zephyr, barely audible in manner. Movement number four is an explosive one and is marked, appropriately, "Explosive."
The work will be premiered by the Cypress String Quartet on March 3, 2002 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Performing Arts in San Francisco.
On March 26,2002 the Los Angeles pianist Susan Svrcek will give the West Coast premiere of Odyssey #1 & #2 by Mr. Lees as part of the Piano Spheres series, held at the Neighborhood Church of Pasadena.
Benjamin Lees has been commissioned by the National Federation of Music Clubs to write a new work for 2 pianos, to be premiered in 2003. This piece will be required for all pianists participating in the NFMC's 2003 Ellis Competition. The organization is currently using Mr. Lees' Fantasia for Piano as part of their 2002 competition requirements.
The Pittsburgh Symphony Brass has asked Mr. Lees for a setting of the Fugue from the last movement of his Scarlatti Portfolio. The group will present the premiere in the Summer of 2002 and will record the work for Four Winds records.
On the Web
For more information about Benjamin Lees, visit his website at http://home.dc.rr.com/bglees. You can also read a recent (and wonderful) Sequenza21 Electronic Dialogues interview with the composer at http://www.sequenza21.com/Lees.html.
Rhythmic applause broke out at the conclusion of the new work by Benjamin Lees, presented December 5, 1999, by the Orchestre Philharmonique De Monte Carlo under the direction of Hubert Soudant. The excitement of the audience was echoed by critical acclaim in the Monte Carlo press. Writing in the newspaper Nice-Matin, music critic Jean-Marie Fiorucci prefaced his review with the headline:
Benjamin Lees Presented the Quintessence of Percussion
"Transparent lines, sharp definition of timbres, resonant composition and rhythmic parameters rigorously controlled...Benjamin Lees' score was given a world premiere at C.C.A.M. It offered an extraordinary mixture of orchestral plasticity while displaying a palette of fresh and lively colors for percussion.
"The work immediately took on an epic form that finally allowed for a union of the composer's scoring with the art of the cinema. It was also a joy to hear his imaginative arrangement, and of its wealth of percussive material. A success for this defender `of music which does not deviate from the straight path of tonality!'
"In fact, there is no single point of dissonant excitement but a `Concerto' of overall balance from which springs a luminous life, beautifully served by the conductor Hubert Soudant, who ably interpreted this work, as did the fine Monte Carlo performers."
Attacks sharp and precise
"The beauty and voluble martial charm of this `Concerto for
Percussion' were magnified by the sharp, precise percussion attacks
of Julien Bourgeois, Christian Siterre, Patrick Mendy, Philippe
Bauduin, and Gianni Pizzolleto.. Moreover, the `sextet' encompassed
the research of this American master wonderfully well, a point
of ideal fusion and of diverse influences was achieved. How can
one resist so much virtuosity and poetry?"
The recording of the work on the Naxos label has brought forth enthusiastic reviews from England. From the respected magazine Gramophone in the November 1999 issue came the following review:
"Lees is known to the British record catalogue only for a Horn Concerto and three Violin and Piano Sonatas. There's more available in the U.S.A. of course, where Lees, now 75, has had a consistent profileand a British publisherfor half a century. His family came from Manchuria but moved to the U.S. when Lees was a baby.
"Like Panufnik, Lees has written a number of pieces based on political issues, in particular the Holocaust. His Piano Trio No. 2, `Silent Voices,' was commissioned by the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington and performed there last year. Memorial Candles, written to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Holocaust in 1985, is an epic on the scale of Mahler. The second and third movements involve a mezzo-soprano singing poems by Nelly Sachs, herself a survivor from the Nazi persecutions who won a Nobel Prize for her works of forgiveness, deliverance and peace in 1966. Her imagery is impressively stark and simple. The three poems used have a single symbol eachsomeone blowing the shofar, footsteps going towards death, and sand in the shoes of victims. There is also a special solo role for violin, `the soul instrument of Central Europe,' as Lees calls it. The music is far removed from the meditative minimalism of Górecki. Lees deals graphically with the agonies involved, sparing us nothing: it milks some of the same emotions as Britten's War Requiem.
