I Wish You Daisies and Roses (Vail Premiere, Co-Commission by Bravo! Vail and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra)

SYMPHONIC COMMISSIONING PROJECT

In 2023, the German composer Sophia Jani began her first of three years as composerin- residence of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO), which played the premiere of I Wish You Daisies and Roses this past March in Dallas. Her official bio says that she “takes a poetically minimalist approach to composition and belongs to a new generation of artists who were influenced early on by the boundlessness of the 21st century.” In 2023 she received a fellowship to be musical artist in residence of the Arvo Pärt Centre in Estonia. She is one of the founders and artistic directors of Feet Become Ears, a German platform that commissions, presents, and celebrates contemporary chamber music. Two CDs devoted to her music have been released: Music as a mirror (2022), a collection of chamber works that was nominated for the German music prize Opus Klassik, and Six Pieces for Solo Violin (2024).

She has provided this comment about I Wish You Daisies and Roses: “I am writing my piece for the DSO at a very special time in my life, since it is the first composition I am working on after the birth of my first child. What really touched me was the feeling of this immense and infinite love you’re feeling as a parent and how much and with all your heart you wish your child a good future. With that came the realization that when you have something so infinitely precious in your life, you also become infinitely vulnerable. So throughout this past year, I had to fight again and again not to sink completely into worries and insecurities. It was out of this energy that I started writing this piece.”

Violin Concerto, For a Younger Self
     Moderato ma non troppo
     Larghetto (Gently)
     Presto (With ease and confidence)

Los Angeles native Kris Bowers studied at the Colburn School there and the Juilliard School in New York. He composes for film and for the concert stage, finding that both those disciplines are energized by a sense of musical storytelling. He wrote his Violin Concerto for his Juilliard friend Charles Yang. “For a Younger Self,” he explains, “is an effort to encapsulate the essence of a young hero’s journey—one where the protagonist, embodied by Charles and his violin, embarks upon the adventure of self-discovery amidst the challenges of young life in an unfamiliar space.”

He continues: “When we meet our hero at the beginning of the piece, he is somewhat melancholic and timid, and pretty soon we feel he is almost being pushed around by the orchestra. ... So we go back and forth between these moments of chaos and anxiety, to these gentler sections that represent the pining for tranquility, nostalgia, love, etc. The second movement is a moment for our protagonist to finally have that moment of peace and reflection. [He] is now driving the orchestra, … acting from a place of love rather than fear. Lastly, we reach the climactic final movement in which the hero and what he’s learned is put to the test, and the ease in which he exhibits his self confidence and assuredness amidst the chaos is on full display. On some level, writing this piece became a way to send a message to the younger version of myself, in terms of finding a way to maintain balance and inner peace in this chaotic and troubling world, and also as a way to encourage and celebrate my curiosity and love for so many types of music.”

Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92
     Poco sostenuto–Vivace
     Allegretto
     Presto
     Allegro con brio

The Age of Beethoven coincided in large part with the Age of Napoleon. Beethoven was an enthusiast at first, but his admiration disappeared when Napoleon declared himself an absolutist dictator. In June 1813, the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Vitoria, spelling French defeat in the Iberian Peninsula. On March 31, 1814, the European allies entered Paris, and shortly thereafter Napoleon retreated to exile on the Italian island of Elba. Nine months later he sneaked back but was squashed for good in the Battle of Waterloo, after which he was sent to spend the rest of his life on the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena.

Beethoven monitored all of this with great interest. On December 8, 1813, two of his works were unveiled in a concert at the University of Vienna organized for the benefit of wounded troops: his descriptive symphonic fantasy Wellington’s Victory, or The Battle of Vitoria, and his Seventh Symphony. Both were so warmly received that the program was repeated four days later as a second benefit. The second movement of the symphony had to be encored on both occasions.

The Seventh became one of Beethoven’s most popular symphonies, and it evoked admiring comments from many informed listeners—beginning with Beethoven himself, who, in an 1815 letter, cited his “Grand Symphony in A” as “one of my best works.” Richard Wagner proclaimed it “the Apotheosis of the Dance; the Dance in its highest condition; the happiest realization of the movements of the body in an ideal form.” Hector Berlioz, noting that the Symphony’s Allegretto was its most famous movement, proclaimed, “This does not arise from the fact that the other three parts are any less worthy of admiration; far from it.”