A famed American composer has died
RIPThe death was recorded today of David Del Tredici, an Aaron Copland protege who scored global success with a series of works on Alice in Wonderland. Del Tredici was 86 years old.
His first major commission was from the Concertgebouw but most of his work centred on US orchestras and audiences. He taught at Harvard and Yale, won a Pulitzer Prize, was composer in residence with the NY Philharmonic and focussed part of his work on the shifting experience of gay life in America.
A tragic loss. David was a great thinker and a true inspiration for American musicians. He almost single handedly changed the course of American musical history with his 1976 “Final Alice”. It is impossible to imagine the landscape without his unique voice.
I was going to recommend that everyone immediately go listen to „Final Alice“ but some guy beat me to it. The Solti/CSO recording with Barbara Hendricks has been a constant pleasure in my life since it was first released on LP in 1981, morphing into an ageless CD. It’s an Olympic Event for orchestra and soprano, and Hendricks takes the gold. And of course, the composer, who ends the work with a signature as the soprano slowly chants:
„undici“
„dodici“
and almost in a whisper
„Tre-di-ci“
Well put, Mr. Slatkin.
From my perspective: I was at the Los Angeles Philharmonic premiere of “Final Alice” in (I believe) 1977. One could palpably feel the stranglehold of the academic avant-garde on the American concert-going public being pried off at last — the audience actually left the hall singing (!) “Alice’s” D-major refrain…it was wonderful.
I was also at the rehearsals for that performance, and Mr. Del Tredici’s boyish glee in what he’d created, and hearing it realized, were delightful and infectious.
Rest in peace, Mr. Del Tredici.
His music hardly ever gets played and there’s a reason for that, it’s trash.
And where is your recording of the great Roy Harris 3rd Symphony?
Slatkin has conducted Harris 3, and he’s recorded more American symphonies than anyone except perhaps Gerard Schwarz.
Kind of harsh to speak ill about the dead, Rob. While I agree that some of his “Alice” pieces were not my cup of tea, the earlier works where he set James Joyce’s texts are miraculous and should be re-evaluated. They’re quite powerful and gutsy, even though he abandoned writing in a 12-tone idiom in favor of the neo-romantic sound where he brought his personal voice to a new zenith.
And as for Harris’ third symphony, it is a masterpiece, but then so are quite a few other American symphonies that continue to be neglected or rarely get programmed, such as those by Mennin, Piston, Herrmann, Persichetti, Siegmeister, Moross, Howard Swanson, David Van Vactor, Ross Lee Finney, Adolphus Hailstork and many others.
Bad timing. REALLY bad timing. Didn’t your parents teach you proper manners?
I attended the Boston Symphony premier of Final Alice and was dumbfounded how he could combine such theatrical intimacy with a full-blown Mahler/Strauss orchestration. While the CSO recording with Hendricks easily revives these memories, the performance is cut. I’ve been waiting for a complete performance ever since. Perhaps the BSO can release the concert.
I remember seeing Kurt Masur and the NY Phil do the premiere of “The Spider and the Fly” around 1997. I liked it. But his music doesn’t seem to have developed legs, sorry to say.
Very sad
I remember utter delight at one of the initial CSO performances of Final Alice with an almost impossibly young Barbara Hendricks. Perfection!
R.I.P., David. It was such a pleasure to reflect with him, in what appears to have been one of his last, if not final, recorded interview(s): https://redcircle.com/shows/ceb438c9-f08b-4c83-8dab-9483a495e6eb/episodes/0d84076c-fe35-4918-bfe5-a0be525da382 (about 6 minutes in, he explains the condition of his voice these last few years). What a life, and what a body of work left behind! May it ring forever.
He was not only a great musician but a wonderful friend to me as we both battled academia in New York City.
Truly, I loved every second of joy and reflection, Final Alice and the recording, lost through several moves over these many years.
I, a confessed Romantic, have great affection for the Titans of the Late Romantics, Mahler, R Strauss, and others. Del Tredici certainly meets their match and expressed
a brilliance at late 20th C and into our troubled times. R I P, a great, steadfast voice for melody!
R.I.P. I *love* Del Tredici’s “Alice” works. So colorful, so varied. A tragic loss.
Recalling the great pleasure of performing Del Tredici’s
“Dracula” in 2000. His use of the orchestra was impressive, especially in the writing of string harmonics. This work was a
verdant island in a veritable ocean of dreck.
I went to music school with his nephew, an incredible bass trombonist. I remember once he ushered a couple people into a practice room, saying his uncle had written him a piece and he wanted to run it for a little audience. What followed was one of the most stunning solo performances I’d ever witnessed (certainly at that close a range!) I only learned later that the uncle in question was one of our greatest living North American composers, and a pioneer of openly gay expression in Western art music. And the Felix variations, now recorded https://www.daviddeltredici.com/works/the-felix-variations/ are still my definitive memory of Paganini caprice 24…