"Memorial Candles is a serious treatment of its subject, which the composer had planned for some years. There are times when the whole conception seems inflated but Lees manages to sustain a variety of moods, pitched between menace and funeral elegy. Yet another warning at the end of a brutal century. Kimball Wheeler is ideally cast and the performance is committed and vividly recorded."
The Sunday Times, London, August 30, 1999 had critic Stephen Pettitt writing:
"The American composer Benjamin Lees wrote this impressive work in 1985 in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the ending of the Holocaust. It has immense power and ambition, its three movements together lasting over an hour and evoking all the fear, desolation and darkness of that terrible episode. The middle movement includes settings of two poems by the 1966 Nobel Prize-winner and Holocaust survivor Nelly Sachs. They're sung with apposite dignity, terror and pathos by the husky sounding soprano Kimball Wheeler. A solo violinist (James Buswell), representing, according to Lees himself, the soul of central and eastern Europe, also plays an important part. Lees' reputation may be modest, but among his more glamorous peers there are few who could make their audiences weep so for the pastand presentinhumanities perpetrated by mankind."
On April 28 and 29, 2000, the San Jose Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonid Grin will give this work its U.S. premiere. It was given its world premiere July 16, 1997, by the Orchestre Philharmonique De Monte Carlo conducted by James DePreist.
Commissioned for cellist Steven Honigberg by the Chamber Music Series at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, this work for solo cello will be given its world premiere May 28, 2000, in Washington, D.C.
First performed in 1974 with the Houston Symphony Orchestra and pianist James Dick, it will be performed June 17, 2000, at the Round Top Festival with Mr. Dick again as soloist and the Festival Orchestra conducted by the brilliant young conductor Robert Spano.
Address inquiries to either:
Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.
35 East 21st Street
New York, NY 10010-6212
(212) 358-5300
Internet: http://www.ny.boosey.com
e-mail: bhsales@ny.boosey.com or
bhpromo@ ny.boosey.com
or
Jeffrey James Arts Consultants
316 Pacific Street
Massapequa Park, NY 11762
(516) 797-9166
Internet: http://www.jamesarts.com
e-mail: jamesarts@worldnet.att.net
Coinciding very closely to the
composer's 75th birthday in January 1999, the New York Philharmonic
will perform the Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra
November 5, 6, 7 and 10, 1998, under the direction of Leonard
Slatkin. This work is undeniably the most performed piece in the
composer's repertoire, having been played almost eighty times
since its premiere in 1966 by every major U.S. orchestra as well
as regional orchestras throughout the country. Leonard Slatkin
had previously performed this work with the St. Louis Symphony
Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra.
It had been recorded by the Royal
Philharmonic Orchestra in the late 1960s on the RCA label and
is now on the CRI label.
Originally commissioned and premiered
by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in 1985 to commemorate the 40th
anniversary of the end of the Holocaust, this sixty-minute work
has now been recorded by the National Symphony Orchestra of the
Ukraine (Kiev) directed by Theodore Kuchar and will be released
in early October of this year on the Naxos label. Mr. Kuchar is
also the Music Director of the Boulder Symphony Orchestra, Colorado.
The texts of this symphony are
by the late Nobel Laureate Nelly Sachs and are sung by mezzo-soprano
Kimball Wheeler. The extensive violin solos are played by the
American violinist James Buswell.
Information concerning composer Benjamin Lees is now available on the Internet. The web site includes a biography, discography, complete list of works, awards, newsletters and works in progress. The site address is:
http://home.att.net/~bglees
Address inquiries to either:
Boosey & Hawkes, Inc. 35 East 21st Street New York, NY 10010-6212 (212) 358-5300 Internet: http://www.ny.boosey.com e-mail: bhsales@ny.boosey.com or bhpromo@ ny.boosey.com or Jeffrey James Arts Consultants 316 Pacific Street Massapequa Park, NY 11762 (516) 797-9166 Internet: http://www.jamesarts.com e-mail: jamesarts@worldnet.att.net
On July 16, 1997, before a packed international audience
in the courtyard of the Palais Princier in Monte Carlo, L'Orchestre
Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, under the direction of James DePreist,
gave the world premiere of Constellations, commissioned by the
orchestra to commemorate the 700th anniversary of the Grimaldi
Dynasty. The response to this ten-minute work was immediate and
enthusiastic.
