Le Petit Prince — Concert Suite No. 1

1. Forty-Four Sunsets

2. Desert Scherzo

3. Song of the Well

4. The Fox

Program Notes

In 2017, I had an opportunity (funded through the Canada Council for the Arts) to develop a pair of symphonic concert suites, based on original music I had written for the National Ballet of Canada's full-length ballet Le Petit Prince, which premiered in 2016. Adapted from Antoine Saint-Exupery's profoundly influential novella, the ballet was conceived and choreographed by Guillaume Cote, who played a significant role in shaping the overall musical vision of the ballet. During the three years of production, I wrote and rewrote many of the numbers, in accordance with the shifting demands of the narrative and dramatic pacing. Throughout this process, I was guided first and foremost by the spirit of the original novella - its story and characters, as well as its author's overarching philosophy on love, acceptance, and the cultivation of the imagination.

These two suites provided me with a rare opportunity to revisit this music, and to make a few changes, based on my own intuition of how the music should breathe in the concert hall. Much has been excised from the original score, of course - both suites are approximately 22 minutes in length, totaling to just under half the running time of the ballet - but certain areas of music have been extended, developed, or restored from an earlier draft, according to what I might describe as the music's internal compass. I hope that listeners acquainted with the original ballet will find the concert experience an enriching one. For those listeners who have not seen the ballet, I hope that the music will provide a fresh musical entryway into Saint-Exupery's timeless fable.

Concert Suite No. 1 opens with "Forty-Four Sunsets", in which the primary theme for the Little Prince - a gentle lullaby built on the elemental interval of the perfect fifth - is revealed. The encounter between the Little Prince and the Aviator (who narrates the story) is depicted by a mysterious piccolo solo beneath a stratospheric pedal point; the scene then shifts, and we are on the Little Prince's home planet, watching as he dances in delight with a floating chair against the unfolding sunsets. The "Desert Scherzo" is drawn from the tense overture to Act II: as the Aviator succumbs to weariness and thirst, the music grows ever more intense, charging toward a terrifying climax. "Song of the Well" develops the theme of the Little Prince into a somber elegy for violin and orchestra; its weighty pulse underscores the exhausted yet spiritually joyous journey of the two central characters as they search for a well in the desert to drink from. The suite closes with "The Fox", a miniature tone poem in itself, which features a new theme - lush and harmonically adventurous—that dramatizes the ritual of friendship.

Performances

May 3, 2020 - Niagara Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bradley Thachuk. FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, St. Catharines

May 17, 2020 - Niagara Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Bradley Thachuk. FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, St. Catharines