Jennifer Higdon blue cathedral
Jennifer Higdon blue cathedral Program Notes
Jennifer Higdon blue cathedral. Blue…like the sky. Where all possibilities soar. Cathedrals…a place of thought, growth, spiritual expression…serving as a symbolic doorway in to and out of this world. Blue represents all potential and the progression of journeys. Cathedrals represent a place of beginnings, endings, solitude, fellowship, contemplation, knowledge and growth. As I was writing this piece, I found myself imagining a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky. Because the walls would be transparent, I saw the image of clouds and blueness permeating from the outside of this church. In my mind’s eye the listener would enter from the back of the sanctuary, floating along the corridor amongst giant crystal pillars, moving in a contemplative stance. The stained-glass windows’ figures would start moving with song, singing a heavenly music. The listener would float down the aisle, slowly moving upward at first and then progressing at a quicker pace, rising towards an immense ceiling which would open to the sky…as this journey progressed, the speed of the traveler would increase, rushing forward and upward. I wanted to create the sensation of contemplation and quiet peace at the beginning, moving towards the feeling of celebration and ecstatic expansion of the soul, all the while singing along with that heavenly music. These were my thoughts when The Curtis Institute of Music commissioned me to write a work to commemorate its 75th anniversary. Curtis is a house of knowledge – a place to reach towards that beautiful expression of the soul which comes through music. I began writing this piece at a unique juncture in my life and found myself pondering the question of what makes a life. The recent loss of my younger brother, Andrew Blue, made me reflect on the amazing journeys that we all make in our lives, crossing paths with so many individuals singularly and collectively, learning and growing each step of the way. This piece represents the expression of the individual and the group…our inner travels and the places our souls carry us, the lessons we learn, and the growth we experience. In tribute to my brother, I feature solos for the clarinet (the instrument he played) and the flute (the instrument I play). Because I am the older sibling, it is the flute that appears first in this dialog. At the end of the work, the two instruments continue their dialogue, but it is the flute that drops out and the clarinet that continues on in the upward progressing journey. This is a story that commemorates living and passing through places of knowledge and of sharing and of that song called life. This work was commissioned and premiered in 2000 by the Curtis Institute of Music. – Jennifer Higdon Born: 1962 (age 60 years), Brooklyn, New York, NYblue cathedral is an orchestral tone poem by American composer Jennifer Higdon, composed in 1999 as a tribute to her younger brother Andrew Blue Higdon, who died of cancer at age 33. It is her most frequently performed work and one of the most performed pieces by any living American composer.
Higdon composed blue cathedral in February 1999, completing it in just eight days. It was premiered on February 18, 2000, by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch.
A typical performance lasts approximately 11 to 12 minutes.
Listen for the way the music creates a sense of soaring upward — as if ascending through a vast blue space — before arriving at moments of radiant, almost unbearable beauty. A flute and clarinet duet at the heart of the work represents the two siblings together. The closing pages are among the most moving in contemporary orchestral music.
Higdon has said that writing blue cathedral was both a deeply personal act of mourning and a creative release. The piece ends not in grief but in transcendence, and audiences worldwide have responded to its emotional honesty with deep feeling. It has received over 500 performances since its premiere.