Pierre-Petite, leading critic of the Paris newspaper LeFigaro,
wrote as follows: "It was the American composer Benjamin
Lees who initiated the fireworks with a short work, Constellations.
It is about ten minutes of absolute freedom containing without
doubt, a hint of tonality but which is transformed by uninterrupted
sprays of arabesques, cascades of sonorities of instrumental discoveries,
of a remarkable transparency and invention. It is, in fact, a
mini-concerto for percussion and orchestra which evokes, with
a kind of subtle magic, that which one formerly called the harmony
of the spheres. The challenge (of the work) is perfectly formed,
and its success incontestable."
Indisputably the most performed work of the composer,
it has been scheduled for performances by the New York Philharmonic
in early November of 1998. The orchestra will be led by Leonard
Slatkin, with the orchestra's principal string players as soloists.
This will mark the work's first performance by the New York Philharmonic.
Since its premiere in 1965, it has been performed by every major
orchestra in the United States, e.g., the Cleveland Orchestra
(George Szell), Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Jean Martinon), Philadelphia
Orchestra (Eugene Ormandy), Boston Symphony Orchestra (William
Steinberg), Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (William Steinberg),
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (Leonard Slatkin), San Francisco
Symphony Orchestra (Bruce Ferden), et al. It has been recorded
by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and is available under the
CRI label.
The first all-Lees CD has been received with genuine enthusiasm by a number of publications devoted to record reviews. This disc contains the Violin Sonatas nos. 1, 2 and 3 as well as the Invenzione for Solo Violin.
Writing in American CD, critic K. Robert Schwarz commented, "Benjamin Lees' Complete Violin Works, played with blustery force by violinist Ellen Orner and pianist Joel Wizansky, span the years 1953 to 1989. The three violin sonatas are visceral and explosive, filled with arresting gestures and keen motivic development, preferring rhythmic propulsion and lean textures to sensuous lyricism. They may be dissonant, but their relentless energy and grim wit make them readily accessible and they deserve to find a place in the recital repertory."
Echoing these comments is Scott Duncan in the Orange County Register (CA). "Although Lees writes from a nontonal foundation, the music is remarkably accessible to the listener, entertaining as it is deeply dramatic. The Sonata No. 3 (1989) is one movement, 18 minutes long; the violin and piano form equal protagonists as their individual themes are developed, often in a continuous thread.
"Orner and Wizansky give persuasive, thoroughly committed performances that span Lees' complete violin works including two other sonatas and the Invenzione for Solo Violin."
Finally, music critic Hewell Turcuit for In Tune Magazine observed "Composer Benjamin Lees has been one of the most performed and recorded of American composers since the early 1950s--if one discounts the big shots like Copland and Barber. But there's very little available of his individual music on disc at the moment. That makes this release of his four violin works all the more welcomed. Violinist Ellen Orner and pianist Joel Wizansky play Lees' three Sonatas, with Orner adding his large Invenzione for unaccompanied violin.
"Although Russian by birth, Lees' family moved to the United States soon afterward. Following formal university studies, he was for five years a student of avant-garder George Antheil. His violin music is all on the dramatic side, flashy but stern in manner. Like his teacher, Lees shunned schools of thought, to hack his way through musical problems in his own way. What emerges is mildly atonal music, carrying some of the abrasive masculinity of Prokofiev or Strawinsky, plus a hint of Bartok here and there. Of course, that's only superficial comparisons. Lees' music really sounds like nobody but Lees, which is relatively free of folksy materials. (The finale of the First Sonata does hint at American dance rhythm values.) There are so few major violin sonatas by American contemporaries that one stands amazed at the neglect of these pieces. They represent some of the most interesting Lees I've encountered.
"Violinist Orner, who is also Russian-American, always saves a large affection for new music in her repertoire. She's a beautifully skilled artist with a terrific technique and the innate sensibility needed to make new music convincing at first hearing. Handsomely partnered by Wizansky, these are superior performances all around. The disc comes with detailed notes, also by Orner.
Recommended."
Available at all record stores or from Albany Records, 98 Wolf Road, Albany, NY 12205.
The Violin Sonata #2 and Invenzione for Solo Violin are published. The Sonata #1 and #3 are in preparation for publication. All scores and parts are available from Boosey & Hawkes, Inc.
