So many, like me, were deeply moved by the quartet “Air and Simple Gifts” performed yesterday just before Barrack Obama was sworn in as our new President. Amazingly, Wikipedia already has an entry on the piece.
Air and Simple Gifts is a classical quartet by American composer John Williams composed for the January 20, 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States. The piece was first performed at the inauguration in Washington, D.C. by Anthony McGill (clarinet), Itzhak Perlman (violin), Yo-Yo Ma (cello) and Gabriela Montero (piano). It was the first classical quartet to be performed at a presidential inauguration. It was performed immediately prior to Obama taking the oath of office. Obama officially became the President while the piece was being performed, at noon, as the United States Constitution stipulates.
Williams based the piece on the familiar nineteenth century Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts,” by Joseph Brackett. The source piece is famous for its appearance in Aaron Copland’s ballet Appalachian Spring. Williams chose the selection from Copland, one of Obama’s favorite classical composers. Copland’s Lincoln Portrait was supposed to be featured in a pre-inauguration concert by the National Symphony Orchestra for Dwight Eisenhower in 1953, but was pulled from the performance when a Republican congressman suggested Copland was too liberal, and perhaps a Communist sympathizer.
The piece lasts a little under four and a half minutes. It is structured in roughly three parts. The first section presents the “Air” material, consisting of a spare, descending modal melody introduced by violin, pensively explored in duet with cello and piano accompaniment. The entrance of the clarinet, playing the “Simple Gifts” theme, signals the beginning of a small set of variations on that melody. The “Air” melody at first intermingles with the “Gifts” theme, though it is supplanted by increasingly energetic variations. Midway through, the key shifts from A-major to D-major, in which the piece concludes. A short coda reprising the “Air” material follows the most vigorous of the “Gifts” variations. The piece concludes with a unusual series of cadences, ending with chord progression D-major followed by B-major, G-minor and finally D-major.
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I enjoyed that too.
I wouldn’t have known from the lovely sound they made, but I was thinking it must have been hard for the musicians to play in that cold weather – their fingers must have been freezing! And I hope it wasn’t too hard on their instruments being out in the cold.
Anyway I’m glad Barack Obama included that music in his inaugural ceremony.