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America@250 Program Notes

The Star-Spangled Banner (1814)
John Stafford Smith (1750-1836)

The Star-Spangled Banner is the National Anthem of the United States. The lyrics come from a poem written on September 14, 1814, titled “Defence of Fort M’Henry” by American lawyer and amateur poet Francis Scott Key. During the War of 1812, Key watched through the night as rockets and artillery fire illuminated the fort from a ship in Baltimore Harbor. When dawn arrived and the American flag was still flying, he immortalized the experience into a poem that expressed both the uncertainty of the battle and the relief that followed.

Although the words are distinctly American, the melody has English roots. The tune was borrowed from The Anacreontic Song composed by John Stafford Smith for the Anacreontic Society, an eighteenth-century London gentlemen’s club devoted to music, conviviality, and amateur performance. The melody’s wide range and dramatic contour made it memorable and popular, and it was frequently paired with new texts on both sides of the Atlantic, with Key’s poem proving to be the most enduring.

Although the song gained popularity throughout the nineteenth century, it was not officially designated as the national anthem until 1931. Musically, the anthem presents unique challenges. Its expansive vocal range of an octave and a half demands both power and control from singers, while its opening leap and soaring climax require exceptional breath support and precision.

“The Star-Spangled Banner” has four verses, although only the first verse is commonly performed.
 

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,

What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?

Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,

 

O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;

O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,

 

O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Johnny Appleseed Suite (1991)
Mark O’Connor (b. 1961)
Expanded orchestral version premiere: 1994 | Denver, CO; Colorado
Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Marin Alsop

American composer, violinist, fiddler, guitarist, and mandolinist Mark O’Connor has forged a distinctly American musical voice. Drawing upon the traditions of bluegrass, country, jazz, folk, and classical music, O’Connor has emerged as one of the most influential advocates for an American classical style rooted in the nation’s diverse musical heritage. The Los Angeles Times has described him as “one of the most talented and imaginative artists working in music—any music—today,” while The Seattle Times has praised his work as “brilliantly original.”

Born in Seattle in 1961, O’Connor displayed extraordinary musical gifts from an early age. As a teenager, he studied with legendary Texas fiddler Benny Thomasson and later with renowned French jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli, two artists whose influence helped shape his unique synthesis of styles. By the age of twelve, O’Connor had already made his debut on the Grand Ole Opry stage, launching a career that includes dozens of recordings, multiple Grammy Awards, and recognition as one of America’s foremost string virtuosos. Beyond his work as a performer and composer, he has also become a leading educator through his widely adopted string method, which combines classical technique with American folk traditions.

The Johnny Appleseed Suite originated as the soundtrack to an animated film narrated by Garrison Keillor that chronicled the life and legend of America’s beloved frontier folk hero “Johnny Appleseed.” O’Connor later adapted the score into an orchestral suite, released on his 1992 album Johnny Appleseed. The work captures both the historical figure and the mythology that has grown around him, blending orchestral writing with American fiddle music.

“Johnny Appleseed,” also known as John Chapman, was born in 1774 in colonial Massachusetts. Though folklore often portrays him as a wandering eccentric scattering apple seeds indiscriminately across the wilderness, the historical Chapman was a far more complex figure. An accomplished nurseryman, entrepreneur, conservationist, and missionary, he established carefully managed apple nurseries throughout Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, helping shape the agricultural development of the American frontier. Deeply religious and known for his generosity, humility, and devotion to nature, Chapman became a legendary figure during his own lifetime. His unusual appearance and itinerant lifestyle contributed to his mythic reputation, but he was also a shrewd businessman who accumulated significant landholdings across several states.

O’Connor’s four-movement suite traces Chapman’s life and the spirit of the expanding American frontier:

 

  1. Marching Along The Ohio Frontier

  2. Johnny’s Apple Pie

  3. Three Angel Brides

  4. The Life And Times Of Johnny Appleseed


Johnny Appleseed Suite is scored for two flutes, piccolo, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, piano, and strings.

Black, Brown and Beige (1943)
Duke Ellington (1899–1974)
Premiere: January 23, 1943 | Carnegie Hall, New York

When pianist, bandleader, and composer Duke Ellington walked onto the stage of Carnegie Hall in January 1943, he was already one of the most influential figures in American music. Yet Black, Brown and Beige represented something different from anything he had previously attempted. The work represented an attempt by Ellington to tell the story of African Americans through music on a scale not previously attempted in jazz. The occasion itself carried enormous significance for Ellington and, more broadly, for African American musicians. Among those in attendance were First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt, poet Langston Hughes, conductor Leopold Stokowski, bandleader Count Basie, and singer Frank Sinatra.

Ellington described the composition as a portrayal of “the experience of the colored races in America in the syncopated idiom.” The work is structured in three large sections and traces a broad historical journey from enslavement and labor, through military service and civic participation, to the complexities of modern twentieth-century life. Neither fully jazz nor fully symphonic by contemporary standards, Black, Brown and Beige challenged audiences and critics alike.

The opening movement, Black, depicts the period from the arrival of enslaved Africans in North America through the Revolutionary era. It begins with rhythmic drum figures suggestive of African musical traditions before moving into “Work Song,” music that evokes the hardship and labor of slavery. Gradually, toil gives way to spiritual reflection in the movement’s most memorable episode, the sacred jazz meditation “Come Sunday.”

The second movement, Brown, chronicles the emergence of African Americans as participants in the nation’s defining historical moments. Drawing upon blues-inflected melodies, celebratory dances, and Caribbean influences, the movement honors Black Americans who served in conflicts ranging from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War and the Spanish-American War. 

