Christopher Rouse: new orchestral Odna Zhizn reviewed

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Christopher Rouse: new orchestral Odna Zhizn reviewed

(June 2010)

Christopher Rouse's new orchestral work, Odna Zhizn, was premiered by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert in February.

For the hardy concertgoers who braved a Manhattan snowstorm to hear the New York Philharmonic in February, “the program’s highlight was the premiere of Mr. Rouse’s Odna Zhizn… a magical score” (New York Times). Christopher Rouse made his name with dramatic and passionate orchestral music and his new 15-minute score for Alan Gilbert’s opening season at the orchestra’s helm was no exception. Gilbert is a leading interpreter of Rouse’s music, having introduced European audiences to the composer’s works and recorded a pair of CDs with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic for BIS.

In his programme note Rouse writes that Odna Zhizn (A Life) is a “homage to a person of Russian ancestry who is very dear to me.” He goes on to describe how the enigmatic score “is built around a personal (and unrevealed) code in which the letters of the alphabet are assigned to pitches and durations” to create a work that is both “a public portrait” and something of “a private love letter”.

“Against a backdrop of haunting, pianissimo strings, which move at a glacial pace, Mr. Rouse imposes short bursts of fast, angular flute figures, darkly mysterious contributions from lower-lying woodwinds, and sudden bursts of fortissimo brass. Eventually the strings abandon their Ivesian introspection and take up more vigorous themes of their own… the real action is in the huge percussion array, which not only contributes shimmering effects and underpins the brass bursts, but also provides the connective tissue between the string and wind writing.” New York Times

A further performance of Odna Zhizn takes place at the Aspen Festival on 2 July with the Aspen Chamber Symphony. Rouse’s 15-minute concert-opener Rapture is one of the most widely travelled orchestral works of the ‘Noughties’, performed recently on a Californian tour by David Robertson and the Saint Louis Symphony, and scheduled next season by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra with Peter Oundjian. Rouse’s new String Quartet No.3 is premiered by the Calder Quartet next season, and their performances of his two earlier quartets can be heard on a new CD from E1 Entertainment.

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