June 9 - Charles Wuorinen; Carl Nielsen (The Musical Birthday Series, 3rd Annual Cycle)

Previous posts for June 9th are found here: Cole Porter (2019) and Fred Waring (2020)

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Charles Peter Wuorinen ( 9 June 1938 – 11 March 2020) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer in a resolutely modernist vein.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passion Pit-ches; or, Serial Lovers

The performers worked hard to infuse the opera with humanity. --- Heidi Waleson, review of Brokeback Mountain, Wall Street Journal

 

Still, in scene after scene, their exchanges are encumbered by complex music roiling in the orchestra. --- Anthony Tommasini, review of Brokeback Mountain, New York Times

When he’s starring in Wuorinen’s Brokeback,

The tears that a singer might choke back

Won’t arise from considering how boys

Were hurt when they liked other cowboys;

The cause of the singer’s distress is

The result of artistic excesses —

His tears are the tears of the fearful

While learning a role that’s an earful.

It's a strain when your role is atonal

To seem Western, naive, and hormonal.

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Carl Nielsen ( 9 June 1865 – 3 October 1931) is often considered to be Denmark's most important composer.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phases

Though Nielsen is loved by the Danes,

In the rest of the world he maintains

A tenuous place, 

Not disdain, not embrace,

As our attitude waxes and wanes.

 

 

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