On June 15, 1994, before a packed house consisting of representatives of the American Symphony Orchestra League, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton gave the world premiere of this new work for tenor, organ, tape and orchestra. The audience responded with a long ovation for all concerned. The work was commissioned by the orchestra to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day. It is a setting of three poems interspersed with the taped voices of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as well as soldiers and correspondents who were there on June 6, 1944.
Wrote John Ardoin in the Dallas Morn-ing News, "The idea made dramatic sense and there was much in the score that was alive and that created a strong atmo-sphere of remembrance." Commented Wayne Lee Gay in the Fort Worth Star-Telegraph, "Lees' handling of the orchestra was, as usual, masterful, and his creation of rhythmic impetus impressive."
The piece is to be performed February 11, 1995 by the Juneau Symphony under Melvin Flood.
Under the direction of Music Director Leonid Grin, the San Jose Symphony performed this work on February 18, 19 and 20, 1994. Commented critic Paul Hertelendy in the San Jose Mercury News, "`Francesca' had to share billing on the program with a beautifully crafted Concerto for Brass Choir and Orchestra by Benjamin Lees, 70. Lees' style consists of a great rhythmic acuity and eagerness to take broad leaps in his themes. Lees' brand of tonality is a comfortable one for audiences skittish about new sounds. Critics too are drawn to his use of the entire 12-member brass section alternately as a solo group, and as an integral part of the ensemble.
"The 18-minute work in two connected movements received honest, bold perfor-mances, enkindling a good part of the Friday night audience to give the chipper, upbeat Lees a standing ovation when he came on stage."
Commissioned by the Wichita Symphony Orchestra to celebrate its 50th anniver-sary, this 9-minute opus was given its world premiere October 8, 1993, under its director Zuohuang Chen. Observed Rhonda Holman in the Wichita Eagle, "And the world premiere-well, that was simply one of the most stirring moments in recent Wichita history. That's not because the 9-minute piece is a lush, noisy crowd-pleaser. It rises, restlessly out of a timpani roll with Lees' characteristic austerity until its final upward bound. The work's tiny shooting figurations were well-defined by the various sections and one might wish for even more fire in the final fireworks. Out in the hall, an audience largely unaccustomed to new music greeted the premiere with what felt like sincere, if surprised enthusiasm."
Attesting to the staying power of this 1976 work, it is to be performed January 11, 17, 18 and 24, 1995, by the Florida Philharmonic under James Judd. Later in the season the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under James DePreist will play it May 26, 27 and 28, 1995.
Following a short hiatus after its sensa-tional 1992 premiere performances under Lorin Maazel and the Pittsburgh Sym-phony Orchestra and its performances by the PSO in Barcelona, Bonn and Birmingham, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Litton will give four performances December 1-4, 1994. Principal horn Gregory Hustis will be the soloist.
Commissioned by the Sea Cliff Chamber Players, New York, to commemorate the group's 25th anniversary, this new work will receive its world premier November 12, 1994, in Sea Cliff, New York. On December 5th the Dallas new music group Voices of Change will perform the piece as well.
This oft-performed early cycle for soprano will be heard in Alice Tully Hall, New York, on October 9, 1994. The soprano Karen Williams, who is making her New York recital debut, will be the soloist.
The Minnesota Orchestra under Edo DeWaart opened its 1992/93 season with performances of this work September 16, 18 and 19. Writing in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, music critic Michael Anthony had the following comments: "Lees' Passacaglia made a strong curtain-raiser. Commissioned for the American Bicentennial and premiered by the National Symphony in 1976, the piece is structured as its name indicates: 19 continuous variations on a short, recurring theme. Brass fanfares alternate with delicate woodwind figures and a dozen other effects, as though Lees were slowly turning a 19-sided piece of crystal while the audience peered inside, listening."
The piece was also played by the Eugene Symphony, Oregon, on February 25, 1993, under Marin Alsop's direction. Critic Arnulf Zweig, in the Eugene Register-Guard, noted: "Lees' 1976 Passacaglia is a serious, well-crafted work, conservatively modern. The orchestra played well, cellos surging the Bach-like main theme, lush violas with woodwind punctuation following. A warm yet dissonant trombone-tuba chorale was striking."
