Large Ensemble Voice - Digital Download
SKU: A0.869339
Composed by Thomas Oboe Lee. 20th Century,Baroque,Classical,Contemporary,Romantic Period. Score and parts. With Pluto … The Lord of the Underworld. (2005) This year, 2009, he asked me if I would be interested in writing a work for narrator and chamber orchestra like Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf.” I said, “Yes. I would be delighted to do so.” He. 90 pages. Thomas Oboe Lee #32449. Published by Thomas Oboe Lee (A0.869339).
Program note.
Maestro Charles Ansbacher has been a devoted supporter of my work for many years. In the past 6 years he has commissioned me to write two works for his ensemble, the Boston Landmarks Orchestra:
1) Mambo!!! (2003)
2) Pluto … The Lord of the Underworld (2005)
This year, 2009, he asked me if I would be interested in writing a work for narrator and chamber orchestra like Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf. I said, Yes. I would be delighted to do so. He told me that the subject for this work would be Boston’s own landscape architect, Frederick Law Olmsted. Sure, I said, why not? Charles told me he had a poet in mind who would provide the text, Nancy Stevenson. I said, Great!
The work is in four parts, following Ms. Stevenson’s poetic design.
I wrote a marching music in Part One depicting Mr. Olmsted when as a child he walked from his home to his aunts and uncles who lived far away. As a young man, Mr. Olmsted went through many jobs until he decided that as a landscape architect he could make cities a better place for children and adults alike. The mayor of Boston hired him to do just that, to make Boston more livable.
In Part Two, I wrote presto music depicting the dredging of the Charles River and the planting of trees along its shores.
In Part Three, the text describes the Boston Emerald Necklace – the paths that lead from the Fens to the Arboretum to Franklin Park. For this section I chose music that is bucolic and pastoral, a setting that evokes the country side with a flock of sheep, complete with a shepherd and his dog.
In the last section the text describes Mr. Olmsted’s dream that in his parks there would be tranquility and rest to the mind … a place where the rich and the poor would play together. The music returns to the legato march that began the work.
