''Three New England Sketches'' by

Walter Piston Walter Hamor Piston, Jr. (January 20, 1894 – November 12, 1976), was an American composer of classical music, music theorist, and professor of music at Harvard University. Life Piston was born in Rockland, Maine at 15 Ocean Street to Walter Ha ...

is a symphonic suite dating from

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

History

The ''Sketches'' were commissioned by the Worcester County Musical Association for its 100th Annual Music Festival, and the cycle is dedicated to the conductor

Paul Paray Paul Marie-Adolphe Charles Paray () (24 May 1886 – 10 October 1979) was a French conductor, organist and composer. He was the resident conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1952 until 1963. Early life and education Paul Paray was ...

. They were composed in the summer of 1959 when Piston, as had become his habit, retreated to the

Green Mountains The Green Mountains are a mountain range in the U.S. state of Vermont. The range runs primarily south to north and extends approximately from the border with Massachusetts to the border with Quebec, Canada. The part of the same range that is in ...

in Vermont to work from a hilltop with a magnificent view spread out before him. While the composer did not consider it a symphony he stated that each of the three movements did conform to symphonic development and indicated that each movement represented his impressions of that aspect of the New England region. It was first performed on October 23, 1959, by the

Detroit Symphony Orchestra The Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) is an American orchestra based in Detroit, Michigan. Its primary performance venue is Orchestra Hall at the Max M. Fisher Music Center in Detroit's Midtown neighborhood. Jader Bignamini is the current music d ...

under Paul Paray.

Analysis

The work is in three movements: *Seaside (Adagio) *Summer Evening (Delicato) *Mountains (Maestoso; Risoluto) A typical performance will last around 17 minutes. While Piston disowned any specific programmatic intentions, he did not object if others made their own associations. The movement titles, he said,

were the subjects that prompted me to compose. I did not intend to openly suggest the subject matter, but a man came up to me, following the premiere, and said, "I hope you don't mind my saying that I smelled clams during the first movement." I said, "No, that is quite all right. They are ''your'' clams." Each individual is free to interpret as he wishes.

The first two movements (both of which are loose

binary form Binary form is a musical form in 2 related sections, both of which are usually repeated. Binary is also a structure used to choreograph dance. In music this is usually performed as A-A-B-B. Binary form was popular during the Baroque period, of ...

s) are especially evocative with, for example, "amazingly life-like" bird and insect chirps and buzzes in "Summer Evening". The last movement, "Mountains", is—appropriate to its title—in an arched ''ABCBA'' form in which the sections are differentiated by tempo and expressive character: ''A'' is "Maestoso" and monumental, ''B'' is "Risoluto" and lively, and ''C'' is "Meno mosso" and atmospheric.Howard Pollack, ''Walter Piston'', Studies in Musicology (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982): 131–32.

References

Compositions by Walter Piston 1959 compositions Suites (music) {{classical-composition-stub