Concert Notes

Music has a language all its own, but few ensembles are as naturally equipped for expression as the string orchestra. Strings can sing, whisper, dance, shimmer, pulse, and cry. They can imitate the human voice, create the energy of a dance band, or build vast symphonic landscapes from a single sustained note. The Language of Strings explores that remarkable range, bringing together composers from Britain and the United States who use the string orchestra in strikingly different ways.

Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony opens the program with music that is anything but simple. Written in 1934 when Britten was just twenty, the work draws on piano pieces and songs he composed between the ages of nine and twelve and recasts them with the sophistication of his mature musical voice. Britten conducted the first performance himself, in Norwich, in March 1934. Its four movements—Boisterous Bourrée, Playful Pizzicato, Sentimental Saraband, and Frolicsome Finale—reveal Britten's gift for combining elegance with humor. In the second movement the players put down their bows and pluck every note. Throughout, the strings are constantly conversing with one another, tossing ideas back and forth and transforming simple musical gestures into sophisticated orchestral play.

American composer Leroy Anderson takes that conversation in a very different direction. Written in 1938, Jazz Pizzicato and Jazz Legato turn the string section into something resembling a jazz ensemble. Jazz Pizzicato came first and transforms the strings into a percussive instrument. At just over ninety seconds, it was too short for a record side, so Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Pops suggested a companion piece. The result was Jazz Legato, whose long, flowing lines evoke the smoothness of a dance-band arrangement. These miniature works demonstrate Anderson's extraordinary ability to bring popular musical styles into the concert hall without sacrificing craftsmanship or charm.

Keith Jarrett's Elegy for Violin and Strings offers a striking contrast. Best known as a celebrated jazz pianist and improviser, Jarrett also composed extensively outside the jazz tradition. He wrote this Elegy in 1984 in memory of his maternal grandmother, a Hungarian woman who loved music, and it was released in 1994 on his album Bridge of Light. Here, the solo violin becomes an individual voice surrounded by the string ensemble. The music is intimate and reflective, allowing silence, sustained sound, and subtle shifts of harmony to become part of the expression. After the playful energy of Britten and Anderson, Jarrett reminds us that the language of strings can be quiet, personal, and deeply inward.

The program's centerpiece is Libby Larsen's String Symphony No. 4, which the Minnesota Orchestra and conductor Eiji Oue premiered in Minneapolis in December 1998. Larsen approaches the string orchestra almost as a laboratory for sound. Her three movements—Elegance, Beauty Alone, and Ferocious Rhythm—explore contrasting aspects of the ensemble, from lyrical and sustained writing to sharply rhythmic passages. She has called the symphony both a tribute to the strings and an essay about them. Larsen has also spoken about her fascination with the rhythms and inflections of American speech, and the work treats the string orchestra as a kind of human voice: expressive, physical, conversational, and constantly changing.

Elena Ruehr's Shimmer brings the concert to a brilliant conclusion. Written for the Metamorphosen Chamber Orchestra, it began with Ruehr's wish to call up the long history of string orchestras. She imagined Vivaldi stepping into a time machine and arriving in the present. Rhythmic vitality, rapid musical exchanges, and constantly shifting textures create a sense of motion and light, and the title describes the sound itself: bowing, trills, and ornaments combine into a glittering surface. The strings seem to sparkle from within, demonstrating how an ensemble without winds, brass, or percussion can nevertheless produce extraordinary color and energy. Ruehr says she aims for music that is simple on the surface and complex in design.

Taken together, these works reveal that there is no single language of strings. There are many: playful and serious, rhythmic and lyrical, intimate and expansive, traditional and contemporary. Each composer gives the string orchestra a different voice—and invites us to listen in a different way.

NSS concerts typically last around two hours, including a 15-minute intermission.