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Home > Composers Datebook > Daniel Asia's Fourth


	Podcast:		Composers Datebook
	Episode:		Daniel Asia's Fourth
	Category:		Health
	Duration:		00:02:00
	Publish Date:		2024-10-27 05:00:00
	Description:		Synopsis On today’s date in 1993, American composer Daniel Asia conducted the Phoenix Symphony in the premiere performance of his Symphony No. 4. The work included a slow movement, written as an orchestral elegy for his friend and composer colleague, Stephen Albert, who had died in a car crash the previous year. But Asia cast his symphony in the traditional four-movements familiar from the symphonies of Haydn and Beethoven. And, as in the symphonies of Haydn and Beethoven, he left room for a wide range of emotions — including humor. So, in addition to a slow, elegiac movement, the symphony has a second movement Scherzo, with a traditional, but jaunty and very American-sounding trio section. “In this piece, I was rediscovering old formal ideas ... the second movement is a true scherzo. There are refractions of Beethoven scherzos, but sometimes a beat is chopped off, creating a skipping effect. Everything is in threes in the trio-section; the harmony is three-voiced, and the instrumentation is also in threesomes,” Asia wrote. As both composer and conductor, Daniel Asia has worked with American orchestras for coast-to-coast performances of his orchestral works, ranging from his hometown Seattle Symphony to the American Composers Orchestra in New York. Music Played in Today's Program Daniel Asia (b. 1953): Symphony No. 4; New Zealand Symphony; James Sedares, conductor; Summit 256
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