Corigliano's "Fantasia on an Ostinato"

Synopsis

The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition is held every four years in Fort Worth, Texas, and for each competition, a new test piece for solo piano is commissioned that each contestant is required to interpret.

The 1985 test piece, “Fantasia on an Ostinato” by American composer John Corigliano, was first performed on today’s date. It was inspired by a famous repetitive passage in the slow, second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, as Corigliano explained:

“Beethoven’s near-minimalistic use of his material and my own desire to write a piece in which the performer is responsible for decisions concerning the durations of repeated patterns, led to my first experiment in so-called minimalist techniques.

“I approached this task with mixed feelings … for while I admire [minimalism’s] emphasis on attractive textures and its occasional ability to achieve a hypnotic quality (not unlike some late Beethoven), I do not care for its excessive repetition, its lack of architecture and its overall emotional sterility.

“In my ‘Fantasia on an Ostinato’ I attempted to combine the attractive aspects of minimalism with convincing structure and emotional expression … [climaxing] in a return of the obsessive Beethoven rhythm and, finally, the appearance of the Beethoven theme itself.”

Music Played in Today's Program

John Corigliano (b. 1938) — Fantasia on an Ostinato (Nina Tichman, p.) Naxos 8.559306

On This Day

Births

• 1886 - French conductor and composer conductor Paul Paray, in Le Tréport;

• 1903 - Soviet-Armenian composer Aram Khachaturian (Gregorian date: June 6);

• 1936 - American composer Harold Budd, in Los Angeles;

• 1941 - American singer and songwriter Bob Dylan (born Robert Zimmerman), in Duluth, Minn.;

Deaths

• 1968 - American composer Bernard Rogers, age 75, in Rochester, N.Y.;

• 1974 - American composer Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington, age 75, in New York City;

• 1996 - American composer Jacob Druckman, age 67, in New Haven, Conn.;

Premieres

• 1803 - Beethoven: Violin Sonata No. 9 ("Kreutzer Sonata"), in Vienna, with violinist George Bridgetower and Beethoven at the piano;

• 1810 - Beethoven: incidental music for Goethe's play "Egmont," in Vienna at the Hofburg Theater;

• 1833 - Marschner: opera "Hans Heiling," in Berlin at the Königliches Opernhaus;

• 1899 - Massenet: "Cendrillon," in Paris;

• 1906 - Delius: "Sea Drift" (to a text by Walt Whitman, in Essen, Germany;

• 1911 - Elgar: Symphony No. 2, at the London Festival with the Queen's Hall Orchestra conducted by the composer;

• 1918 - Bartók: opera "Bluebeard's Castle," at the Budapest Opera;

• 1939 - Elliott Carter: "Pocahontas" Ballet, at the Martin Beck Theater in New York City , with an orchestra conducted by Fritz Kitzinger; Following Carter's ballet, the New York premiere of Copland's ballet "Billy the Kid" was presented (Copland's ballet had been premiered in Chicago on October 16, 1938);

• 1948 - John Gay: "The Beggar's Opera" arranged by Benjamin Britten, in Cambridge;

• 1970 - Panufnik: "Universal Prayer," at St. John the Divine Cathedral in New York City, Leopold Stokowski conducting.