Thomas, John Patrick: »Millennium music« Concerto for Three Harpsichords (2000)

Notes on the music

Harpsichords are not just antique museum pieces. They exist in the present tense, as contemporary as any of the other instruments we now have access to. I like very much the sound of instruments playing music that differs from their customary repertoire. There’s a very different intensity, because what we hear is sometimes in conflict with our expectations. In fact, when New Music is played in conjunction with music from earlier periods, both repertoires are vitalized. Interesting common aspects can often be found in spite of historical and stylistic differences.

During my career as a countertenor, I worked with a number of harpsichordists who also had an interest in contemporary music. Over the years, several of these players—including Alan Curtis, William Christie, David Fuller, John Whitelaw, and Arthur Haas—liked the music I had written for other instruments and suggested I compose something for the harpsichord.

Millennium Music was commissioned by three harpsichordists in Karlsruhe, Germany—Christine Daxelhofer, Irene Müller-Glasewald, and Kristian Nyquist—to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the death of J. S. Bach. The work is a kind of concerto without accompaniment, similar to concertos for solo instruments by Bach and Stravinsky, and has served as a companion piece for Bach’s Concerto in C major for three harpsichords (BWV 1064). I wrote my piece as a kind of exuberant fan letter to Bach

as the world was moving from the 20th to the 21st century. Three photographs showing changing sunlight on the stainless steel façade of Frank Gehry’s Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis suggested distinctive characters for the piece’s three movements.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Kristian Nyquist, who, from his long experience with this piece, has provided many practical insights. Once again, I am indebted to Diane and Jan Williams and Ann Holyoke Lehmann for their work on the graphic preparation of the score. Richard Rieves continues to contribute invaluable assistance.

JPT Hamburg August 2024