Music director Marin Alsop featured this work at the Cabrillo Music Festival, California, on August 17, 1993.
The Delaware Symphony Orchestra presented three performances of this work December 10-12, 1992. In four movements, it was written in Helsinki in 1956 on commission from the Fish Creek Festival, Wisconsin. Writing in the News Journal, critic Tom Butler observed, "The DSO has had a fondness for Benjamin Lees for years. It is easy to see why they admire him. The 35-year old `Divertimento Burlesca' provided wonderful solo work for most of the sections as well as supplying an entertaining and coherent piece of comedy. Lees manages to distribute the roles of humor and sentiment throughout the orchestra. In the first movement the flute and harp provide humorous punctuation, yet in the Adagietto, Lees gives one beautiful tender melodies and the other subtle glissandos.
"The third movement is truly music with an attitude. The composer goes for brusque, sassy effects, with the clarinet running off a series of cuckoo imitations and an intentionally flatulent trombone reaching for guffaws. Lees came on stage after the work and was warmly received."
Continuing to gain a strong foothold in the orchestral repertoire, this work was given performances by the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, Tacoma Symphony Orchestra and Nassau Symphony (New York). Observed Philip Kennicott in Long Island's Newsday, "Benjamin Lees' `Concerto for Brass Choir and Orchestra' was the high point. Lees' music is thoughtful, coherent and powerful. He strictly avoids the usual tendency of brass choirs to veer off into maddening medleys and baroque banalities. Instead, he explores the more sinister, military genealogy of brass instruments. In anguished and anxious passages he is worthy of comparison with Shostakovich."
This piece, for narrator and orchestra, was played at the Lincoln Arts Festival, Boothbay Harbor, Maine, on August 3, 1993.
This season, composer Benjamin Lees will be the narrator for the work with the Susquehanna Symphony, December 4, 1993. The occasion will mark Lees' debut as narrator for his own composition.
Portrait of Rodin will be performed by the Queens Symphony Orchestra on October 17, 1993, at Colden Auditorium under Arthur Fagen. Based on seven of Rodin's sculptures, it was premiered in 1987 with the Oregon Symphony under James DePreist. The October performance will also feature slide projections of each figure while the orchestra is playing.
The Windham String Quartet will perform this on the new "Music of Our Time" series of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, New York, on November 8, 1993. The above performances are part of a 70th birthday commemoration for the composer, whose birthday is in January, 1994.
Other performances commemorating the event will include the world premiere of Borealis commissioned by the Wichita Symphony Orchestra (for its 50th anniversary) October 8, 9 and 10, 1993; The San Jose Symphony performances of Concerto for Brass Choir and Orchestra February 18, 19 and 20, 1994; and the world premiere of Echoes of Normandy, a work commissioned by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy during World War II. This new work is for tenor solo, organ and orchestra, with the premiere set for June 15, 1994.
A thundering ovation greeted the soloist and composer Benjamin Lees at the first performance of this commissioned new work by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra May 14, 1992, under Lorin Maazel. Writing in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, critic Robert Croan exclaimed, "It's absolutely wonderful to see the staid Pittsburgh Symphony audience give a prolonged standing ovation to a new piece. This happened last night at the end of Benjamin Lees' engaging Concerto for French Horn--performed brilliantly by soloist William Caballero." Croan went on, "Lees' musical ideas are, indeed, interesting from first note to last. His music has always been characterized by interesting rhythmic patterns, and the outer movements of his new concerto feature a driving underlying pulse enhanced by irregular accents and unpredictable meter changes. His harmonic language is conservative but not bland, his melodies--notably in the calmer second movement--songful and human. Most important, the new work has inner energy, a distinctly personal profile."
Critic Donald Rosenberg of the Pittsburgh Press was no less enthusiastic. "Lees' concerto is a splendid vehicle to show off Caballero's expertise. The horn's character is defined in a multitude of temperamental ways, its ability to take off on bravura flights balanced by passages of atmospheric lyricism. Lees establishes the work's accessible language in the opening pages, and the horn soon serves as a dramatic protagonist eager to offer urgent calls and poetic asides. The horn outlines the second movement's serene theme as a nocturne that gives way to bold statements bringing to mind the majestic `American' qualities of Bernstein. The finale places the solo instrument in a hunting landscape whose rhythmic pulse is given spice through numerous metrical changes. Caballero's tour-de-force last night illuminated the best aspects of Lees' music."
