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Americana Symphony

Americana Symphony (Variations on Appalachia Waltz) (2006) " 32 min.
Instrumentation - 3333/4331/timp/4 perc/pno/harp/strings
Download free orchestral score below

Mark O'Connor's "Americana Symphony" RECEIVES CRITICAL PRAISE AND IS A NATIONAL BESTSELLER

"Americana Symphony" may well be regarded one day as one of this country's great gifts to the classical music canon, as well as being a pivotal moment in the rise of the new American classical music"
  -David McGee (Spin, Rolling Stone, Barnesandnoble.com, BluegrassSpecial.com)

"a monumental work...inevitably will be compared to Copland"
   -Associated Press

"as unrepentantly tonal, accessibly melodic and sonically spacious as a great Elmer Bernstein film score"
  -Los Angeles Times

"This is one of the most enjoyable contemporary orchestral CD's heard in quite some time."
  -ConcertoNet.com - The Classical Music Network

"Mark O'Connor provides his answer to a question that has intrigued U. S. composers since the debut of Dvorak's New World Symphony in 1892: "How do you write the great American Symphony?"
  -David Wallace- Juilliard School

Americana Symphony Notes

I composed my first symphony as a series of variation movements of my own composition
Appalachia Waltz (1993). I began the work after completing six full-length concertos for violin
and orchestra, dating from 1990 to 2005. In recent years, a number of conductors asked when I
would channel the new American orchestral language I had developed in my concertos into the
symphony form.

I began work on Americana Symphony in August 2006 and finished in June 2007. I wrote seven
variations, and a partial eight variation, and have decided to include six variation movements in
my final draft of the work (although I have allowed the piece to be performed in shorter version).
The piece differs slightly from many variation schemes in that the subject theme is saved for the
conclusion. During the piece, the listeners hear the phrases of Appalachia Waltz revealed through
various treatments. Motivic, intervallic, inversion, augmentation, imitative, phrase chain
development, re-harmonization and characteristic settings are some of the technical applications
utilized to vary and develop the material. Each movement chips away at the theme of the original
tune, and for the finale, Appalachia Waltz is played in its entirety by the orchestra.

I. Brass Fanfare: Wide Open Spaces
This movement is a characteristic and additive variation inspired by key phrases of Appalachia
Waltz for the brass and percussion of the orchestra. This opening music sets up a distinct
Americana theme. With performance descriptions like "Boldly with Valour" and "Resounding,"
it musically describes the spirit of the American journey, the idealism of the frontier, the
Westward expansion, and the notion that a better life may lie ahead over the next hill, or over in
the next hollow. The journey that so many took was dramatic because of tremendous hardship of
travel, but it was the price these people were willing to pay as they sought better and richer lives
in a land and time of uncertainty. I approach the more solemn aspects with dramatic shifts down
in volume to the muted horns and trumpets, creating a setting for a thematic phrase to interrupt
the course, and to find the hope again. This westward movement… the optimism that charged
it… the personal loss that was endured… and the great prairies and mountain ranges that were the
physical backdrop for the journey inspire the framework of the piece, and the Fanfare introduces
this setting.

II. New World Fanciful Dance
This characteristic variation of key phrases taken from Appalachia Waltz reflects the beginning of
the Appalachian communities when this area was the original melting pot of America. Names like
"Melungeon Jig" listed in the score help describe both the original Appalachian people and the
music so relevant to this region. The musical setting is a jig dance, an Irish inspiration. Within
the movement there are different modes and temperaments this jig takes on as it seeks to reflect
the various cultures of the people of Appalachia. The Irish jig reflects the characteristics of a
melting pot as European, Mediterranean, African, Asian, South American influences emerge. I
incorporate the musical notion of an American ideal where everyone is dancing the jig but in
different ways. I envision the hills and hollows alive with folks playing their music and dancing.
As a child while visiting the region and attending fiddle contests, I used to see these scenes where
individual buck dancers kicked up their heels to fiddlers all across the valley. This movement
depicts perhaps a more exotic life in Appalachia before the journey westward.

