Guantanamera Emergent (PDFs)

Program Notes

This work tells four stories:
Sadness, bordering on despair for the
state of the world.
Then clarinet
feels despite the catastrophic situation that
no good can come unless we lighten up as a
prelude to pragmatic optimism, with a fragment of Irving
Berlin's Putin on the Ritz.

The bantar
features some of the most
famous solos in the orchestral literature:
Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring
Debussy's Prelude to An Afternoon of the Faun
Richard Strauss' Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks
Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake as well
as Barber's soulful
Summer Music.

Hidden throughout are variations on a fragment of the
Saint Anthony Chorale via Brahms, via Haydn.
Saint Anthony devoted himself to help the less fortunate.

The fourth story is a paraphrase of the Cuban folk song,
Guantanamera, which sings of social justice.