Program Notes

Osvaldo Golijov (1960- )
Lullaby and Doina for Flute, Clarinet, and Strings (2001)

Notes for: July 18, 2006

Osvaldo Golijov is one of today’s fastest rising composers. He was named “2006 Composer of the Year” by Musical America. In January and February, New York’s Lincoln Center presented a festival of his music, “The Passion of Osvaldo Golijov.” London’s Barbican Center also presented two evenings of his music earlier this year. Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony premiered his new cello concerto in March. The Chicago Symphony appointed him composer-in-residence for its next two concert seasons, and Deutsche Grammophon began releasing a series of CDs of his works

Golijov grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household in La Plata, Argentina, the son of a piano teacher mother and physician father. He was raised, he recalled, surrounded by classical chamber music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, and the new tango of Astor Piazzolla, and these diverse idioms have remained important influences on his music. After studying piano in Argentina, he studied music in Israel, and then earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied with composer George Crumb.

In the early 90’s Golijov began to work closely with two string quartets, the St. Lawrence and the Kronos, which performed and recorded his early music with its strong impressions of his Jewish background. Kronos also expanded Golijov’s musical family through collaborations with a Romanian Gypsy band, a Mexican rock group, an Indian tabla (drum) virtuoso, and an Argentine composer and guitarist. In addition, Golijov composed several works for soprano Dawn Upshaw, including the Three Songs for Soprano and Orchestra, the opera Ainadamar, the cycle Ayre, and a number of arrangements of popular songs.

In 2000, his St. Mark Passion, commissioned for the European Music Festival to commemorate the 250th anniversary of J.S. Bach’s death, took the musical world by storm. The work mixed various traditions and genres – Latin American dance rhythms, synagogue chants, and the bird calls of an Argentine choral group. After its premiere in Stuttgart, it has been performed in Boston, Brooklyn, Los Angeles and Atlanta.

Among many other awards and commissions, Golijov was the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, has collaborated with the Atlanta Symphony, Boston Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Santa Fe Opera, and Spoleto USA Festival.

According to Musical America, Golijov differs from other composers in his willingness to surrender control to the performers. “He prizes spontaneity, earthiness, rough corners, and raw emotion. He is not one to sit at a rehearsal with the score open on his lap, protesting the slightest deviation from the text. Often, he invites musicians to assist in the realization of his vision. When he works with folk musicians and others of non-classical training, he lets the composition become, in part, a souvenir of an improvisation.”

Golijov composed Lullaby and Doina in 2001 for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and it was premiered in Jordan Hall, Boston, in April of that year. The composer has provided the following program note on his website:

“This piece starts with a set of variations on a Yiddish lullaby that I composed for Sally Potter’s film The Man Who Cried, set to function well in counterpoint to another important music theme in the soundtrack: Bizet’s Aria “Je Crois Entendre Encore”, from The Pearl Fishers. In her film Sally explores the fate of Jews and Gypsies in Europe during the tragic mid-years of the 20th century, through a love story between a Jewish young woman and a Gypsy young man.

“The lullaby metamorphoses into a dense and dark doina (a gypsy slow, rubato genre) featuring the lowest string of the viola. The piece ends in a fast gallop boasting a theme that I stole from my friends of the wild gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks.”

Copyright © 2006 by Willard J. Hertz

Notes for: August 7, 2012

Osvaldo Golijov is one of our busiest and most sought after composers. In fact, at its April 15, 2012 concert, the Portland Symphony Orchestra played his Siderius, a piece commissioned by the PSO as part of a group commission from many orchestras around the US.

In 2006, he was named “Composer of the Year” by Musical America, after New York’s Lincoln Center presented a festival of his music and London’s Barbican Center also presented two evenings of his music. Since then he has served as composer-in-residence for two seasons with the Chicago Symphony, and has received two Grammys for Ainadamar, Foundation of Tears, one for the best opera and one for the best recording of a contemporary work. In 2010 Deutsche Grammophon, with appropriate fanfare, released a new recording and DVD of his St. Mark’s Passion, commissioned by the European Music Festival to mark the 250th anniversary of Bach’s death.

Recent compositions include Azul, a cello concerto for Yo Yo Ma and the Boston Symphony; Rose of the Winds, for the Silk Road Ensemble and the Chicago Symphony; and She Was Here, a work based on Schubert lieder for Dawn Upshaw. Now in the planning stage are a new song cycle for Emanuel Ax, Dawn Upshaw and Michael Ward-Bergemann; a new string quartet for the St. Lawrence String Quartet; a new opera commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera; and a violin concerto co-commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony.

Golijov grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household in La Plata, Argentina, the son of a piano teacher mother and physician father. He was raised, he recalled, surrounded by classical chamber music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, and the new tango of Astor Piazzolla, and these diverse idioms have remained important influences on his music. After studying piano in Argentina, he studied music in Israel, and then earned his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania.

In the early 90’s Golijov began to work closely with two string quartets, the St. Lawrence and the Kronos, which performed and recorded his early music with its strong impressions of his Jewish background. Kronos also expanded Golijov’s musical family through collaborations with a Romanian Gypsy band, a Mexican rock group, an Indian tabla (drum) virtuoso, and an Argentine composer and guitarist.

Golijov composed Lullaby and Doina in 2001 for the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, and it was premiered in Jordan Hall, Boston, in April of that year. The composer has provided the following program note on his website:

“This piece starts with a set of variations on a Yiddish lullaby that I composed for Sally Potter’s film The Man Who Cried, set to function well in counterpoint to another important music theme in the soundtrack: Bizet’s Aria ‘Je Crois Entendre Encore’, from The Pearl Fishers. In her film Sally explores the fate of Jews and Gypsies in Europe during the tragic mid-years of the 20th century, through a love story between a Jewish young woman and a Gypsy young man.

The lullaby metamorphoses into a dense and dark doina (a gypsy slow, rubato genre) featuring the lowest string of the viola. The piece ends in a fast gallop boasting a theme that I stole from my friends of the wild gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks.”

Copyright © 2012 by Willard J. Hertz