The final movement, Beige, brings the story into the twentieth century, portraying what Ellington described as “the Afro-American of the 1920s, 30s, and World War II.” The music in this movement reflects the vitality, complexity, and aspirations of modern Black life.

The work emerged from Ellington’s lifelong desire to reclaim and celebrate Black history through art. He had witnessed firsthand the degrading stereotypes that frequently characterized African Americans in popular entertainment and concert music in the earlier part of the 20th century, where Black culture was often filtered through caricature and exoticism. Black, Brown and Beige was his answer: a work of dignity, ambition, and historical consciousness that placed the African American experience at the center of a major concert composition. Yet its very originality complicated its reception. Neither classical critics nor jazz critics knew quite how to evaluate a work that defied conventional categories. Reviews were mixed, and the complete score was performed only once—at its Carnegie Hall premiere. In later years, Ellington presented excerpts and revised portions of the work, most notably “Come Sunday.” Today, however, Black, Brown and Beige is widely recognized as one of the landmark achievements of American music.

Black, Brown and Beige is scored for two flutes, piccolo doubling alto flute, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, jazz bass, timpani, percussion, drum set, harp, and strings.

“Jubilee” from Symphonic Sketches (1895-1904)
George Whitefield Chadwick (1854-1931)
Premiere: February 7, 1908 | Boston, MA;
Boston Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Max Fiedler

Born in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1854, George Whitefield Chadwick rose from modest beginnings to become one of the most influential American musical figures of his day. Despite receiving little encouragement from his family (he had to finance his own musical education), he ultimately pursued studies first as a “special student” at the New England Conservatory and later abroad at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig, Germany. Upon returning to the United States, he joined the faculty of the New England Conservatory in 1882 and later served as its director for more than three decades, helping to shape American musical life at the turn of the twentieth century.
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Chadwick is identified by musicologists as part of a group of composers known as the Boston Six, or Second New England School, whose members sought to reconcile European compositional techniques with emerging American artistic voices. Although deeply grounded in the German Romantic style, Chadwick increasingly incorporated rhythmic vitality, folk-inspired elements, and a distinctly American sense of character into his music. In doing so, he helped pave the way for later composers such as George Gershwin and Aaron Copland, whose works would come to define American classical music.

Composed during what scholars often describe as Chadwick’s “Americanism” period, Symphonic Sketches is a series of musical vignettes, each depicting a different scene or mood. Chadwick prefaced each movement with a brief poem or quotation, presenting listeners with imagery that inspired the music.

 

For the opening movement, “Jubilee,” Chadwick wrote:

No cool gray tones for me!

Give me the warmest red and green,

A cornet and a tambourine,

To paint my Jubilee!

For when pale flutes and oboes play,

To sadness I become a prey;

Give me the violets and the May,

But no gray skies for me.

Structured in a quasi-rondo form, “Jubilee” alternates among three principal ideas: a jubilant fanfare characterized by lively cross-rhythms and syncopations, a more lyrical and reflective middle section, and a broad, pastoral melody that evokes the openness of the American landscape. Evident in Chadwick’s music are echoes of Antonín Dvořák, whose influence on American composers was profound during this period. Like Dvořák, Chadwick filtered vernacular and folk-inspired elements through the lens of European training. Yet Chadwick’s voice remains unmistakably his own. 

Symphonic Sketches is scored for two flutes, piccolo, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.

Music from Star Wars (1977–present)
John Williams (b. 1932)
Film premiere: May 25, 1977 | National Release

Few film scores have had the cultural impact of John Williams’s music for Star Wars. Decades after its premiere, the score remains instantly recognizable and inseparable from George Lucas’s cinematic universe. Alongside the films’ iconic characters, imagery, and storytelling, Williams’s music helped transform Star Wars from a successful science-fiction adventure into a modern cultural phenomenon.
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Born in New York in 1932, Williams developed his musical talents in an environment closely connected to the entertainment industry in both New York and Los Angeles. After studying composition and piano and serving in the U.S. Air Force, he established himself as a highly sought-after pianist, orchestrator, and composer in Hollywood. By the 1970s, his collaborations with director Steven Spielberg—including Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind—had already demonstrated his ability to shape cinematic storytelling through music. It was Spielberg who introduced Williams to George Lucas, setting the stage for one of the most influential scores in film history.

When Lucas began work on Star Wars, many contemporary science-fiction films favored electronic, experimental, or modernist soundtracks. Williams instead proposed something radically different: a large-scale symphonic score rooted in late-Romantic orchestral traditions. Drawing inspiration from composers such as Gustav Holst, Richard Strauss, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Igor Stravinsky, Williams created music that evoked the grandeur of nineteenth-century opera and twentieth-century orchestral traditions. The result was a feeling of timelessness.

Central to Williams’s achievement is his use of the leitmotif, a compositional technique pioneered by 19th century German composer Richard Wagner. A leitmotif is a recurring musical idea associated with a particular character, location, object, or dramatic concept. Throughout the Star Wars saga, Williams employs dozens of these themes, creating a sophisticated musical network that develops alongside the story itself. Characters such as Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Darth Vader, and Yoda each possess distinctive musical identities, while concepts such as the Force, heroism, destiny, and rebellion are likewise represented through recurring themes.

For many listeners, Star Wars served as a first encounter with the symphony orchestra. Its popularity helped introduce orchestral music to generations of moviegoers and demonstrated that large-scale symphonic writing could still capture the imagination of mass audiences. Williams received the Academy Award for Best Original Score for Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977), his third of five Oscars to date. He expanded the Star Wars musical universe across subsequent films, earning additional nominations and Grammys.

Star Wars Suite is scored for three flutes with third flute doubling piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets, bass clarinet, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, piano, celesta, and strings.

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