ASO concert features music by composers in their 20s
ALBANY, N.Y. » One expects Saturday’s Albany Symphony Orchestra concert to be a pleasure to hear.
But looking past the music you discover an intriguing question. At what age or phase of a career does a person become a great composer?
Is it when they are recognized by the public at large? Is it when they create an indisputable masterpiece? Or is greatness an inherent quality that takes a certain length of time for the public to recognize? Or is it all three of the above?
The Saturday concert is at 7:30 p.m. and will be streamed in live time as the musicians perform at Universal Preservation Hall. It features works by Johannes Brahms, Sir William Walton and Tyson Davis. What unites the work is the pieces being performed were all written when the men were in their 20’s.
Today the music of Brahms is a familiar and even comforting presence. However, as a young man he was considered an innovator. As a mature composer he destroyed almost all his early manuscripts, which he felt were not the equal of his later work.
Because of this, history has little to judge on how good they really were. However, one work that has survived is his “Serenade No. 1 in D Major.” During his life Brahms frequently revised the piece, but the
ASO is performing it in its original four movement form. David Alan Miller, who is conducting, says “It’s a version that simply may never have been played or heard before.”
Also, on the program is the near-legendary “Façade” which Walton wrote when he was only 21 years old. At its much despised premiere in 1923, Avant Garde poet Edith Sitwell narrated a series of what was described as “absolutely crazy poems.” One newspaper termed it “Drivel That They Paid to Hear.”
Today, Façade is a treasured piece that is performed frequently.
The third piece on the program is “Distances” by Tyson Davis, a 20-year old student studying at The Juilliard School in New York City.
Davis is a prodigy who started music lessons at age 8. Throughout his teens he composed pieces for small groups and single instruments. “Distances” is his first major commission for an orchestra.
Davis still sounds in awe that he got a message from Miller asking him to compose a piece for the ASO. Davis says, ‘There were no creative strings attached. The only thing was they asked it be about 7-8 minutes in length.”
Miller says he heard of Davis through a friend and listened to some pieces he’d composed and was impressed. He thought they’d be ideal for the program. He calls Davis, “an immensely gifted composer.”
There is no way of telling if Davis will be another Brahms or Walton, but if confidence and charm are prerequisites for greatness the young man qualifies. He describes himself as “having a cool head, but not arrogant.” A trait he admires and tries to nurture is empathy. “People need to feel humanity and sensitivity in music,” he says.
He’s also an advocate of hard work. Though the piece will last only several minutes our interview clarified that Davis put a lot of time and thought into the work, as well as a lot of technical expertise.
He explained his process of creativity starts with finding the emotional mood of the work and trying to find the proper way to express his feelings. “I just let the music roll over me,” he says.
Instead of working with a computer he uses a large sketch pad to define his thoughts and experiments with words, symbols and ideas. He uses black and colored pencils as well as highlighters. He describes the pad as eventually resembling a Jackson Pollack painting which only makes sense to him. He says, “It’s a giant puzzle, which I have to solve.”
He believes artistic and personal growth comes from building on the last project. “With every project I always start fresh. I am informed and grow from what I’ve written in the past, but I strive for a higher quality. The goal is always perfection, but you can only achieve that by being better than the previous time.”
He got the idea for “Distances” on a visit to Roosevelt Island in the middle of the East River. He thought how close but basically inaccessible his Juilliard dorm room on the mainland was to him.
On a broader level he thinks “Distances” is an ideal work for today’s world. “Between COVID, fractured political attitudes and a general sense of isolation, people are not only distant from each other, but from themselves,” he says.
When asked if being an African-American 20year old male acerbated the sense of being distant from the society in which he lives, he answered with a simple, direct, “Absolutely.”
In his 20’s the music of innovative William Walker was considered radical. However, in his 50’s, Walker’s music was considered “old-fashioned.”
Later in life, Brahms rejected his youthful work.
Asked how Davis now regards the work he created as a young teenager, he says, “I don’t know. I’ll probably think something like, ‘That looks like crap, but that kid was slowly figuring it out.”
Davis’ long term goal is in 20-30 years to be skilled enough to create an opera based on “To Kill a Mockingbird.” When that does happen, I doubt that Davis will destroy “Distances.”