Program Note:   

The story goes that William Smith, Associate Conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, attended a student concert at the Curtis Institute of Music on 20 April 1982 and heard the premiere there of a new work for string orchestra, conducted by its young composer and that, after the concert, he asked Hagen for a copy of the score. Hagen gave him the score he had just used to lead the work. The ensuing premiere, by Smith and the Philadelphia Orchestra, took place on 18 January 1983 at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia. It remains only the second time that a composer has been premiered by the Orchestra while still a student at Curtis since Samuel Barber, and effectively began Hagen’s professional career.

Cast in three movements, the work’s free-flowing narrative is poetic and anguished by turns. Movement I begins with an angry fusillade of rising close canons based on an octatonic scale that are answered by a rhythmic, songlike modal second theme in the solo ‘cello. An overall A-B-A structure emerges when the canons return and the movement subsides into a pensive combination of the two themes. Movement II —also in binary form—opens with a long-lined, flowing tune for the combined strings before being pared back for a gymnopédie-like theme in the solo violin. The combined strings return in an intense, etched restatement of the first theme before, as in the first movement, the music again subsides into a gentle combination of the two themes. Movement III is a clearly-delineated rondo beginning with a rich, diatonic chordal theme (A) that gives way to a gently dancing modal second theme (B) derived from the second theme of the first movement. A gentle waltz for solo violin (C) releases into a highly imitative treatment of the second theme (B) before the return of the poignant chordal opening (A) and an extended coda for solo violin and ‘cello in which the piece seems to evanesce.

Selected Review:

“Hagen was praised by conductor William Smith as 'a fountain' of creativity.” Smith noted that as a student he had heard the music of Samuel Barber played at a student concert, and he acknowledged that new student works have not come along since. Hagen's Prayer for Peace for string orchestra, while it could only represent the large quantity of work Hagen has in his catalogue, was a welcome glimpse into his work's quality. The writing is concise, mature in the way the composer assembled colors and accents and, best of all, often led my ear to believe the next part of the score was inevitable. The piece has, in its three movements, a theatrical flow from the jagged opening, through several short scenes for solo violin and cello, to a gradual lengthening of melodic lines to the strongly flowing final prayer. The progress from emotional pitch to pitch is direct and unhurried. The solo instruments take roles that are songful -- the best being the violin and cello duet in the second movement. In that section, the two sang independently but in close dialogue over the others. The resolution of the prayer itself, with the cello playing against a shimmer of high violins, is a deft stroke that gives it all a satisfying close.”

—Daniel Webster, The Philadelphia Inquirer, 19 January 1983