Michael Daugherty, "Bells for Stokowski" (2001)
“The orchestra unleashed bristling performances of contemporary music....The Cabrillo Festival has shown how to build a sustaining community around progressive music.”
--The Wall Street Journal
Bells for Stokowski (2001) was commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Music Director, in celebration of its centennial. The work received generous support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Philadelphia Music Project (funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, administered by the Philadelphia Settlement Music School). The world premiere was given by The Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of David Zinman at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia on November 15, 2001.
The composition is scored for piccolo (doubling on flute), three flutes, two oboes, English horn, two Bb clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four C trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani (five drums), four percussion (vibraphone, glockenspiel, marimba, tubular bells, wind chimes, crotales, cymbals, finger cymbals, triangles, sleigh bells, bell tree, large gong, earth plates, bass drum). two harps, amplified steel string acoustic guitar and strings. Duration: 15 minutes. The composer writes:
Bells for Stokowski is a tribute to one of the most influential and controversial conductors of the 20th century. Born in London, Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) began his career as an organist. Moving to America, Stokowski was fired from his organ post at St. Bartholomew's Church in New York in 1908, after he concluded a service with Stars and Stripes Forever. As maestro of the Philadelphia Orchestra (1912-36) he became known for his brilliant interpretations of classical music, his enthusiasm for new concert music, and for taking risks by constantly pushing the envelope of what was acceptable in the concert hall.
In Philadelphia he created a sensation by conducting world premieres of orchestral works by composers such as Stravinsky and Varese. He also enraged classical purists by conducting his lavish Romantic orchestral transcriptions of Bach. It was in Philadelphia that he created the famous "Stokowski sound," making the orchestra sound like a pipe organ. To create this complex resonance, he allowed the string sections to exercise "free bowing" (unsychronized up and down string bowing of musical phrases). Stokowski was so intrigued by timbral and visual complexity that he often experimented with the seating of players by moving sections of the orchestra to different parts of the stage.
Stokowski boldly programmed American popular music alongside the classical and avant-garde orchestral repertoire. He initiated the first music education concerts for children in America and appeared as a conductor in various Hollywood films. It was his 1940 colloboration with Walt Disney in "Fantasia," that resulted in the orchestral soundtrack being recorded in stereophonic sound for the first time.
In Bells for Stokowski I imagine Stokowski in Philadelphia visiting the Liberty Bell at sunrise, and listening to all the bells of the city resonate. To create various bell effects, I frame the orchestra with two percussionists positioned stereophonically on the stage performing on identical ringing percussion instruments such as tubular bells, crotales, bell trees, and various non-pitched metals. I also echo Stokowski's musical vision and legacy in order to look to the past and the future of American orchestral concert music. To represent the past I have I've composed an original theme in the style of Bach. Midway in the composition, there is also brief fantasy where we hear a Daugherty orchestral transcription of a portion of Bach's C Major Prelude from The Well Tempered Klavier introduced by two stereophonic harps. To represent the future I take my original theme composed in the style of Bach and process it through my own musical language in a series of tonal and atonal variations. During the variations I employ complex musical canons, polyrhythms, counterpoints, and move at will between various musical idioms resonanting Stokowski's enthusiasm for music of all styles and cultures. Instead of changing the seating arrangement of the orchestra as Stokowski did, I evoke the sound of moving of sections of the orchestra to different parts of the stage by reconfiguring the orchestra via unusual orchestrations and moving between chamber and tutti densities. At various times in the composition I have the strings of the orchestra play in "Stokowski free bowing," rarely used today. The coda of the composition evokes the famous "Stokowski sound," by making the orchestra resound like an enormous rumbling gothic pipe organ. In the last chords of Bells for Stokowski we hear the final echoes of a long legacy of great orchestral performances in Philadelphia at the Academy of Music.