On June 2, 1992, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra performed the concerto in Bonn. Again, the reaction was the same as in Pittsburgh. Hans G. Schürmann, critic of the Bonn General-Anzeiger exclaimed, "The Benjamin Lees Horn Concerto, practically tailor-made for the orchestra--and its excellent horn soloist--is a genuine showpiece for a virtuoso ensemble featuring instrumentation shot through with brilliant color combinations, bracing shock waves from the full percussion, and silky and tender impressionistic passages which gently surround the solo instrument or inspire it to loud and boisterous escapades. The concerto remains light and conversational. It has denser instrumentation here and there but leaves room for a great deal of flexibility and fine shading in the music, which always maintains interest and tension-- where the irrepressible William Caballero with his varied, simultaneously elegant and intelligent horn artistry hadn't already done that all by himself."
On November 11, 1991, the new sonata received its world premiere in San Francisco at the Veterans' War Memorial. The San Francisco Chronicle's Joshua Kosman wrote, "...the Sonata #3 for Violin and Piano by Benjamin Lees was given a forthright performance by Daniel and Machiko Kobialka, for whom it was composed. This turned out to be a well-crafted, often lovely 18-minute score in one fairly sectional movement. The musical ideas are distinctively profiled, each developed with transparent clarity. There is grace in the writing and an appealing lack of fuss in the piece's overall formal workings."
This work, originally premiered in San Francisco in 1990 by the Aurora String Quartet, was again performed by that group on January 19, 1992. Chamber Music America had commissioned the piece for the group and included it on the Chamber Music America Conference concert. Wrote Joshua Kosman in the San Francisco Chronicle, "Lees was represented by his String Quartet #4 which the Aurora String Quartet played suavely (the group gave the piece its world premiere at Old First [Church] in 1990). In three movements, Lees lays out his ideas melodically, developing them with welcome clarity. In the first movement, sudden chromatic flurries serve as identifiable punctuation points. The central movement, a winsome pizzicato scherzo, is formally freer. Most compelling were the slashing chordal strokes of the finale."
Later in the season the work was performed on April 10 by the Portland String Quartet at Noyce Auditorium, Portland, Maine. Mark Polshook, writing in the Portland Press Herald commented, "After intermission the Portland String Quartet performed Benjamin Lees' dark and brooding String Quartet #4. This dissonant composition was reminiscent of Bartok's string quartets without imitating them. In the program notes Lees wrote `there is a feeling of continuity and flow that forces the listener to concentrate on the evolution of the musical material.' This apt description only begins to hint at the compelling nature of this work. Lees' style of composition emphasizes the development of his musical material in a singular fashion. The audience that filled Noyce Auditorium gave the PSQ and Lees a rousing round of applause upon the conclusion of his work."
From September 11-20, 1992, Ballet West will offer the world premiere of Lady Guinevere, choreographed by the company's Raymond Van Mason. It will be given at the Capitol Theatre, Salt Lake City. The score is from sections of two works--Concerto for Chamber Orchestra and Scarlatti Portfolio. The story revolves about Guinevere, Merlin, King Arthur and Sir Lancelot.
The New York Premiere of this work will be given September 21, 1992, at Weill Recital Hall by violinist Ellen Orner. Later in the season she will perform it in Pittsburgh.
Continuing the impressive list of performances for this piece ever since 1976, the Minnesota Orchestra under Edo DeWaart will open its 1992/93 season with four performances of it September 16, 17, 18, 19, 1992.
On April 18, 1993, the Bangor Symphony Orchestra under Werner Torkanowsky will present the Portrait of Rodin, a work based on seven of Rodin's sculptures. The piece was originally premiered in 1987 with James DePreist leading the Oregon Symphony Orchestra.
The Wichita Symphony Orchestra has commissioned a new work from Benjamin Lees to commemorate its 50th anniversary. The premiere will take place in the 1993/94 season.
