Ruth Crawford Seeger was one of a group of American composers known as “ultramoderns” who wrote works during the 1920s and 1930s. Her distinctive style was once referred to as “post-tonal pluralism”, marked by dissonance and irregular rhythms. Perhaps this is part of the reason why she is not a household name in classical music. Most of her works are jarringly different from what we typically think of as “classical” or “orchestral” and lean more toward the “academic” and “eclectic”. While she certainly saw success early on, becoming the first woman to receive the Guggenheim Fellowship, the Depression inspired a trend of accessibility and her music started to miss audience expectations. In fact, after a concert in 1938, she was called out by an audience member who asked, “Won’t you please write some music that a greater number of people can listen to: this seems like music for the very few.”

Her answer came a few years later with Rissolty, Rossolty.

By the end of the 1930s, Crawford Seeger had chosen a new path that helped link the Seeger name with folk music: transcribing field recordings and arranging folk music for piano. Rissolty, Rossolty was one such transcription. It was commissioned by CBS for Alan Lomax’s folk music radio program that featured orchestral arrangements of folk tunes. Instead of composing a work with the melodies as simple, audible themes, Crawford Seeger instead combined elements from the original tune’s melodies into a sophisticated polyphony. The piece opens with a playful figure, has a solo flute in the middle section with string pizzicato as counterpart, a fiddle theme after that, and then it ends with all of the various tunes mixed up. However, it doesn’t really “end”. Instead, a fragment of the opening playful figure appears again and then abruptly stops – which almost seems out of place until you understand the reason behind it. Crawford Seeger intended this to represent the way folk musicians did not formalize endings, but rather paused in readiness to begin anew. The fragment adds a sense of “keeping-goingness” to use her term.

Sadly, Rissolty, Rossolty was performed only a few times during Crawford Seeger’s lifetime. The New Orleans Symphony performed it in 1950 and the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC performed it in 1953. That shouldn’t take away from the fact that the whole work is a delight and a complete departure from her earlier compositions. Rissolty, Rossolty truly stands out as an anomaly in Ruth Crawford Seegers’s career, but a wonderful anomaly indeed.

Come hear Rissolty, Rossolty performed by the Parker Symphony Orchestra on February 14 at the PACE Center in Parker, Colorado.

Mozetich was born in Italy in 1948 to Slovenian parents but moved to Ontario Canada in 1952. His early musical training included studying piano and he worked toward becoming a concert pianist. He gave up on that idea and entered college studying psychology. He shifted toward music again, however, and pursued studying composition at the University of Toronto. After that, he continued his musical studies in Rome, Siena, and London.

Mozetich’s early influences included romantic composers like Chopin, Tchaikovsky, and Rachmaninoff as well as what he describes as “super-modern pieces” he first heard on the radio. So it’s no surprise much of his music blends lyricism and romantic harmony with what are decidedly modern elements. Since the 1980s and well into the 1990s and beyond, he has developed a style of post-modern romantic music in which he strives to express beauty, sensuousness, and emotion – things that give him and his audiences pleasure. And on one occasion, he certainly achieved what he set out to do. When the CBC Radio broadcast a concert performance of his violin concerto Affairs of the Heart, the switchboards lit up from coast to coast. There were numerous reports that listeners were so captivated by the music that they remained in their cars, listening to the end even though they had arrived at their destination. The so-called “driveway experience”.

Another piece that captures his signature style, comprising beautiful, spiritual, introspective, and meditative qualities is his The Passion of Angels. Written in 1995 and premiered in 1996, The Passion of Angels is a lush work featuring two solo harps and orchestra. It explores three degrees of passion: longing, desire, and ecstasy. The opening horn solo with accompanying harps announces the essential thematic material and throughout the work, the harps keep the orchestra moving through an emotional voyage.

Mozetich continues to compose to this day and has received numerous awards and recognition including the 2010 Juno Award for Best Classical Composition of the Year and the SOCAN Matejcek Concert Music Prize awarded to the most performed and broadcast composer in Canada (2002 and 2006). Learn more about Marjan Mozetich.

Want to hear The Passion of Angels performed live? Join the Parker Symphony Orchestra for “Passion” on February 15 at 7:30 PM at the PACE Center.

