On May 16, 17 & 18 the New Jersey Symphony will perform Delights and Dances, the imaginative, bluesy work for solo string quartet and string orchestra by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Michael Abels.
Xian Zhang, the GRAMMY and Emmy Award winning music director of the New Jersey Symphony, conducts the program, which also features the music of Mozart and Bach. Delights and Dances was commissioned by the Sphinx Organization, which seeks to promote representation and participation of Black and Latino musicians in classical music. The commission was a celebration of Sphinx’s 10th anniversary celebrating diversity in concert music. Abels describes the piece as a quartet of string soloists in a kind of diptych of American musical genres, one regarded as “Black” and the other “white.” His composer’s note explains its two principal sections.
The piece begins with a slow, lyrical introduction that grows from a cello solo into a duet with the viola, culminating in a gentle crescendo for the full quartet. The first major section is blues, which allows the soloists to flaunt their musical talents through a series of solos that are designed to sound improvised, although they are actually notated. The second half of the piece is a rousing bluegrass hoedown, once again featuring the quartet as they trade riffs back and forth (in a way that might recall “Dueling Banjo”), which culminates in a boisterous coda. It’s a piece that celebrates musicians playing together. I hope it fills you with joy.
As is the case with many of Abels’ compositions, Delights and Dances is an eclectic stylistic mix, with elements of bluegrass, jazz, Latin rhythms, and blues. Its progression from the more modernist opening moments to the rumbustious energy of the hoedown is exhilarating and fun.
