QUINN MASON
Born 1996 in Dallas, TX
Petite Symphonie de Chambre Contemporaine (après Milhaud) (2021) for String Dectet or Orchestra (6’)
I. Overture
II. Nocturne
III. Etude
First performance by the Wichita Symphony.
This brief six-minute work was commissioned by Orlando Cela and the Lowell Chamber Orchestra and premiered on May 15, 2021. Composed during the COVID-19 pandemic at a time when many orchestras were reduced to using strings only, Mason scored the work for a string dectet (ten musicians) or a small string orchestra, such as heard at this concert.
The composer notes that the work was written in response to Darius Milhaud’s 4th Chamber Symphony composed one hundred years earlier in 1921. Milhaud (1892 – 1974) was a prolific French composer, conductor, and teacher, and a member of a leading group of six French composers during the 1920s and 1930s known as “Les Six.” His musical style was influenced by contemporary European music, jazz, and Brazilian music. Fleeing France ahead of the Nazis in 1940, Milhaud settled in the United States and taught in California at Mills College and The Music Academy of the West. His students included Dave Brubeck and Burt Bacharach.
The composer further adds on his website that “this composition follows the original form of Milhaud's work (except the 2nd movement, now a nocturne) and explores my own compositional voice and style while still paying respect to the construction of the composition it was inspired by.”
A rhythmic vitality that motors throughout the first movement recalls the style of neo-classicism associated with Milhaud and contemporaries like Stravinsky in the 1920’s. A soft, atmospheric Nocturne focuses on sonority and offers contrast to the first movement. A joyful Etude with piquant harmonies and hints of country fiddle style concludes the work.
©Don Reinhold, 2021
