Katherine Needleman: Land Where My Fathers Died

Date of Composition: 2022-2023

Instrumentation: oboe, violin, viola, cello

Duration: approx. 17.5 minutes

Commissioner: Schubert Club

Premiere: Westminster Hall, Minneapolis, June 5, 2023

Listen here to a live performance with the composer

Listen here to the premiere with score (poor quality recording)

I could not conceive of an oboe quartet without considering my relationship to W.A. Mozart's Oboe Quartet, K. 370, as well as my relationship to performing more generally. The Quartet K. 370 was a piece I first played onstage at the Baltimore School for the Arts when I was 15, in what was perhaps my best performance of the work. My relationship with the stage has changed significantly since that memorable moment nearly thirty years ago and is a fraught one.

Mozart wrote his quartet for the greatest virtuoso who had yet lived in 1781, Frederich Ramm, as a calling card for Ramm. It is almost like a concerto, with the virtuoso oboist/protagonist accompanied by sympathetic and charming strings.  The role of the ostentatious leader which every oboist must assume to some degree is not necessarily a comfortable one. I sought a different relationship to the strings, with the violin often representing sinister elements, the viola being a symbol for what is reasonable and good, and the cello not always being at the bottom.

The ubiquitous American patriotic tune My Country ’Tis of Thee contains the lyric “land where my fathers died” whose melody appears throughout. This lyric had always puzzled me, but I ultimately decided it must refer to our "founding fathers." I have a fraught relationship with them, and my musical ones, too. The first performance of this work was given by the composer playing oboe; Steven Copes, violin; Maiya Papach, viola; and Wilhelmina Smith, cello, on June 5, 2023, in Minnesota directly following the Quartet K. 370. This work hopefully stands on its own and the pairing is completely optional. Should you wish to pair this piece with the Mozart Quartet K. 370, you could consider using the included cadenza, which I wrote in 1999 and deploy throughout.

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