Compositions

... slate, blue-gray was commissioned by The Kandinsky Trio as part of a 25th
Anniversary celebration. The piece is a short "prelude" to Nothing Forgotten, an earlier piano
trio. Both titles refer to a poem by Jordan Smith ("A Lesson from the Hudson River School:
Glens Falls, New York, 1848"), "slate, blue-gray" being one of the mysterious colors of the
"speedy passage of the current through our more constant line of sight". Hilary Tann

Recording: Centaur Records MUSICAL LANDSCAPES OF HILARY TANN

The cycle, Songs of the Cotton Grass, evolved over six years with all texts by Welsh poet Menna Elfyn. These “reverse lullabies” -- in which a daughter lulls her mother to sleep -- recall the open, high moorland of South Wales, near the composer’s home. The first song, A Girl’s Song to Her Mother was written for mezzo-soprano Mari Morgan and premiered July 30, 1999 during a Celtic Weekend at the Pan-American Games in Winnipeg. The second song, Wings of the Grasses was composed for "A Garland for Presteigne” and received its first performance August 25, 2003 by soprano Gillian Keith with Simon Lepper, piano. In 2004 the “Girl’s Song” was slightly revised for soprano Janeanne Houston who recorded the two completed songs (on So Much Beauty, Elmgrove productions) and subsequently commissioned and recorded a third song, Vale of Feathers (on The Shining Place, Elmgrove Productions). – HT

A version for soprano and viola is performed here by Elizabeth Donovan, soprano; Matthew Jones, viola. (Audio excerpt is the beginning.)

Recording: CD Baby SO MUCH BEAUTY

A Sad Pavan Forbidding Mourning is dedicated to the memory of amateur Welsh naturalist, Gruffydd Llewellyn. Over the course of the piece, the mood changes from one of grief to one of hope. Embedded within the Pavan are three successive references to A Sad Pavan for These Distracted Tymes, composed by Thomas Tomkins in 1649, a fortnight after the execution of Charles I. – HT

Performed here by Gerard Cousins, guitar. (Audio is the beginning.)

Recording: CD Baby HIRAETH

Adirondack Light was composed in spring, 1992, in response to a commission from the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra in commemoration of the centennial of the Adirondack Park. It is scored for narrator and chamber orchestra and received its premiere October 18, 1992, in Queensbury NY. The text is adapted by the composer from a poem by Guggenheim award-winning poet, Jordan Smith – “A Lesson from the Hudson River School: Glens Falls, New York, 1848”.

The piece is in one continuous movement subdivided into several parts. Images of water dominate the first two sections. A fast-flowing millrace in the first section contrasts with the wide, serene, and sometimes treacherous Hudson River in the second. The third section recounts the extraordinary adventure of a Boston traveler who penetrates the dark, romantic aspects of the Adirondacks with startling consequences. The earlier light and water images return in the final section.

Adirondack Light contains “windows” into four Adirondack folksongs introduced to the composer by folklorists George and Vaughn Ward. When the piece begins the narrator is seated on stage. Towards the end of the orchestral introduction he rises, perhaps to his porch railing, perhaps to an inside windowsill. During the orchestral epilogue he returns to his seat. – HT

All the Moon Long takes its inspiration from five lines of Dylan Thomas' exuberant poem about youth, Fern Hill. The eight linked sections of the piece each have a tempo/character marking drawn from the poem. In this way, the performers can “read along” with the text. The composer worked from an image somewhere between a Chagall painting (a dreamscape) and a noh play (slow-moving set scenes). The sound of the sea is omnipresent.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
– Dylan Thomas

All the Moon Long was commissioned for the National Youth Brass Band of Wales by Ty Cerdd - Music Centre Wales and first performed July 25, 2015, in Gwyn Hall, Neath, by the NYBBW conducted by Phil Harper.

Ten images for string quartet based on André Bergeron's lithographs for
Germaine Guèvremont's French-Canadian classic, Le Survenant.
1. ragged earth (terre déguenillée)
2. a single cloud reddened (un seul nuage rougeoyait)
3. lake and sky black with birds (le firmament en est noir)
4. wreathing mists (des brouillards morts)
5. signs in the sun (des signes dans le soleil)
6. the weather is white (le temps est blanc)
7. winter gives way (l'hiver tirait donc au reste)
8. overcast with rain (le temps se rembrunit)
9. floods of May (les grandes mers de Mai)
10. into darkness (il se perdit dans la nuit noire)
First performance: Cavaleri String Quartet, Presteigne Festival, August 25, 2014
Commissioned by Presteigne Festival of Music and the Arts Limited with generous funding from the Colwinston Charitable Trust.

The first ideas for Anecdote came from the poem, “Anecdote of the Jar”, by Wallace Stevens. Stevens imagines a “jar…tall and of a port in air” placed “upon a hill”. He notices, “the wilderness rose up to it … no longer wild” and says, of the jar, “it took dominion everywhere”.

In Anecdote, the cello soloist “has dominion” in this slow, one-movement, work. It is as though the cello is the “port in air” and is surrounded and complemented by the various orchestral textures (especially those of the central string quartet).