I’ve never been a big fan of Renaissance and early music and the same goes for the other side of the spectrum – modern classical. However, recently, I’ve been trying to expand my horizons when it comes to classical music written in the last 80 years and I have to say, I may be coming around. I’ve found many really interesting pieces that are part of the “modern classical” era that are definitely worth a listen. Even if you’re a die-hard fan of the Romantic or Baroque composers, here are some of my favorite modern pieces and composers that may turn you into a 20th and 21st century classical music fan.

Philip Glass

If there’s one name that stands out as the most well-known in the modern classical era it is Philip Glass. Even if you don’t recognize the name, if you’ve seen films like The Truman Show, The Hours, and Candyman, you’ve heard his music. Glass’ music is described as minimalist, characterized by repetitive structures and simplicity. He has written operas, symphonies, works for ensemble, and, as previously mentioned, film scores among other works. He received the 2018 Kennedy Center Honors on December 26.

Here are some of my favorite Philip Glass works:

• Etude No. 2
• Truman Sleeps
• Concerto Fantasy for 2 Timpanists and Orchestra
• Anthem – Part 2 from Powaqqatsi

John Adams

John Adams’ music draws upon pop, jazz, electronic music, and minimalism and is infused with expressive elements. He has written everything from chamber music and cantatas to large orchestral works and operas. After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, he wrote On The Transmigration of Souls for orchestra, chorus, and children’s choir. The text from this work was derived from fragments of notices posted at the WTC site by friends and relatives of the missing, interviews published in the New York Times, and randomly chosen names of victims. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in music for this composition.

Here are some other cool John Adams works:

• Short Ride in a Fast Machine
• The Chairman Dances
• Grand Pianola Music: On the Great Divide
• Shaker Loops

Henry Cowell – Hymn and Fuguing Tune

Henry Cowell was born much earlier than the previous two composers, but he was considered an avant-garde composer. Often called an ultra-modernist, he infused his early music with what we now call “world music”. His upbringing on the West Coast exposed him to a great deal of Irish airs and dances and music from China, Japan, Tahiti, and India. He also worked with and encouraged composers like Carlos Chávez who incorporated themes from Mexico’s indigenous people.

Unfortunately, he was arrested and incarcerated on a “morals” charge and that affected his later works which were markedly more conservative. His Hymn and Fuguing Tunes are among these later less-radical works, but they do retain some of the progressive bent of his earlier years. In between the lively melody of his Hymn and Fuguing Tune #10, you’ll hear some interesting and atonal chords.

Hymn and Fuguing Tune No. 10

His Sailor’s Hornpipe saxophone quartet is also worth a listen.

Marjan Mozetich – The Passion of Angels

Unlike the previous composers who are all American, Marjan Mozetich is a Canadian composer. He has written music for theater, film, and dance as well as symphonic works, chamber music, and solo pieces. His music has evolved over the years but typically blend the traditional, popular, and modern infusing lyricism and romantic harmonies to evoke spiritual and meditative feelings. This is particularly noticeable in his 1995 work The Passion of Angels written for two harps and orchestra.

Soloists Janet Harriman and Don Hilsberg and the Parker Symphony Orchestra performed this work on February 15, 2019 at the PACE Center.

The Passion of Angels

Jennifer Higdon – blue cathedral

The newest piece on this list, blue cathedral was commissioned by the Curtis Institute of Music for their 75th anniversary. It was composed by Jennifer Higdon, a modern American composer, whose music is considered neoromantic and is not intentionally written with a form in mind but is allowed to unfold naturally.

Like The Passion of Angels, blue cathedral has a spiritual feel. It was written in memory of Higdon’s younger brother, Andrew Blue Higdon, who died of skin cancer in 1998. The composer remarked that the process of composing this piece was “the most cathartic thing [she] could have done”.

blue cathedral

Henryk Górecki – Symphony No. 3 Mvt. 2

Górecki was a Polish composer who was largely unknown outside of Poland until the mid-to late 1980s. His Symphony No. 3, also known as the “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”, was recorded with soprano Dawn Upshaw and released to commemorate the memory of those lost during the Holocaust. It became a worldwide commercial success, selling more than a million copies.

Symphony No 3., Op. 36: II. Lento e Largo – Tranquillissimo

Du Mingxin – Festival Overture

Du Mingxin is a Chinese composer known for ballets, concertos, and a symphonic Beijing Opera. His Festival Overture is an exciting and interesting piece.

Festival Overture