Howard Hanson - Lux aeterna

[@johns.4708]

"The symphonic poem with viola obbligato Lux Aeterna dates from 1923 and the end of Hanson’s three-year stay in Italy as the first winner of the American Prix de Rome. In addition to the influence of his teacher Ottorino Respighi in matters of orchestration, Hanson was affected even more profoundly by his discovery of the music of an older Italian composer. 'I learned an awful lot from Palestrina about letting the lines flow through the harmonies,' he said. 'It was probably the biggest single influence in my life, because when I went to Rome in 1921, I was fascinated by Gregorian chant, and the Sistine choir, and we had the works of Palestrina in the original clefs… and I became imbued with the whole Palestrina technique.'
Lux Aeterna was originally inscribed to the great English violist Lionel Tertis, who apparently declined the honor of playing it, since in Hanson’s revised
version the dedication was removed. (Although Tertis did more than anyone to gain acceptance for the viola as a solo instrument, he was not always the best judge of new music. Thus with 'shame and contrition,' he would later admit, he would also turn down the first performance of the Walton Viola Concerto.)
Formally, Lux Aeterna is among the most apparently loose-limbed of Hanson’s works, as much a free rhapsody for viola and orchestra as a symphonic poem. Following a wistful pizzicato introduction, the viola announces the plaintive principal theme, yet another of Hanson’s Gregorian melodies. After the theme is driven to an emotional climax, the clarinet joins the viola in an even more starkly modal duet. When asked if he considered himself a modal composer, Hanson admitted, 'I was very much influenced by the modes; that was largely the Palestrina influence, and I think it was also the influence of my three-year stay in Rome. There is a lot of my music in the Dorian mode, more than anything else. I’m very fond of the D-E-F-G-A-B natural line, and I find myself coming back to that again and again, whether I intend to or not; it’s simply a part of my vocabulary.' A tolling in the horns and a canon-like string figure lead to a rapid episode marked Allegro non troppo, set in motion by the solo violin’s cadenza-like restatement of the principal theme over urgent tremolo strings. At its climax, a doleful new subject is announced by the contrabassoon, this nearly a decade before Maurice Ravel’s celebrated use of the instrument in the Concerto for the Left Hand. An animated modal dance of increasing contrapuntal complexity leads to the hushed coda.
The manuscript of Lux Aeterna is dated Christmas Day, 1923. The first performance was given in Rome on 27th May of the following year by the Augusteo Symphony conducted by the composer."
From the recording's liner notes by Jim Svejda

[@JoricioCagel]

thanks. to me, it rang with echoes of holst's planets. same with his next piece, beowulf.

[@johns.4708]

@@JoricioCagel Yes, stylistically he had found his voice by then, I think, and his broad architecture sounds to me both like Holst and Respighi. Respighi was also influenced by older composers and styles in his music, so I suppose he passed that along to Hanson. Too bad Hanson isn't programmed much in the States except for the 2nd symphony.

[@SPscorevideos]

Seattle Symphony, conducted by Gerard Schwarz.

[@Clivejvaughan]

Didn't know it - lovely, thank you !