Uploaded January 2023 | Updated September 2026, 6 hours ago
Members of the Grossman Ensemble and guest artists perform _Songs Without Voices_ by Oliver Knussen on October 1, 2022 at the University of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, IL.
Constance Volk, flute
Andrew Nogal, English horn
Katherine Jimoh, clarinet
Matthew Oliphant, horn
Daniel Pesca, piano
Hanna Hurwitz, violin
Doyle Armbrust, viola
Hannah Collins, cello
Stefan Asbury, conductor
Christopher L. Willis, audio recording and production
Mike Grittani, video production
Faber Music, publisher and licensor
https://cccc.uchicago.edu
Program note by the composer:
Songs Without Voices is a collection of short, self-contained compositions for flute, cor anglais, clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello and piano. Over the past few years I recovered an old enthusiasm for writing songs, and it occurred to me to try to apply this to the instrumental sphere. Three of the present pieces are, literally, songs without voice – that is, a complete poem is ‘set’ syllable for instruments in the course of a movement; and one is from a more private lyrical impulse – a cor anglais melody written upon hearing of the death of Andrzej Panufnik, a person I much admired. I hope it won’t be thought coy if I allow the music to speak on its own terms apart from those few indications of stimulus. I began composition in Aldeburgh in October 1991 and completed it in New York in April 1992, when it was first performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which commissioned Songs Without Voices as part of the Elise L. Stoeger Composer’s Chair Award. It is doubly dedicated to Fred Sherry (cellist and then Artistic Director of the Society) and to Virgil Blackwell for this fiftieth birthday.
00:00 – I. Fantastico (Winter’s Foil)
02:47 – II. Maestoso (Prairie Sunset)
05:16 – III. Leggiero (First Dandelion)
06:20 – IV. Adagio (Elegiac Arabesques)
Members of the Grossman Ensemble and guest artists perform _Songs Without Voices_ by Oliver Knussen on October 1, 2022 at the University of Chicago's Logan Center for the Arts in Chicago, IL.
Constance Volk, flute
Andrew Nogal, English horn
Katherine Jimoh, clarinet
Matthew Oliphant, horn
Daniel Pesca, piano
Hanna Hurwitz, violin
Doyle Armbrust, viola
Hannah Collins, cello
Stefan Asbury, conductor
Christopher L. Willis, audio recording and production
Mike Grittani, video production
Faber Music, publisher and licensor
https://cccc.uchicago.edu
Program note by the composer:
Songs Without Voices is a collection of short, self-contained compositions for flute, cor anglais, clarinet, horn, violin, viola, cello and piano. Over the past few years I recovered an old enthusiasm for writing songs, and it occurred to me to try to apply this to the instrumental sphere. Three of the present pieces are, literally, songs without voice – that is, a complete poem is ‘set’ syllable for instruments in the course of a movement; and one is from a more private lyrical impulse – a cor anglais melody written upon hearing of the death of Andrzej Panufnik, a person I much admired. I hope it won’t be thought coy if I allow the music to speak on its own terms apart from those few indications of stimulus. I began composition in Aldeburgh in October 1991 and completed it in New York in April 1992, when it was first performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which commissioned Songs Without Voices as part of the Elise L. Stoeger Composer’s Chair Award. It is doubly dedicated to Fred Sherry (cellist and then Artistic Director of the Society) and to Virgil Blackwell for this fiftieth birthday.
00:00 – I. Fantastico (Winter’s Foil)
02:47 – II. Maestoso (Prairie Sunset)
05:16 – III. Leggiero (First Dandelion)
06:20 – IV. Adagio (Elegiac Arabesques)
