New York’s Orpheus Chamber Orchestra recently commissioned music from composer Charles Wuorinen. Wuorinen delivered a four-movement composition, each movement of which features prominently one of the ensemble’s extraordinary players. The first movement was written for the ensemble’s bass player, one of the founding members of the Orchestra and a world-renowned musician. Due to death in his family, the player was unavailable and the first movement of the work couldn’t be performed at the scheduled New York premiere May 10th. Thus, the orchestra performed only the last three movements (you can read the text of their press release here).
There are those who would say that a partial performance of a work is disrespectful to the artist and their work; others believe that once an artist’s creation is delivered it is completely in the hands of the presenter/interpreter. Sometimes parameters are established through legal documentation. But beyond the legal language, whose work is it anyway? Your thoughts!
But before those musical encounters outside my home, there was the music inside my home. Music was very important to my parents, especially my father, Kenneth Garland. He was an advertising executive, but I understood—because everyone who knew him understood—that he loved music. He sang classical music and popular songs, accompanying himself on the piano. My mother, Barbara Garland, enjoyed acting, and many times my parents were the leads in local theater productions in Lexington, Massachusetts. And they sang the lead roles in a series of locally-created (and quite good) musicals. That’s Mom kneeling on stage in the photo, circa 1960. My father took the other photos before I was born.
On this Mother’s Day weekend I think back to what seemed at the time to be an average childhood: coaching my mother on her lines, watching my parents rehearse, hearing them sing, seeing the joy of their creative work with friends, and knowing that they loved what they were doing. I’m aware now that my childhood (which I shared with my brother 
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