William Schuman (1910-1992)
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| Photo of conductor Gerard Schwarz (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Performed by Gerard Schwarz
and the Seattle Symphony.
"Commissioned by the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation, the story of Night Journey is based o
n the Oedipus myth but from the point of view of Jocasta 'at that instant when she recognized her dual destiny as mother and lover,' according to Schuman. It was premiered on 3 May 1947, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, during a symposium on music criticism hosted by Harvard University.
The original version of Night Journey was adapted by Schuman in 1981 for small ensemble and entitled Night Journey: Choreographic Poem for Fifteen Instruments. The later version is about seven to eight minutes shorter than the original, owing to the deletion of certain repeats and bridge sections required for the staged version of the ballet.
Night Journey is introspective, pensive, jagged, and dissonant. It begins with static chords in the lower strings and an extended solo horn melody. The ensuing piano figure sets a new and unsettled mood, and the dissonant motive, in rhythmic unison, is heightened by the eerie sul ponticello (on the bridge) figure in the strings.
The glacial tempo of quarter note = 48--52 sets the context for the introduction of the principal melodic motive, which is presented by the oboe and reintroduced frequently. A furioso section begins with the jagged piano figure heard earlier, extending for several measures until an accelerando molto occurs in a rhythmically strident section, presenting first strings, and then piano and winds, arriving at the exceedingly fast tempo of quarter note = 184.
Soon a variant of Schuman 'flourishes' (bursts of sixteenth notes irregularly interrupted by sixteenth rests) appears, involving rapidly ascending figures. The violins and violas then introduce a passionate melody with large expressive intervals—a hallmark of Schuman's later melodic writing. In this section, Schuman writes triplet figures that eventually become sextuplets in a written accelerando—another typical Schumanesque compositional signature—adding even more tension to the music.
As the piece progresses the musical context becomes increasingly violent, with a distinctive dissonance in which the tonality is purposely ambiguous. In a typical gesture, Schuman juxtaposes the wind choir against the strings. The work comes to a quiet conclusion. The tonality remains ambiguous: the sustained D in the piano and the basses with the horn on an F-natural imply D minor, while the upper voices keep the tonal center unclear.
The intertwining melodic lines in this fifteen-instrument version have a clarity and focus not found in the original orchestration, and they create an astringency appropriate to the somber story line of the original Martha Graham ballet." - Joseph W. Polisi
