Harbison – Piano Quintet

^{John Harbison (b. 1938)}

^{Piano Quintet (1981)}

^{John Harbison composed his Piano Quintet for the Santa Fe Chamber Festival, which commissioned the work for its 1981 season. Cast in five movements, the Quintet orbits around the central “Intermezzo.” An excerpt from Harbison’s note on the piece sums up its overall character:}

^{“Certain aims have governed my recent work, never more than in this piece: to give the medium what it requires; to strike a balance between the hermetic and the easily reachable, and make clear form of inherently complex emotion. In looking at the work of Georgia O’Keeffe it struck me that the point of contact was this characteristically American search for clarity out of complex forces. In opening my piece I thought of the unfilled parts of her canvases, the open space, and the pleasure of leaving something out.}

^{“This opening strain dominates the first movement of the quintet in spite of the energy of the contrasting material. The amplitude of the discourse is contradicted by the three concise character pieces which follow. The final elegy is, I trust, the only direct reference to difficult circumstances under which the piece was composed, reflecting in its open-ended form the unresolved questions it poses at every turn.”}

^{© Jonathan Blumhofer}

^{Reproduction Rights: This program note may be reproduced free of charge in concert programs with a credit to the author.}