Geirr Tveitt; more than the fire

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Like most people, I have my favorite "moments" in music-passages that are so perfect, so beautiful that they have a kind of transcendent quality. Some of these are from familiar music-the end of Das Lied von der Erde, or the song Ich bin der Welt Abhanden Gekommen by Mahler; the cadenza and especially the orchestral entry after the cadenza in the Prokofiev Second Piano Concerto; the end of the Sibelius 5th and 6th Symphonies. But I also have favorite moments from more obscure music; the climax of the 2nd and 3rd movements of Richard Arnell's Third Symphony (both tragically underplayed on the only commercial recording); the last four minutes of Ivan Erod's Viola Concerto; and the end of the Piano Concerto no.4 by Geirr Tveitt, which we will be doing at the Scottsdale Center for the Arts on October 17, with Donna Amato playing the glittering piano part.

Insofar as people know anything about Geirr Tveitt, they know about the fire. In 1970, a fire in his house destroyed the manuscripts to all of his music, over four hundred works in all genres. Over two thirds was lost forever, as the copies he had were the only ones for most of the pieces. Some works were published; some copies existed in the possession of musicians who had performed the music, and some pieces have been reconstructed from vinyl recordings and radio broadcasts. It was a radio broadcast that saved the 4th Piano Concerto; a set of orchestral parts used for the broadcast survived, and the piano part in particular was aided in reconstruction by evidence from the broadcast itself. (the composer played the piano and evidently changed some things from the printed music).

What is the music like? Was it worth saving? Obviously, I think so, because I am conducting the American premiere of the work; but read the reviews of the two recordings of the work-my opinion is hardly unique. This is a great, utterly original Concerto. The piano part is stunningly virtuosic, but shows an incredible understanding of the instrument. Tveitt was a virtuoso pianist, and it shows. But it is more than a showpiece, with shimmering colors in the orchestra, and some very unusual effects. The titles of the movements are as poetic as the music itself- "The Northern Lights Awakening in the Autumn Colors" " Glittering in the Winter Heavens" and "Fading Away in the Bright Night of Spring". The first movement is the most conventional, with themes that return and a build up to an impressive, percussive climax. The big surprises come in the other two movements. The second starts with a wonderful, flirtatious little tune on the flute, the sort of thing that other composers would milk for the whole movement; instead he repeats it and moves on, using its rhythmic, but not melodic elements, for the shocking conclusion to the movement-it sounds as though the Rite of Spring suddenly invaded the glittering winter sky. The last movement is the "money" movement though. The opening kind of shocked me when I first heard it, for the effects he uses here are identical to ones I used in the second movement of my own Concerto Grosso no.1; it even looks similar on the page. But I wrote that piece in 1991, and at that time the Concerto had not been restored, so I could not have heard it. But it is obviously an effect I love, with shimmering harmonics in the lower strings and gorgeous dissonances between the upper voices. The melody in the first violins comes back in the first horn for the glorious end to the piece. The final shimmer in the piano,the harmonics, the achingly beautiful dissonances, the gorgeous horn solo...this is what life is all about.

October 17. 4PM. Scottsdale Center for the Arts; your first and probably only chance to hear this piece performed live in the United States.