Another meaning of “anecdote” also influences the composition. An anecdote is often a story shared, and shared again, in intimate circumstances. And so, the overall structure of Anecdote is that of an arch in which a personal story is told, and elaborated on, and retold. – HT

Anecdote was composed during the summer of 2000 in response to a commission from the Newark (DE) Symphony Orchestra. It was first performed December 10, 2000, in Loudis Hall (University of Delaware), by the Newark Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Roman Pawlowski, with cello soloist Ovidiu Marinescu.

Recording: MSR Classics TOMORROW'S AIR

The four poems which comprise the Arachne cycle were commissioned for the occasion by Hilary Tann from Guggenheim Award-winning poet, Jordan Smith.

The backdrop for Arachne is the myth as developed in Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”, Book VI, lines 0-145. The Latin quotation which separates the third and fourth songs is an adaptation of the last line of Ovid’s account. – HT

Arachne was commissioned from Hilary Tann in 1987 by Concerted Effort for singer/performer Julie Kabat, with funds provided in part by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Recording: Blue Griffin LA VOIX NUE

Evocative slow movement.

Between Sunsets was commissioned by the Strempel-Beaudette Duo for inclusion in an all-Cummings CD and was premiered at the 2012 Eastman School of Music Women in Music Festival in Rochester NY, March 29. Three poems by E. E. Cummings are set in a continuous cycle and the outer songs use some of the same musical material. The texts echo each other in mentioning sunsets, stars, and skies and are also united by greater senses of love. – HT

Recording: Centaur Records UNTO THEE I BURN: Song Settings of E.E. Cummings

Children Of Grace, for mixed chorus and organ, is inspired by a Tiffany stained glass window, "Christ blessing the little children," in the First Congregational Church, North Adams, Massachusetts, United Church of Christ. The window is known as the Sykes window after Thomas Sykes, great uncle to the commissioner, John Bond. Two of the four texts explicitly echo the idea, "Come," as in "Suffer the little children to come unto me." These are the 13th century hymn, "Veni, Sancte Spiritus" and words of 17th century poet George Herbert, "Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life." Contemporary poet, Penny Harter, suggested her poem "Children of Grace" to the composer, and the forth text, "Enrich, Lord," again by George Herbert, is from the 1913 Pilgrim Hymnal. The anthem freely weaves together the four texts in a single composition with an extended coda. – HT

The main body of the text consists of two verses excerpted from a much longer poem by seventeenth-century American poet, Anne Bradstreet, a Puritan with close connections to Harvard. The phrase “O happy Flood” is linked to Psalm 98, “Let the floods clap their hands,” in both Latin and English. Water images – stream, river, ocean, flood – shape the composition as each recitative-style “contemplation” concludes with a freer “out-pouring” section. – HT

Contemplations (21, 22) was commissioned by the Radcliffe Choral Society for its 2005-6 season.

Recording: Navona Records EXULTET TERRA: Choral Music of Hilary Tann

Contemplations (8, 9) was composed for Cappella Clausura's celebration of the 400th anniversary of poet Anne Bradstreet's birth.  Although the work can stand alone, it is intended to precede Contemplations (21, 22), commissioned from the composer by the Radcliffe Choral Society for its 2005-6 season. The main body of the text consists of two verses from a much longer poem by "America's first female poet" expanded by Psalm 148:2 in both Latin and English: "Praise ye him, all his angels; praise ye him, all his hosts." In this setting, creatures offering praise include Bradstreet's "merry grasshopper" and "black clad Cricket." – HT
First Performance: March 17, 2012, Newton, MA, by Cappella Clausura, conducted by Amelia LeClair.

Recording: Navona Records EXULTET TERRA: Choral Music of Hilary Tann

Doppelgänger explores the potential for rapprochement between two contrasting "characters". During the course of the six-minute piece, an opening formal, bravura persona gradually metamorphoses into its gentler, more lyrical counterpart. – HT

Doppelgänger was composed in 1984 for pianist Pola Baytelman who subsequently recorded the work on CD (Capstone Records CPS 8606 CD).

Recordings: Centaur Records MUSICAL LANDSCAPES OF HILARY TANN; SCI CDs VIEW FROM THE KEYBOARD

The Duo was written in 1981 in response to a request from violist David Sills. It is the only piece of mine without a title having something to do with nature although natural imagery underlies much of the writing. The timbres of the viola and oboe are similar in many respects and I became fascinated by the idea of a single line being shaped by two instruments. At the opening, the viola "courts" the oboe, encouraging its moves and framing its melodies. A short viola cadenza leads from this reflective dialog to the pairing of the central section, after which an octave unison passage ushers in the fanfare-like conclusion. – HT

Performed here by Alun Darbyshire, oboe; Matthew Jones, viola. (Audio excerpt is the beginning.)

Recording: Deux-Elles SONGS OF THE COTTON GRASS

Embertides consists of four separate movements that take their inspiration from the roughly equal divisions of the church year – Advent, Lent, Whitsun, Michaelmas. These divisions in turn pay homage to earlier, secular traditions – Winter (seeding), Spring (awakening), Summer (harvesting), Autumn (vintage). The cycle is unified by references to verses from the 11th-century plainsong sequence ‘Veni Sancte Spiritus’; in addition, each piece contains hints of hymns appropriate to each season. The work may be performed as a concert suite or individual movements may be used separately within church services.

