Fountain of Youth 

Julia Wolfe did not set her sights on a musical profession until something clicked while she was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan. Soon thereafter, she met composers Michael Gordon and David Lang. They encouraged her to apply to the Yale School of Music, which they had attended. She did, and earned a master’s degree there. In 1987, the three launched Bang on a Can, which grew into one of the nation’s essential new-music associations. Their entrepreneurial spirit also gave rise to the publishing firm Red Poppy Music and the recording label Cantaloupe Music.

Wolfe also gained distinction as a composer on her own. She has been professor of music composition at New York University’s Steinhardt School since 2009, and in 2012 she was granted the Ph.D. in composition by Princeton University. Her hefty catalogue of works includes numerous pieces that confront social issues. Her oratorio Anthracite Fields earned her the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2016 she received a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2019 she was named Musical America’s Composer of the Year.

She wrote Fountain of Youth on commission from a coalition of organizations headed by Carnegie Hall and the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, the top-tier training orchestra for aspiring orchestral musicians. The piece is a nod to the youth of those musicians, and also to the fountain of youth ostensibly sought by Ponce de Leon in 16th century Florida. “People have searched for the fountain of youth for thousands of years,” she writes. “The thought was that if you bathed in or drank from the fountain of youth you would be transformed, rejuvenated. My fountain of youth is music, and in this case I offer the orchestra a sassy, rhythmic, high energy swim.”

Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs)
     Frühling (Spring)
     September (September)
     Beim Schlafengehen (Going to Sleep)
     Im Abendrot (In the Glow of Evening)

Richard Strauss composed songs throughout his career, and especially songs well suited to the soprano voice. His adored wife, Pauline de Ahna, was a soprano, and they often performed together in lieder recitals. They remained married for 55 years, and she survived her husband by only eight months. She died on May 13, 1950, at the couple’s villa in Garmisch- Partenkirchen, high in the Bavarian Alps. Nine days later, in London, listeners first heard Strauss’s final testament to the soprano voice when Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted the premiere of the Four Last Songs, with Kirsten Flagstad as soloist.

These are twilight works, the remarkable product of Strauss’s final years. “Im Abendrot” was the first to be composed, mostly in 1946. The text is by the 19th-century lyric poet Joseph von Eichendorff, an enduringly popular source for Romantic composers since the time of Schumann. The other three are all settings of poems by the theologically inclined Hermann Hesse, who was enjoying a new-found popularity after receiving the 1946 Nobel Prize for Literature. Strauss prepared the final manuscript of the four songs from May through September 1948, completing the scoring of “September” on—appropriately— September 20.

Despite the encroaching shadows of debility and death, Strauss’s achievement is anything but morbid. The Four Last Songs exudes instead a spirit of summation, a serenity earned through the completion of one’s task, a placid acceptance of the comfort of death. In “Beim Schlafengehen,” for example, the soloist sings about giving up all physical senses to the escape of slumber—and then seemingly does just that. But the singer’s sleep is given over to a dream, a violin solo derived from the final trio of Der Rosenkavalier, Strauss’s beloved opera of many decades earlier.

Symphony No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 82
     Tempo molto moderato—Allegro moderato
     Andante mosso, quasi allegretto
     Allegro molto—Misterioso

The Finnish Government commissioned Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony to mark his 50th birthday, which was in 1915. It occupied him longer than any of his others—seven years, since he probably began sketching it as early as 1912 and revised it considerably following the provisional premiere in 1915, which he did indeed conduct in Helsinki on his 50th birthday. External difficulties may have accounted for some of the slow going. Finland achieved independence in 1917, at which point internal political strife led to a civil war, a subplot to the larger drama of World War I. In 1918, he wrote in a letter: “My new works, partly sketched and planned. The Fifth Symphony in a new form—practically composed anew—I work daily … The whole—if I may say so—a spirited intensification to the end (climax). Triumphal.” Then he tells his correspondent that two of the other pieces currently in his thoughts are his Sixth and Seventh symphonies. Distinct as they are, these final three Sibelius symphonies sum up the composer’s grappling with symphonic writing.

The Fifth opens in an atmosphere of mysterious beauty. A listener might imagine time-lapse photography of wildflowers unfolding in a vast landscape, or at least think of the composer’s notation in a notebook in late 1914: “I begin to see dimly the mountain I shall ascend. … God opens His door for a moment and His orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony.” The Andante mosso movement is a placid interlude marked by numerous melodies set to a similar rhythm. All manner of brilliant writing fills the finale, such that by the time this remarkable work reaches its conclusion in six widely separated and powerful chords—please don’t clap till they’re over!—we can only agree with the composer’s description of it as “triumphal.”

