Instrumentation

picc.2.2.ca.2.bcl.2.cbsn - 4431 - timp - perc(4): xylo/4 tgl/crot/2 glsp/4 referee whistle/finger.cym/vib/mar/tam-t/2 tamb/4 c.bell/hi-hat/3 wdbl/bongos/ratchet/whip - elec keyboard - solo vln - strings

Availability

Score and parts for hire

Faber Music Ltd. is the sole agent for Daugherty works published by Peermusic Classical in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.

For these territories, contact the Faber Music Hire Library: http://www.fabermusic.com/content/hire-info

For other territories, including North and South America, South Korea and China, contact the Peermusic Classical Rental Library: http://www.subitomusic.com/rental/

 

 

 

 

Programme Notes

I began composing my Metropolis Symphony in 1988, inspired by the celebration in Cleveland of the fiftieth anniversary of Superman's first appearance in the comics. When I completed the score in 1993, I dedicated it to the conductor David Zinman, who had encouraged me to compose the work, and to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The Metropolis Symphony evokes an American mythology that I discovered as an avid reader of comic books in the fifties and sixties. Each movement of the symphony-which may be performed separately-is a musical response to the myth of Superman. I have used Superman as a compositional metaphor in order to create an independent musical world that appeals to the imagination. The symphony is a rigorously structured, non-programmatic work, expressing the energies, ambiguities, paradoxes, and wit of American popular culture. Like Charles Ives, whose music recalls small-town America early in our century, I draw on my eclectic musical background to reflect on late-twentieth-century urban America. Through complex orchestration, timbral exploration, and rhythmic polyphony, I combine the idioms of jazz, rock, and funk with symphonic and avant-garde composition. Lex derives its title from one of Superman's most vexing foes, the supervillain and business tycoon Lex Luthor. Marked "Diabolical" in the score, this movement features a virtuoso violin soloist (Lex) who plays a fiendishly difficult fast triplet motive in perpetual motion, pursued by the orchestration and a percussion section that includes four referee whistles placed quadraphonically on stage.

Lex from Metropolis Symphony

No Venue (Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany)

John Axelrod/Staatsorchester Oldenburgh

Lex from Metropolis Symphony

No Venue (Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany)

John Axelrod/Staatsorchester Oldenburgh

Lex from Metropolis Symphony

No Venue (Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany)

John Axelrod/Staatsorchester Oldenburgh

Lex from Metropolis Symphony

No Venue (Oldenburg, Niedersachsen, Germany)

John Axelrod/Staatsorchester Oldenburgh

Lex from Metropolis Symphony

Teatro Auditorium Manzoni (Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy)

Orchestra Teatro Comunale