Jack Van Zandt - La Nuit Étoilée ("Starry Night"): A Nocturne after Van Gogh

La Nuit Étoilée ("Starry Night")
A Nocturne after Van Gogh
Harp, Piano, and String Orchestra
(2024)
Alison Bjorkedal, harp, and Nadia Shpachenko, piano
The Seattle Chamber Orchestra
Conducted by Lorenzo Marasso
Premiere performance, 12 April 2024
Tagney Jones Hall
Opera Center,
Seattle Washington
Concert video produced by Scribe Studios, Seattle WA
Program Note
The composer writes:
I consider the nocturne, in its depiction of what humans experience in the night, to be an atmospheric and slightly surrealistic type of music, rather than a well-defined formal structure. The sights and sounds of the night in nature have a different quality of perception than during the day because of something way down deep in our evolutionarily developed brains, which certainly influenced Van Gogh, though he was probably unaware of it. This new work takes its title from Van Gogh’s famous painting, in which he captures the atmosphere of the night sky so perfectly by geometrically reinforcing and decorating the shapes of natural starlight and moonlight in a landscape. His painting exhibits the archetypal qualities of what we call post-impressionism, and got me thinking that I might be able to compose music with similar qualities, in the way I decorate and acoustically reinforce my musical materials which I invented for the piece. I don’t consider my composition after the painting to be a commentary on the picture as such, but more of a musical analog of it.
La Nuit Étoilée is not a traditional double concerto work, but more of a quasi-Baroque concertato, whereby the harp and piano soloists play an elaborately decorated version of the music that the string orchestra plays the simpler bare bones of, but simultaneously rather than in a strophic form. It gives me the opportunity to be lyrical and dramatic at the same time, which is why I like the form so much. I am always very concerned in my music with the flow of time and creating a musical structure with an overall shape that tells a story or depicts a journey from one place to another, and this work is no exception.
Jack Van Zandt (b. 1954) is a Grammy-winning composer of music for concerts, film and TV, and a music educator and writer. He is based in Los Angeles and Ireland. He attended UC Santa Barbara’s College of Creative Studies and Cambridge University, and studied composition with Alexander Goehr, Thea Musgrave, Peter Maxwell Davies and Peter Racine Fricker. He was recently a music faculty member at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, and California Institute for the Arts (CalArts). Recent premieres include "The New Frontier: An Atomic Age Jazz Opera" for soprano Stacey Fraser, and "Strange Loops" for the Villiers String Quartet (UK). His work for large orchestra, "From th’Ethereal Skie," received its world premiere by the UCLA Philharmonia during the 2024 Hear Now Festival of Los Angeles Composers. His book with Alexander Goehr, "Composing a Life: Teachers, Mentors and Models," was published by Carcanet (UK) in October 2023. His music is published by Composers Edition.
More information:
www.jackvanzandt.com
composersedition.com/jack-van...

[@gabrieltorrado_]

This is so great Jack! Incredible performance.

[@jimmcmartin9916]

What a great performance!! This piece goes deep into the subterranean world of dreaming, and takes us there. Seeing this as a performance (great performance) enhanced it's effect on me. I love this!