Julia Wolfe did not initially set her sights on a musical profession, but something clicked during her undergraduate years at the University of Michigan. Soon after, she met composers Michael Gordon and David Lang, who encouraged her to apply to the Yale School of Music, their alma mater. She did and went on to earn a master’s degree there. In 1987, the three launched Bang on a Can, which evolved into one of the nation’s most vital new-music collectives. Their entrepreneurial drive also led to the founding of the publishing firm Red Poppy Music and the recording label Cantaloupe Music.

Wolfe has also gained significant recognition as a composer in her own right. Since 2009, she has served as a professor of music composition at New York University’s Steinhardt School. In 2012, she earned a Ph.D. in composition from Princeton University. Her expansive body of work often addresses social issues, and her oratorio Anthracite Fields earned the 2015 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2016, she received a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2019 she was named Musical America’s Composer of the Year.

She composed Fountain of Youth on commission from a coalition led by Carnegie Hall and the New World Symphony in Miami Beach, an elite training orchestra for young musicians. The piece pays tribute to the youth of those performers and also to the mythical fountain of youth supposedly sought by Ponce de León in 16th-century Florida. “People have searched for the fountain of youth for thousands of years,” Wolfe writes. “The thought was that if you bathed in or drank from the fountain of youth you would be transformed, rejuvenated. My fountain of youth is music, and in this case I offer the orchestra a sassy, rhythmic, high energy swim.”

Richard Strauss composed songs throughout his career, often tailored to the soprano voice, inspired in part by his wife, Pauline de Ahna, a soprano with whom he frequently performed in lieder recitals. Their marriage lasted 55 years, and Pauline survived her husband by just eight months, passing away in May 1950 at their home in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Bavarian Alps. Nine days later, Wilhelm Furtwängler led the premiere of Strauss’s Four Last Songs in London, with Kirsten Flagstad as the soloist.

These late works are radiant products of Strauss’s twilight years. “Im Abendrot,” the first composed, was written largely in 1946 and sets a poem by the 19th-century lyricist Joseph von Eichendorff, a favorite among Romantic-era composers. The remaining three songs set poems by Hermann Hesse, whose spiritual and philosophical writings gained renewed popularity after he received the 1946 Nobel Prize for Literature. Strauss completed the orchestration of the songs between May and September 1948, finishing “September” on—appropriately—September 20.

Despite confronting themes of mortality, the Four Last Songs are not morbid. Rather, they radiate peace and fulfillment—an acceptance of life’s end as a natural, even comforting, conclusion. In “Beim Schlafengehen,” the soloist reflects on surrendering the senses to sleep, an idea echoed musically by a violin solo that recalls the final trio of Der Rosenkavalier, one of Strauss’s most beloved operas. The effect is one of serene transcendence.

The Finnish government commissioned Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony to celebrate his 50th birthday in 1915, though the work occupied him for nearly seven years—longer than any of his other symphonies. He likely began sketching the piece as early as 1912 and substantially revised it after a preliminary premiere he conducted himself in Helsinki on his birthday. Political unrest may have delayed his progress: Finland declared independence in 1917, only to fall into civil war amid the backdrop of World War I.

In 1918, Sibelius wrote in a letter: “My new works, partly sketched and planned. The Fifth Symphony in a new form—practically composed anew—I work daily … The whole—if I may say so—a spirited intensification to the end (climax). Triumphal.” He also mentioned work on what would become his Sixth and Seventh symphonies. While distinct from one another, these final three symphonies form a culmination of Sibelius’s evolution as a symphonic composer.

The Fifth Symphony opens with an ethereal sense of mystery—listeners may imagine time-lapse images of wildflowers blooming in a Nordic landscape, or recall the composer’s own note in 1914: “I begin to see dimly the mountain I shall ascend. … God opens His door for a moment and His orchestra plays the Fifth Symphony.” The middle movement, marked Andante mosso, offers a meditative calm through melodic variations. The finale dazzles with its inventive structure and energy, culminating in six grandly spaced, resonant chords. Listeners are often advised not to clap prematurely—these final notes are meant to ring with climactic finality. Indeed, Sibelius’s own term for this ending—“triumphal”—is hard to dispute.