Jennifer Higdon: "blue cathedral"

Jennifer Higdon is perhaps my favorite composer of all time.

Her "blue cathedral" is a tone poem, and an elegy for her brother, Andrew Blue Higdon, who died of melanoma. Jennifer Higdon wrote the piece commemorating him and his life, and wrote it to depict a sort of "magical glass cathedral in the sky."

The piece opens with a pastorale evocative of Aaron Copland. The flute and clarinet (Jennifer plays flute, Andrew once played clarinet) solos flutter around the floating cushion provided by the strings. The piece grows in intensity, overwhelming the listener with a sense of journey.

At the middle, the brass section takes over playing a bombastic fugue that, according to Higdon's own words, "accelerates the audience into the ceiling, and into a starry sky that was really there, instead of a ceiling." A rocket taking off, perhaps.

The ending returns to the peaceful pastorale-like setting, and the clarinet "rises" up into the heavens alone, while the rest of the orchestra shakes Chiense health balls to imitate the twinkling of stars. A prepared piano chimes like a clock.

The most colorful thirteen minutes in music. I have no link, unfortunately...but it has been recorded on Telarc with the Atlanta SO under Robert Spano.

I hear a lot about this piece - yet never hear it! I need to see if our library has the recording.

Oh, you most definetely should. Robert Spano and the ASO did another CD of her music; Concerto for Orchestra and City Scape, which are also fabulous pieces. Immediate eargasm.

Absolutely; I cannot get enough of Jennifer Higdon.

Higdon came to my school recently. She's great, really personable and fun. She and the trio Time for Three did excerpts from her Concerto 4-3 and it was really astounding. If you have the means, I'd highly recommend giving it a listen.

Fun story, I was immensely impressed by the piece and, having just recently turned 21, asked her if I could take her out for a drink. She said "Sorry, I'm busy, but when you apply to Curtiss, definitely." I'm honestly not sure if I'm good enough to get in, and she's never heard any of my stuff, but hey, she told me to apply. Woo!

I certainly appreciate Higdon, though I'm more partial to Chris Theofanidis.

My local community orchestra gave one of it's first public performances. I remember not liking it at all...(except the wine glasses with water was awwweeeeesssssssssssooooooooommmmmmmmmmmeee)

But honestly, since then, my ears and my tastes have broadened to enjoy a bit of modern music, so I really should hunt down a recording of this....hmm...

If you have Naxos Music Library there is a recording on a disk called 'New Music from Bowling Green, Vol.3' which has a short commentary by the composer as well. Unfortunately the performance is slightly spoilt, some players are out of tune and the sound quality is not the best at times. The piece itself was quite good actually, rather more tonal than I expected and with quite an obvious Copland influence. A little like Rautavaara as well (the 'Angel of Light' Symphony) with the glass percussion and string textures. I didn't like the fast section so much, it only just managed to avoid sounding like the clich

So I listened to it again. Beautiful!

I certainly appreciate Higdon, though I'm more partial to Chris Theofanidis.

To each their own, I suppose. Rainbow Body WAS pretty tight. >< I just happened to like blue cathedral...more.

That sounded condescending. Sorry.

If you have Naxos Music Library there is a recording on a disk called 'New Music from Bowling Green, Vol.3' which has a short commentary by the composer as well. Unfortunately the performance is slightly spoilt, some players are out of tune and the sound quality is not the best at times. The piece itself was quite good actually, rather more tonal than I expected and with quite an obvious Copland influence. A little like Rautavaara as well (the 'Angel of Light' Symphony) with the glass percussion and string textures. I didn't like the fast section so much, it only just managed to avoid sounding like the clich

We played her Concerto for Orchestra at my university. It was horribly difficult to play, but it's fun to listen to.

San Francisco Symphony is playing "blue cathedral" next week. Stephen Deneve is conducting. Anyone attending? :D