New Music in the Mountains: Commissions and Premieres at the Aspen Music Festival

Uncategorized 3 Minutes

Alongside presenting classic orchestral, chamber, and operatic works, contemporary music has played a central role since the early days of the Aspen Music Festival. Brand-new and recent compositions have peppered the calendar of almost every summer season and the city of Aspen has played host to some of the most prominent and cutting-edge composers of the day, including Ernst Krenek, Elliott Carter, Augusta Read Thomas, George Crumb, Olivier Messiaen, and Thomas Adès.

Below are some of the most notable commissions and premieres that have occurred during the Festival’s history, with short blurbs and images provided for a select few. This is by no means a comprehensive list; rather, it is a brief glimpse that demonstrates the Festival’s ongoing commitment to living composers and music of our time.

  • Hans Krása: Trio for Violin, Viola, and Cello (world premiere, 7/11/1951)
  • Alexander Tcherepnin: The Farmer and the Fairy (world premiere, 8/13/1952)
Tcherepnin
Photo from the world premiere of Alexander Tcherepnin’s opera The Farmer and the Fairy, presented during the Aspen Music Festival’s 1952 season.
  • Julia Perry: Stabat Mater (U.S. premiere, 7/26/1953)
  • William Bolcom: Symphony No. 1 (world premiere, 7/16/1957)
  • Darius Milhaud: Aspen Serenade (commission/world premiere, 8/18/1957)
  • Paul Hindemith: Ite, Angeli Voloces (U.S. premiere, 7/20/1958)
  • Benjamin Britten: Nocturnos for Orchestra, op. 61 (U.S. premiere, 7/12/1959)
  • William Schuman: Violin Concerto (revised version, word premiere, 8/9/1959)
  • Lukas Foss: Time Cycle (new version, world premiere, 8/16/1961)
  • Olivier Messiaen: Le Réveil des Oiseaux (U.S. premiere, 7/29/1962)
  • Olivier Messiaen: Oiseaux exotiques (U.S. premiere, 8/5/1962)
Exotic Birds Perf. Aspen 1962
Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques (for piano and wind orchestra) premiered in Paris in 1956, but it took several years for it to receive a performance in the United States. As luck would have it, that first performance was given in Aspen on August 5, 1962, when Messiaen was the visiting composer that summer. Messiaen’s second wife—Yvonne Loriod—performed the piano part and also presented what was billed as her “only U.S. solo recital” a few days prior, on August 3.
Messiaen Program Page
Program page from the first Apsen (and U.S.) performance of Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques.

  • Michael Tippett: String Quartet No. 3 (U.S. premiere, 8/14/1965)
  • Hans Werner Henze: The Country Doctor (U.S. premiere, 8/15/1968)
  • William Walton: The Bear (U.S. premiere, 8/15/1968)
Henze & Walton
The program page for two one-act operas that were given their American premieres at Aspen during the 1968 season —the English translation of Hans Werner Henze’s Ein Landarzt (The Country Doctor) and William Walton’s The Bear. The Country Doctor featured a young Barbara Hendricks in the chorus and James Conlon as the assistant conductor, while Leonard Slatkin served as music director for The Bear.
  • Toru Takemitsu: Stanza 1 (U.S. premiere, 7/23/1970)
  • Peter Maxwell-Davies: Eight Songs for a Mad King (U.S. premiere, 7/30/1970)
  • David Del Tredici: Pot-Pourri (U.S. premiere, 7/30/1970)
  • György Ligeti: Kammerkonzert for 13 players (U.S. premiere, 8/13/1970)
1970 CCM
The Conference on Contemporary Music—established by Darius Milhaud—was one of the highlights of Aspen’s summer season. The 1970 edition, in particular, featured a remarkable array of American premieres by Takemitsu, Del Tredici, and Ligeti, among others. Notably, the July 30 concert also featured the first U.S. performance of Peter Maxwell-Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King, performed by vocalist, composer, and pianist Julius Eastman.
  • Karlheinz Stockhausen: Drei Lieder (U.S. premiere, 7/30/1973)
  • George Tsontakis: To the Sowers of the Seed (commission/world premiere, 8/18/1989)
  • Stephen Paulus: Violin Concerto (commission/world premiere, 7/3/1992)
  • Christopher Rouse: Violin Concerto (commission/world premiere, 7/12/1992)
Rouse
Program page from the world premiere of Christopher Rouse’s Violin Concerto, given by Cho-Liang Lin, Leonard Slatkin, and the Aspen Festival Orchestra on July 12, 1992. The 1992 Festival also featured the world premiere of Stephen Paulus’s Violin Concerto. Both were commissioned, composed, and performed in honor of the 75th birthday of violinist and Aspen artist-faculty member Dorothy DeLay.
  • Joan Tower: Fifth Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman (commission/world premiere for the opening of Harris Concert Hall, 8/20/1993)
  • Peter Schickele: Percussion Sonata No. 1, “Aspen” (commission/world premiere, 8/6/1996)
  • Michael Torke: King of Hearts (U.S. premiere, 7/27/1996)
  • Thomas Adès: Powder Her Face (U.S. premiere, 7/25/1997)
Ades
Thomas Adès’s first opera Powder Her Face caused a stir when it was first performed at the Cheltenham Music Festival in 1995, launching the young composer into the international spotlight. Aspen audiences were able to witness the first American performances of this steamy opera during the 1997 season, with the composer conducting.
  • Mark-Anthony Turnage: Greek (U.S. premiere, 7/23/1998)
  • Augusta Read Thomas: Murmurs in the Mist of Memory (world premiere, 8/7/2001)
  • H. K. Gruber: Gloria: A Pigtale (U.S. premiere, 7/27/2002)

. . . and many more!

Published

Leave a comment