Stephen Joel Albert (6 February 1941 – 27 December 1992) was an American composer. He is best known for his Pulitzer Prize winning Symphony No. 1 RiverRun (1983) and his Cello Concerto (1990), written for Yo-Yo Ma. He died suddenly in a 1992 automobile accident, having just sketched out his Second Symphony. The work was subsequently completed by Sebastian Currier, and his death sparked musical tributes from composer colleagues such as Aaron Jay Kernis and Christopher Rouse.
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Cello Concerto (1990)
Dedication: In Memory of Sidney G. Albert
I. Audacemente ma sostenuto (0:00)
II. Con brio - Instante (6:37)
III. Larghetto (12:21)
IV. Con moto - Con imminenzo inquiento (22:10)
Yo-Yo Ma, cello and the Baltimore Symphony conducted by David Zinman
The work was commissioned by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for the cellist Yo-Yo Ma. It was given its world premiere by Yo-Yo Ma and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra under the direction of David Zinman in Baltimore, May 1990. It was one of Albert's last completed compositions before his death in December 1992. The piece was later awarded the 1995 Grammy Award for Best Classical Contemporary Composition.
Yo-Yo Ma has stated about the work: "[Albert] puts [the themes] through all sorts of rhythmical and technical gyrations, and they emerge transformed, in a kind of catharsis. The Concerto, I believe, is an accurate mirror of what was going on in his life [in particular, his struggles with creative blocks and his response to the death of his father, to whose memory the concerto is dedicated]. In that sense, it is like one of the old romantic concertos — an autobiography of the wounded hero. This music is in the strongest sense personal and soulful, and it takes us through the same emotional journey Stephen was going through when he composed it. I love playing it, and I believe it will have a good life. It is playable, practical, rewarding, and its says something personal."
Andrew Clements of BBC Music Magazine praised the Cello Concerto as a "real novelty", remarking, "It is a beautifully wrought, coherent work, with some striking moments of dark introspection and a tragic cast that is truly impressive." Gramophone called the work "a pretty riveting experience" and wrote:
Fairly cosmopolitan in overall style (audible influences include Sibelius and Bernstein), it opens with an intense, rhapsodizing solo, before a blast of brass and a flurry of strings make way for a Mahlerian rising figure on the woodwind and a good deal of agitated argument. Ideas throughout are darkly colourful but conventional, although Albert's score incorporates imaginative use of brass, harp (especially in its lower registers), piano and heavy percussion. There's a scurrying scherzo, a pensive Larghetto (which opens with a Britten-style brass clarion call) and a ten-minute finale that occasionally suggests Bartok or the Stravinsky of the Symphony in Three Movements.
Born in New York City, Albert began his musical training on the piano, French horn, and trumpet as a youngster. He first studied composition at the age of 15 with Elie Siegmeister, and enrolled two years later at the Eastman School of Music, where he studied with Darius Milhaud and Bernard Rogers (1958–1960) Following composition lessons in Stockholm with Karl-Birger Blomdahl, Albert studied with Joseph Castaldo at the Philadelphia Musical Academy (BM 1962); in 1963 he worked with George Rochberg at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1965 he won a Rome Fellowship to study in Rome at the American Academy.
From 1985 to 1988 he worked as the Seattle Symphony's composer-in-residence.
His notable students included Daniel Asia and Dan Coleman.
Albert was killed in an automobile accident in Truro, Massachusetts on Cape Cod on 27 December 1992.
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