Colorado Mahler Fest Live releases its first album on 21 March 2025, with Mahler, Symphony No. 3 and Christopher Gunning, Symphony No. 10, conducted by Kenneth Woods, with mezzo-soprano Stacey Rishoi, the Women of the Boulder Concert Chorale, and Boulder Children's Chorale Festival Choir, in partnership with Ulysses Arts (MFL2502).
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Christopher Gunning, Symphony No. 10: A Note by the Composer
'I composed Symphony No. 10 in a fairly natural way, the material stated at the beginning constantly leading me from one section to the next. The result could be likened to a series of variations, each contrasting with the last. There is no longer a “standard” format for a symphony; in classical formats there would usually be four movements, but Sibelius changed all that with his mighty Seventh Symphony, which has but one movement in the space of little more than twenty minutes. My Tenth Symphony also plays for some twenty minutes non-stop, and follows a dramatic narrative which to me is vitally important. I have always looked on my symphonies as novels, with characters in the form of themes or motifs which return and develop.
One also chooses a form to suit the emotional range of the music one wishes to compose—or perhaps the form emerges from the material one has. I suppose that was how No. 10 came into being. I knew the piece had to have a wide emotional range; I also knew it had to be relatively concise and straightforward for a listener to follow. If all this sounds excessively technical, I would counter such suggestions by saying that for me the emotional content is everything; if music doesn’t move us, it really is of no value at all.'
'I composed Symphony No. 10 in a fairly natural way, the material stated at the beginning constantly leading me from one section to the next. The result could be likened to a series of variations, each contrasting with the last. There is no longer a “standard” format for a symphony; in classical formats there would usually be four movements, but Sibelius changed all that with his mighty Seventh Symphony, which has but one movement in the space of little more than twenty minutes. My Tenth Symphony also plays for some twenty minutes non-stop, and follows a dramatic narrative which to me is vitally important. I have always looked on my symphonies as novels, with characters in the form of themes or motifs which return and develop.
One also chooses a form to suit the emotional range of the music one wishes to compose—or perhaps the form emerges from the material one has. I suppose that was how No. 10 came into being. I knew the piece had to have a wide emotional range; I also knew it had to be relatively concise and straightforward for a listener to follow. If all this sounds excessively technical, I would counter such suggestions by saying that for me the emotional content is everything; if music doesn’t move us, it really is of no value at all.'
Electronic press kit available for reviewers and radio producers from Ulysses Arts.