It was an important season for this major work. The artistry of Elmar Oliveira elicited ovations from the audiences and led to such critical praise as that from Catherine Reese of the Salt Lake Tribune. "At times, the violin threatened to take flight; at others, the intricate double stopping made it hard to believe there was only one instrument at work. Particularly impressive was the vibrant third movement, with powerful strides in the orchestra balancing the lyrical flights of the solo violin. The Lees Concerto is a lyrical, engaging work." Writing in the Sacramento Bee, senior critic Alfred Kay noted, "Lees' `Violin Concerto' is big, serious, complex and important. It contains a remarkable cadenza and what could be described as a frank question and answer period between the solo instrument and the orchestra. Fortunately too, it provides a soloist with numerous virtuoso opportunities. Oliveira's performance was brilliant, clearly delineating each note without compromising the concerto's basic form and objectives."
Continuing to generate impressive performances for this work, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Eduardo Mata offered four more. Perhaps critic John Ardoin, writing in the Dallas Morning News summed it up best. Speaking of Lees' music and the Passacaglia in particular he wrote, "Like it or dislike it, there are no tricks. It has sincerity, strength and staying power." He went on to comment that "Like everything from his pen, this is music of strong, clear lines that `speaks.'" Later in the season James DePreist and the Philadelphia Orchestra performed the Passacaglia at the Music center, drawing the following from Daniel Webster in the Philadelphia Enquirer. "The mood of the Passacaglia is dark and solemn, but the writing for low strings was spiced and leavened with percussion. The recurring tune with its witty variations received a reading showing the solidity of the piece."
The Passacaglia will open the 1991/92 season of the Long Island Philharmonic September 21 and 22 under the direction of Music Director Marin Alsop. In May 1992 it will receive its first performance in Budapest with the Hungarian State Symphony under guest conductor James DePreist.
Undoubtedly the most performed composition in the Lees catalogue, it received brilliant performances with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin and members of the Amici Quartet. The orchestra, offering a program of Lees, Martin and Rozsa, drew the following from James Wierzbicki, writing in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "The Lees and Rozsa concertos are especially powerful statements. They are richly thematic and based on solid tonal centers, yet their conservative elements make them seem hardly old-fashioned for their time, and their expressive content is more often intense than lyrical. And both of them give considerable independence to the featured players. In the Lees, the spotlit material is handled not so much by a string quartet as a foursome of soloists."
First introduced by the Louisville Orchestra in 1958, it was placed on the musical landscape after a series of memorable performances by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. The most recent performances were with the Fort Worth Symphony under John Giordano. Writing in the Dallas Morning News, John Ardoin observed, "Even though the Lees Symphony is more than 30 years old, it was new to me, and I regret not having known it sooner. As is frequently the case with Mr. Lees' music, this symphony takes a very personal approach to both its form and material. In three movements, the work centers on a virtuoso scherzo. The composer has spoken of this scherzo as having five important design elements. I found, however, that one dominates--a striking motif first sounded by the timpani and later taken up by other sections of the orchestra. It hits with vivid impact.
"The first movement is lean, even angry, music and sounds as though some definite program idea was behind its making. The final movement is a stark and transparent adagio. Mr. Lees has spoken of this movement as coming to `a strange, calm ending,' but this could be stretched to say that a calm strangeness or eeriness is characteristic of the entire movement. It is music that casts a spell and stays in one's mind long after the concert is over."
The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra has commissioned a Concerto for Horn and Orchestra, the premiere to take place May 14, 15 and 16, 1992, with Music Director Lorin Maazel and principal horn William Caballero. The orchestra will depart almost immediately for a European tour, where the new work will be performed in Madrid, Bonn and Birmingham.
This set for piano solo will receive its world premiere May 27, 1992, at the Merkin Hall, New York, with Mirian Conti, the brilliant young Argentinean-born pianist.
The world premiere of the Sonata #3 for Violin and Piano will be presented by Daniel Kobialka, accompanied by his wife Machiko, at the Herbst Theater, San Francisco, CA, on November 12, 1991. The work was commissioned by Mr. Kobialka, who is principal second violinist of the San Francisco Symphony.
