Title

Lamentations for Jani Christou

Year

1970

Instrumentation

for fl (picc), ob, bn, Fr hn, tpt, tn, tba, vlc, cb, pno, 2 perc, electr. sounds

Notes

Commissioned by the Berkshire Music Center and the Fromm Music Foundation. An elegy for a young Greek composer killed in an auto accident, it mourns the unfulfilled promise of an original mind and the death of creative youth. A parallel construction which moves twice from maximal to minimal density, whose beginning, mid-point and end are defined by non-pitched elements.

Reviews

"...electonic sounds served as a unifying element ...ended in quiet drama, the orchestra whispering the name".
—Henaham, NYT

"...the lyric element dominated the violence with a strong line ...starts somewhere and heads in a firm direction ...best of all, it ends with a lovely gesture
— percussionists speaking the dedication over the fading music."
—Heuwell Tircuit, San Francisco Chronicle

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