PROGRAM LISTING

Plain Song, Fantastic Dances (2005) Michael Gandolfi (b.1956)

I. St. Botolph's Fantasia
II. Tango Blue
III. Quick Step

PROGRAM NOTES

     Plain Song, Fantastic Dances was commissioned by the St. Botolph Club for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players in celebration of the Club’s 125th anniversary. At the time I set out to compose this work I was studying Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagete, admiring the paintings and photographic collages of David Hockney, and reading Boris Vian’s Autumn in Peking. Among other things, I was impressed by the bold strokes and clarity of line apparent in the Stravinsky and Hockney works as well as the strong connection to their respective traditions. This was complemented by the surreal, humorous and irreverent nature of Vian’s writing. All of the works shared a vibrant, vivid and assured purposefulness that I sought to create in Plain Song, Fantastic Dances.
     I selected an early plainsong (Gregorian chant) to serve as the primary theme for the opening movement of the work, St. Botolph’s Fantasia, in tribute to St. Botolph, a 7th century English monk. I also found a 12th century Notre Dame School melismatic organum based on this chant melody, which I quote at the beginning and end of the movement. (Melismatic organum is a two-part composition in which an elaborate melody is composed over a pre-existing chant.) The overall design of this movement is a variation form that presents the Gregorian melody in increasingly elaborate contrapuntal treatments, culminating in a seven-part texture in which the theme is stated in multiple speeds and keys.
     The second movement, Tango Blue, is light, rhythmical and bluesy. It features the woodwinds and horn supported by a pizzicato string-accompaniment that is mildly evocative of tango rhythms. Two extensive solos, one each for the horn and clarinet, lead to the climax of the movement, during which the strings abandon their pizzicato-accompaniment role, join in the melodic features of the movement, and ultimately lead the ensemble in the return of the opening harmonies and figures.
     Quick Step is a fast-paced finale driven by a primary melody that derives from the movement’s opening harmonic sequence. This melody is sequentially stated by several instruments and in several keys before leading to the movement’s detailed, contrapuntal middle-section. The contrapuntal passages smoothly lead back to the opening harmonic sequence. When this occurs, one might expect a full recapitulation of the primary melody. However, a fragment of one of the contrapuntal melodies is heard instead. This fragment serves as the material for a transition that leads to an extended coda in which the plainsong from the first movement reappears. The primary melody of the third movement emerges from within the increasingly elaborate accompaniment, providing counterpoint for the plainsong and enabling the piece to reach its ultimate close.

Michael Gandolfi

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