''Air and Simple Gifts'' is a quartet composed and arranged by American composer John Williams for the January 20, 2009, inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States ...

. The first public performance of the piece was in

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, immediately prior to Obama taking the oath of office, when musicians

Anthony McGill Anthony McGill (born 5 February 1991) is a Scottish professional snooker player. He is a practice partner of retired snooker player Alan McManus. McGill turned professional in 2010, after finishing fourth in the 2009/2010 PIOS rankings. He wo ...

(clarinet), Itzhak Perlman (violin),

Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma ('' Chinese'': 馬友友 ''Ma Yo Yo''; born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from ...

(cello) and

Gabriela Montero Gabriela Montero (born May 10, 1970) is a Venezuelan pianist, known in particular for her real-time improvisation of complex musical pieces on themes suggested by her audience and other sources, as well as for performances of standard classical r ...

(piano) synced their performance to a tape they had recorded two days earlier. It was the first classical quartet to be performed at a presidential inauguration. Obama officially became the 44th President of the United States while the piece was being performed, at noon, as the United States Constitution stipulates. Although it appeared that the piece was being performed live, it was in fact mimed while a recording made two days before was fed to the television pool and speakers. Yo-Yo Ma told NPR's ''All Things Considered'' that the piano keys had been decoupled from the hammers, and the bows of the stringed instruments had been soaped to silence them. The performers stated that the cold weather could have affected the tuning and durability of the instruments, making a live performance too risky. Williams based the piece on the familiar 19th century Shaker hymn " Simple Gifts" by Joseph Brackett. The source piece is famous for its appearance in

Aaron Copland Aaron Copland (, ; November 14, 1900December 2, 1990) was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later a conductor of his own and other American music. Copland was referred to by his peers and critics as "the Dean of American Com ...

's ballet '' Appalachian Spring''. Williams chose the selection from Copland, one of Obama's favorite classical composers. The piece is slightly under 4.5 minutes. It is structured in roughly three parts. The first section presents the "

Air The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing f ...

" material, consisting of a spare, descending modal melody introduced by violin, pensively explored in duet with cello and piano accompaniment. The entrance of the clarinet, playing the "Simple Gifts" theme, signals the beginning of a small set of variations on that melody. The "Air" melody at first intermingles with the "Gifts" theme, though it is supplanted by increasingly energetic variations. Midway through, the key shifts from A major to

D major D major (or the key of D) is a major scale based on D, consisting of the pitches D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. Its key signature has two sharps. Its relative minor is B minor and its parallel minor is D minor. The D major scale is: : Ch ...

, in which the piece concludes. A short coda reprising the "Air" material follows the most vigorous of the "Gifts" variations. The piece concludes with an unusual series of

cadences In Western musical theory, a cadence (Latin ''cadentia'', "a falling") is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (19 ...

, ending with chord progression D-major followed by B-major, G-minor and finally D-major.

played his

Stradivarius A Stradivarius is one of the violins, violas, cellos and other string instruments built by members of the Italian family Stradivari, particularly Antonio Stradivari (Latin: Antonius Stradivarius), during the 17th and 18th centuries. They are c ...

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

called the ''

Davidov Stradivarius The ''Davidov Stradivarius'' (also: ''Davidoff'' or ''Davydov''; russian: Давыдов), is an antique cello made in 1712 by Italian luthier Antonio Stradivari of Cremona, Italy. It is very similar in construction and form to the equally famed '' ...

'', made in 1712 during Stradivari's "golden period".Music
''USA Today''. Accessed January 23, 2009. Itzhak Perlman played his Stradivarius

violin The violin, sometimes known as a '' fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone ( string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument ( soprano) in the family in regu ...

called the '' Soil Stradivarius'', made in 1714 during Stradivari's "golden period".

played a

Steinway Steinway & Sons, also known as Steinway (), is a German-American piano company, founded in 1853 in Manhattan by German piano builder Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later known as Henry E. Steinway). The company's growth led to the opening of a ...

concert

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

, model D-274.

played a

Buffet A buffet can be either a sideboard (a flat-topped piece of furniture with cupboards and drawers, used for storing crockery, glasses, and table linen) or a system of serving meals in which food is placed in a public area where the diners serve ...

clarinet.

References

External links

Performance of "Air and Simple Gifts" by Ma, Perlman, Montero, and McGill
on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

Joseph Brackett and "Simple Gifts" tune
{{Authority control Compositions for piano quartet Compositions by John Williams First inauguration of Barack Obama 2009 compositions Works based on Simple Gifts