Eduardo Mata's performance with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra on March 17, 1990, elicited this response by Paul Gerard in the Milwaukee Journal: "Lees' love of the orchestra's texture and power qualifies it as neo-Romantic. Still, Lees is not interested in the banal, blaring `John Williams-style' fanfares that are popular in recent orchestral writing. The concerto is rhythmically driven, built primarily on two- and three-note motifs. The time signature shifts constantly. At one point, a three-note figure seemed to be on its way to syncopation oblivion when it sneaked into the first rhythmic groove of the composition--a mad, clanking doomsday dance. For all its rhythmic challenges, the MSO played the piece with dynamic precision and fire."
The first New York performance of this work took place December 3, 1989, at Carnegie Hall, with the American Symphony Orchestra led by James DePreist. Commenting in the New York Daily News, Bill Zakariesen observed, "It's a lusty piece of impressive sonorities, and it sustains interest through its near 25-minute running time. The audience certainly took to it."
Jahja Ling and the Florida Orchestra presented the work March 7, 8 and 10, 1990, in Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater. Kurt Loft of the Tampa Tribune commented, "The piece opened the eardrums early on and stayed intense throughout, bombarding listeners but also maintaining a somewhat Wagnerian undercurrent in the strings. The concerto unfolds on several levels and might be described as sensual rather than cerebral. Its impact could be felt in the overall program."
The performances September 28, 1989, by Marin Alsop and the Richmond (VA) Symphony Orchestra drew critical acclaim from Carl Dolmetsch in the Virginia Gazette. "In 1979, Benjamin Lees, one of our major composers in this era who, though now 65, remains undeservedly obscure, fashioned an orchestral suite from themes of seven of the harpsichord sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti to be choreographed by the San Francisco Ballet. He did more than merely orchestrate these themes, setting them into an idiom of his own that is, nonetheless, not avant-garde. The result is something akin to Respighi's Ancient Airs and Dances or Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin, and equally delightful, especially as played on this occasion with ease and expertise."
Repeating his successful 1988 world premiere of this symphony with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra, Music Director Stephen Gunzenhauser performed it once again December 7, 1989. "Exuberant `Kalmar Nyckel' symphony tops fine concert," headlined the Wilmington News Journal. Critic Tom Butler continued, "The `Kalmar Nyckel' symphony dissects the excitement, struggle, endurance and final triumph of the immigrant experience. Lees writes broadly, providing his characteristic soaring fanfares for the brass choir and unusual use of percussion. The somber string passages advance the emotional impact of the piece. A brilliant finale draws the entire orchestra into an elevating moment of release, signaling the arrival in the new land."
The stunning performance by pianist William Black with the Albany Symphony Orchestra January 19, 1990, led by conductor Asher Raboy, drew the following from Ron Emery in the Times Union. "Black was quite wonderful in both piano works. Lees' Variations are freshly inventive, short, full of contrast, rather a Son of Rachmaninoff's Paganini Variations. The orchestra and piano carry on a dialogue, with the piano sometimes playing chordal patterns. The quasi-cadenza near the end with piano and percussion, and, later, low strings, was most convincing."
Eduardo Mata and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra will perform the work January 31, February 1, 2, and 3, 1991, at the new Morton M. Myerson Symphony Center. It will be presented by the Redlands (CA) Symphony in October under the direction of Jon Robertson.
The concerto was first premiered with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1963 with Henryk Szeryng, violin, and conductor Erich Leinsdorf. Ruggiero Ricci played it in New York in the mid-1970s. Elmar Oliveira will now perform it November 16 and 17, 1990, with the Utah Symphony under Joseph Silverstein; November 25, 26 and 27 with the Sacramento Symphony led by Carter Nice; and February 23, 1991, with the Fort Wayne Philharmonic under Ronald Ondrejka.
The Fort Worth Symphony under John Giordano will perform this symphony November 3 and 4, 1990. It was originally commissioned by the Louisville Orchestra in 1958, then played by George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra. It was subsequently presented by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and numerous others.
The work will be played by the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin May 2 and 4, 1991. Mr. Slatkin first performed the piece in 1978 with the Minnesota Orchestra.
The Aurora String Quartet will offer the European premiere of this work September 13, 1990, at London's Royal Festival Hall. It was commissioned for the group by Chamber Music America and given its world premiere March 11, 1990, in San Francisco.