''Tales of Hemingway'' is a

concerto A concerto (; plural ''concertos'', or ''concerti'' from the Italian plural) is, from the late Baroque era, mostly understood as an instrumental composition, written for one or more soloists accompanied by an orchestra or other ensemble. The typi ...

for

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

and

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

composed in 2015 by the American composer

Michael Daugherty Michael Kevin Daugherty (born April 28, 1954) is an American composer, pianist, and teacher. He is influenced by popular culture, Romanticism, and Postmodernism. Daugherty's notable works include his Superman comic book-inspired ''Metropolis Sym ...

. The music is inspired by the writings of the famous American writer

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

Origin

The concerto was originally commissioned by the

Nashville Symphony The Nashville Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in Nashville, Tennessee. The orchestra is resident at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. History In 1920, prior to the 1946 founding of the Nashville Symphony, a group of amateur and ...

and a

consortium A consortium (plural: consortia) is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments (or any combination of these entities) with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for ...

including the Asheville Symphony,

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 ...

, El Paso Symphony Orchestra,

Erie Philharmonic Founded in 1913, the Erie Philharmonic is a professional orchestra located in Erie, Pennsylvania. The Philharmonic has held their performances at the 2,500 seat Warner Theatre on State Street in downtown Erie since 1974. History The musicians un ...

, Redwood Symphony and

Virginia Symphony Orchestra The Virginia Symphony Orchestra (VSO) is an American orchestra administratively based in Norfolk. The VSO performs concerts in various venues in Virginia, including: * Chrysler Hall, Norfolk * The Sandler Center for the Performing Arts, Virginia B ...

. The

world premiere A première, also spelled premiere, is the debut (first public presentation) of a play, film, dance, or musical composition. A work will often have many premières: a world première (the first time it is shown anywhere in the world), its f ...

was given by the Nashville Symphony conducted by

Giancarlo Guerrero Giancarlo Guerrero (born 1969) is a Costa Rican, Nicaraguan-born, US-based music director. He is the music director of the Nashville Symphony in Nashville, Tennessee. Guerrero is also Music Director of the Wrocław Philharmonic at the National Fo ...

, with cellist

Zuill Bailey James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey (born 1972) is a Grammy Award-winning American cellist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has ...

on April 17, 2015 at the

Schermerhorn Symphony Center The Schermerhorn Symphony Center is a concert hall in downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Ground was broken on December 3, 2003. The center formally opened on September 9, 2006, with a gala concert conducted by Leonard Slatkin and broadcast by PBS a ...

in downtown

Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat, seat of Davidson County, Tennessee, Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the List of muni ...

Performance history

The

performance was reviewed by Nashville music critic John Pitcher. His analysis was that the composer "approached his work as a kind of sonic landscape painter ..Cellist Zuill Bailey played throughout with a sensuous tone and technical finesse. Music director Giancarlo Guerrero and the NSO provided colorful and dramatic accompaniment." The Midwest premiere was given by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

Detroit Free Press The ''Detroit Free Press'' is the largest daily newspaper in Detroit, Michigan, US. The Sunday edition is titled the ''Sunday Free Press''. It is sometimes referred to as the Freep (reflected in the paper's web address, www.freep.com). It primari ...

music writer Mark Stryker described the work as having a "more soulful emotional cast...a breadth of color, texture, dynamics and feeling in the virtuoso solo writing."

Recording and reception

The concerto was recorded in 2015 with the Nashville Symphony and released on the

Naxos Naxos (; el, Νάξος, ) is a Greek island and the largest of the Cyclades. It was the centre of archaic Cycladic culture. The island is famous as a source of emery, a rock rich in corundum, which until modern times was one of the best abr ...

label. Many critics reviewed the recording very favorably, including a 10/10 for both categories of artistic quality and sound quality from music critic David Hurwitz. Donald Rosenberg of ''

Gramophone A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

'' wrote: In February 2017 the piece won three

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pres ...

s, for

Best Classical Compendium The Grammy Award for Best Classical Compendium is an honor presented to recording artists for the best compendium album in the classical music genre at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and which was originally called the ...

Best Classical Instrumental Solo The Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo was first awarded during the annual Grammy Awards ceremony in 2012. It combines the previous categories for Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with orchestra), Best Inst ...

and

Best Contemporary Classical Composition The Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition is an award presented at the Grammy Awards, a ceremony that was established in 1958 and originally called the Gramophone Awards, to composers for quality works of contemporary classical ...

Four movements of the concerto

The concerto is composed in four movements, each drawn from a different work by Ernest Hemingway. The musical score includes extensive

program notes A concert program is a selection and ordering, or programming, of pieces to be performed at an occasion, or concert. Programs may be influenced by the available ensemble of instruments, by performer ability or skill, by theme ( historical, progra ...

written by the composer, explaining the inspiration for and design of each movement.

I.
Big Two-Hearted River "Big Two-Hearted River" is a two-part short story written by American author Ernest Hemingway, published in the 1925 Boni & Liveright edition of ''In Our Time'', the first American volume of Hemingway's short stories. It features a single prota ...
(
Seney, Michigan Seney is an Unincorporated area, unincorporated community in Schoolcraft County, Michigan, Schoolcraft County in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, United States. State trunkline highway M-28 (Michigan highway), M-28 runs directly though Seney. The ...
, 1925)

This movement is based on Hemingway's short story about a soldier home from

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

who travels to northern Michigan to work through his

PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental and behavioral disorder that can develop because of exposure to a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, warfare, traffic collisions, child abuse, domestic violence, or other threats on a ...

. The program notes in the musical score the composer explains that he created "a

leitmotif A leitmotif or leitmotiv () is a "short, recurring musical phrase" associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical concepts of ''idée fixe'' or ''motto-theme''. The spelling ''leitmotif'' is an anglici ...

ymbolizing the idea thatone can be healed by the power of nature through exploring isolated outdoor terrains."

II.
For Whom the Bell Tolls ''For Whom the Bell Tolls'' is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American volunteer attached to a Republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As a dynamiter, he is assigned ...
(1940,
Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...
)

The cello represents the main character in this popular Hemingway novel, Robert Jordan. At the conclusion of the movement, the chimes are meant to represent the famous line from the novel: “And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”

III.
The Old Man and the Sea ''The Old Man and the Sea'' is a novella written by the American author Ernest Hemingway in 1951 in Cayo Blanco (Cuba), and published in 1952. It was the last major work of fiction written by Hemingway that was published during his lifetime. ...
(1952,
Cuba Cuba ( , ), officially the Republic of Cuba ( es, República de Cuba, links=no ), is an island country comprising the island of Cuba, as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbea ...
)

This movement is an elegy representing the struggle between man and nature which is the main theme of the Hemingway novella.

IV.
The Sun Also Rises ''The Sun Also Rises'' is a 1926 novel by American writer Ernest Hemingway, his first, that portrays American and British expatriates who travel from Paris to the Festival of San Fermín in Pamplona to watch the running of the bulls and the bu ...
(1926, Pamplona, Spain)

This movement uses heavy Spanish musical influences to represent the

running of the bulls A running of the bulls ( es, encierro, from the verb ''encerrar'', 'to corral, to enclose'; oc, abrivado, literally 'haste, momentum'; ca, correbous, 'run-bulls') is an event that involves running in front of a small group of bulls, typicall ...

Pamplona Pamplona (; eu, Iruña or ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. It is also the third-largest city in the greater Basque cultural region. Lying at near above ...

, Spain which is the setting from the Hemingway novel from which this movement takes its name.

References