III. Different Paths Towards Home
This movement is a fugue composed with the original strict rules of fugal writing from hundreds
of years ago. It is perhaps interesting that an old European composing technique can result in
music that sounds quite American. For many, the Eastern seaboard meant the discovery of the
New World. It was the New World, but not yet home. Listen for a section described in the score
as "Silk Road to Appalachia." I hear sounds of Asia in the tradition of American fiddling and folk
music and suggest in the music that the Silk Road may have extended all the way to Appalachia. I
imagine myself at the edge of the Eastern mountain ranges, the Appalachians, the Great Smokey
Mountains, the Alleghenies and looking westward, surveying the journey ahead. The bravest set
off in search of a better way of life. Some knew the hardships getting there, and many more
knew they might never see their loved ones again. Many had already endured much to get to the
new world, and some came to America enslaved. But the pursuit of happiness reigned, no matter
the awful price. The displacement of peoples can be a key component to understanding how
American music was derived. The fugue, which utilizes two phrases of the Appalachia Waltz
theme, depicts both the shared journey across the plains and the different routes travelers took.
The movement recalls an extraordinary time for Americans and concludes in "quiet repose."

IV. Open Plains Hoedown
This movement is a characteristic variation in the form of a dance called the hoedown. The
hoedown is a uniquely American musical mélange… a complex combination of reels derived
from Ireland and Scotland, two hundred years of musical contributions of African-American
slave fiddlers, as well as early 20th century Southeastern Bluegrass fiddlers and Texas contest
fiddlers. With this movement, the hoedown creates what my score suggests as a "Swift Gallop"
across the prairie. I want the listener to "see" the dust being kicked up by the wagons and horses
as the prairie dogs and rabbits do their own hoedown and scurry out of the way! There is a section
described in the music as "Indian Dance" that the hoedown develops suggesting the excitement
and hostility in store. There is another part called "Texas Fiddle" which is the style of fiddle
music I learned as a child from the great Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson. The music of the
Southwest is an important cultural development in American music brought on by this Westward
expansion. "Fire on the Mountain" and "Vigorously" are performance descriptions in the score to
call for more energy and drive from the musicians of the orchestra. Each section of the orchestra
becomes a part of the hoedown that helps convey the fleeting moments on the journey West.

V. Soaring Eagle, Setting Sun
The fifth variation is a canon. It takes two phrases from Appalachia Waltz and (through canonic
imitation and some fugal applications) invokes the emotional journey of ascending the majestic
Rocky Mountains. The movement begins in the lowest register of the basses and cellos, a
processional recalling the tremendous hazards encountered on the journey so far. Now the
Westward travelers face a seemingly insurmountable obstacle, the face of a mountain. As the
winds and brass join in with their echo phrases, I imagine travelers at the foothills looking
forward, looking up, with their wagons, horses and others walking, trudging, plodding. The
strings build section by section with percussion bells and chimes as the music scales the mountain
further. The unyielding slopes broaden as the travelers reach the pinnacle and revel in their
accomplishment. As many instruments play repeating notes at fortissimo, the combination of 1st
violins, piccolo, flute, oboe, glockenspiel and vibraphone play the refrains of the canon subject,
exemplifying the mountain's peak. One can hear the exultation. The last great obstacle to the
radiant vastness of the West has been overcome.

VI. Splendid Horizons
The final movement begins with an introduction in transition from the struggle of the mountain
face to the iridescent vistas seen from this vantage point. The self-determination of the
homesteaders in their efforts to reach the Pacific has been unyielding and momentous. As the
horns in the orchestra introduce the Appalachia Waltz theme, the feelings and memories of the
journey, people and their own cultures that will stay with them are invoked. After the orchestra
takes the chorus refrain of the theme to a triumphant peak, the strings take the last strains of the
"A" part again. One by one, the string players fall away and discontinue playing, until at the last
phrase of the piece, the trio of the violin, cello and bass are left. What the listener hears is the
sound of the original piece performed by Yo-Yo Ma, Edgar Meyer and me. The orchestra joins
for the final note of the melody before more motivic refrains offered by the winds, strings, brass
and percussion bring a final crescendo that joyously celebrates spirit, wonder, renewed optimism
and hope for a brighter future
.
Mark O'Connor
August 23, 2007

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updated 7 months ago