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- John Harbison
Flashes and Illuminations (1995)
- Associated Music Publishers Inc (World)
- pf
- Baritone
- 16 min
- English; Eugenio Montale, Elizabeth Bishop, Michael Fried, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz
- English
Programme Note
Text: (En) English; Eugenio Montale, Elizabeth Bishop, Michael Fried, William Carlos Williams, Czeslaw Milosz
Composer note:
Flashes and Illuminations was commissioned by Reader’s Digest/Meet the Composer for baritone Sanford Sylvan and pianist David Breitman. Honoring their long musical partnership, I composed a piece that falls equally to pianist and singer, from poets who invite sustained reflection.
The title comes, in part, form the “Flashes and Dedications” section of Eugenio Montale’s book La Bufera (The Storm), in which the poem “Sulla Greve” appears (the Greve is a small river near Florence). For Montale, the “flash” is a momentary perception of the natural world or a human interaction that brings sudden insight.
Each poem suggested to me a Montalean flash: sudden, muted lightning on the horizon.
— John Harbison
Related works:
December 1
Flashes and Illuminations
Composer note:
Flashes and Illuminations was commissioned by Reader’s Digest/Meet the Composer for baritone Sanford Sylvan and pianist David Breitman. Honoring their long musical partnership, I composed a piece that falls equally to pianist and singer, from poets who invite sustained reflection.
The title comes, in part, form the “Flashes and Dedications” section of Eugenio Montale’s book La Bufera (The Storm), in which the poem “Sulla Greve” appears (the Greve is a small river near Florence). For Montale, the “flash” is a momentary perception of the natural world or a human interaction that brings sudden insight.
Each poem suggested to me a Montalean flash: sudden, muted lightning on the horizon.
— John Harbison
Related works:
December 1
Flashes and Illuminations