The composer is grateful to Alfred V. Fedak (Albany, NY) for his thoughtful, professional assistance in selecting appropriate organ registrations.

Duration: whole suite 15 minutes. Advent: 3′20″ Lenten 3′40″, Whit 3′40″, Michaelmas 4′00″.

Embertides was first performed at the National Convention of the American Guild of Organists, 24-7 June 2014, Boston, MA.

Exultet Terra is an extended song of praise for antiphonal choirs and double-reed quintet. The text of this five-movement work has been adapted by the composer from the Vulgate Bible and King James' Bible, and incorporates three poems by George Herbert (Welsh poet and priest, 1593-1633). The outer movements, Exultet Terra and Iubilate Domino, are joyful; the inner movement, In Sanctis Eius, is introspective and conjures an inner landscape: "My heart is smitten and withered like grass; I am like an owl of the desert." Two shorter instrumental trios are placed between the choral movements, a Trio of Descent (II) and Trio of Ascent (IV). The entire work is the composer's response to the text, "Ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth in peace, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands."

Support for the commission of Exultet Terra was provided by the Hanson Institute for American Music of the Eastman School of Music at the University of Rochester. Exultet Terra was composed for the 2011 Women in Music Festival, Artistic Director Dr. Sylvie Beaudette. Premiere: Downtown Presbyterian Church, Rochester, NY, March 21 2011 by Madrigalia and Musica Spei conducted by Lee Wright.

Recording: Navona Records EXULTET TERRA: Choral Music of Hilary Tann

Knoxville Symphony NEA commission. Optionally brass in balcony.

First Watch was composed in March 2002 in response to a commission from the Friends of the Albany City Hall Carillon, Inc. with support from Ancient Temple Lodge #14 F. & A. M. The Albany carillon is a four octave concert carillon which consists of forty-nine bells installed in 1927 by John Taylor Bellfounders of Loughborough, England. First Watch was first performed by carilloneur Charles Semowich, September 15 2002, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the dedication of the Albany City Hall carillon.

Albany, the capital of New York State, is located at the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers. It has a long history as a port, with deep-water access south to the Atlantic Ocean and trading routes north to Canada via the Champlain Canal and west to the Great Lakes via the Erie Canal. From the bell tower of the Albany City Hall carillon, one can look out over the Hudson River. It is the overwhelming sense of Albany as a canal, river, and sea port which inspired the composition, First Watch.

At sea, the first watch takes place from 8 PM to midnight. A bell is struck each half hour -- one at 8:30 PM, two at 9:00 PM and so on, culminating in eight bells as the watch changes. In First Watch, marking successively longer sections, a low pedal E is the watch-bell. The canal trade is recalled by references to four folk songs. At 10 PM (“four bells”), there is a homage to the hazards of the Adirondack logging trade (“The Wild Mustard River”) and, later, fragments of three Erie Canal songs (“Low Bridge—Everybody Down”, “Oh! Dat Low Bridge”, and “The E-ri-e”) are introduced. The piece ends quietly as the watch changes at midnight. – HT

The title, From Afar, most immediately refers to the composer's memory of the four months she spent studying Japanese music near Kyoto in Fall, 1990. Other senses of distance are found in the temporal distances of the few direct references to Japanese music (for example, to the ancient honkyoku for the Japanese vertical bamboo flute, the shakuhachi) and to near and distant spatial densities in the orchestra (echoings and shadowings).

The piece opens with a slow, meditative, introduction (andante declamato) which is dominated by a single line in the trumpets. It then divides into two large wave-shaped sections, each of which begins with propulsive rhythms in the percussion (energico). Each of the large sections is transformed at its climax, somewhat in the manner of the Japanese jo-ha-kyu aesthetic. The first climax dissolves into a lighter interlude (danza), while the second retrieves a previous woodwind-dominated solo line and presents it, ardente e cantabile, with all the warmth of the strings before echoes of the meditative opening return to close the piece.

In writing From Afar the composer's intent was not to transpose Japanese sonorities directly onto the orchestra, rather her concern was to contrast meditative time (as in the opening) with narrative time (as in the danza) and propulsive time (as in the energico sections). A second concern was to contrast more traditional Western orchestral sonorities with a single "landscaped" line inspired by the ancient instrumental traditions of Japan (including gagaku ). – HT

From Afar is in one movement, approximately twenty minutes long. The piece was commissioned by a consortium of orchestras consisting of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Women's Philharmonic Orchestra, Augusta Symphony Orchestra, University of South Carolina Symphony Orchestra, Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra, and Columbus Pro Musica. Commissioning of From Afar was made possible by a grant from the Meet the Composer / Reader's Digest Commissioning Program in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace -- Reader's Digest Fund. The first performance was November 14 and 15, 1996, by the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Kirk Trevor.

Performed here by the Slovak Radio Orchestra, Kirk Trevor, conductor. (Audio is the beginning.)

Recording: North/South Recordings HERE, THE CLIFFS