The Eclectic Trio

Friday lunchtime concert in the Boston Public Library Courtyard (Map)

July 16 — 12:30-1:30 PM

Program

Continuing its three part series, American Century Music (ACM) presents an eclectic trio of pieces. ACM Artistic Director and Conductor Scott Parkman leads Musicians of American Century Music in the Symphony for Five Players by the self-described “bad boy of music” George Antheil, as well as the Divertimento for Nine Players by the skillful artisan Walter Piston. The program also includes Elliott Carter’s Eight Etudes and a Fantasy for Woodwind Quartet.

George Antheil (1900-1959) wrote the Symphony for Five Players in 1923 and it was premiered at the highly desirable salon of American expatriate Natalie Barney. A work in the Stravinsky neo-classical mold, the Symphony exudes its own quirkiness and voice with naïve and fashionable-sounding rhythms and themes.

New York-based composer Elliott Carter (b. 1908) began Eight Etudes and a Fantasy as an assignment for a composition class he was teaching at Columbia University to demonstrate the possibilities of woodwind instruments. The resulting complete work is a masterpiece of orchestration and compositional technique.

The program concludes with the Divertimento for Nine Instruments by Walter Piston (1894-1976). Elliott Carter, who studied with Piston at Harvard, wrote of his teacher, “Piston’s work helps us to keep our mind on the durable and most satisfying aspects of the art of music and by making them live gives us hope that the qualities of integrity and reason are still with us.”