Persichetti: Divertimento / Masquerade / Parable Ix

Description

Vincent Persichetti (1915-1987)Divertimento Psalm Chorale Prelude: O God Unseen PageantMasquerade O Cool is the Valley Parable IX During the middle years of last century, the aggregation ofwoodwinds, brass, and percussion known as the symphonic band, along with itsless densely proportioned relative, the symphonic wind ensemble, began toflourish in the high schools and colleges of the United States. In addition tomeeting the highest standards of performance, these ensembles encouraged America's leading composers to contribute repertoire tailored specifically to the bandmedium while shunning its traditional outdoor pops-concert connotations. As themedium mushroomed, so did this repertoire, filling a voracious, receptive,unjaded appetite for new music among young musicians. Some works soon attainedthe status of classics, enjoying literally thousands of performances.Pivotal to the development of this repertoire and perhapsits most distinguished exponent was Vincent Persichetti, who contributed 14works, many of which have become staples of the genre. Persichetti was acentral figure in many aspects of American musical life - as a member of thecomposition faculty at the Juilliard School for 40 years, as the author of awidely used composition text, Twentieth Century Harmony, as a popularguest-lecturer at college campuses around the country, and as composer of morethan 160 works, including an opera, 9 symphonies, 12 piano sonatas, andnumerous other orchestral, chamber, choral, and vocal works. But it is throughhis works for band that his name and his music are most widely known.Vincent Persichetti was born to an Italian father and aGerman mother in Philadelphia in 1915, where he continued to live until hisdeath in 1987. He began to study the piano at the age of five, which gavedirection to an insatiable musical interest and a talent that soon provedprodigious. He began to compose almost immediately, and during his adolescenceearned money as a church organist. After graduating from Philadelphia's CombsConservatory, he went on to complete his doctorate at the PhiladelphiaConservatory. In 1947 William Schuman invited him to join the Juilliardfaculty, and he taught there for the rest of his life. He became chairman ofJuilliard's composition department in 1963, and in 1970, of the literature and materialsdepartment.Persichetti's career flourished during a period when Americancomposition was deeply divided among rival stylistic factions, each seeking toinvalidate the work of its opponents. In the face of this partisan antagonism, Persichettiadvocated, through his lectures and writings, as well as through his music, thenotion of a broad working vocabulary, or "common practice", based ona fluent assimilation of all the materials and techniques which had appearedduring the 20th century. His own music exhibits a wide stylistic range, fromextreme diatonic simplicity to complex, contrapuntal atonality.Most of Persichetti's music for band falls along the sim