Dominick Argento
Encyclopedia
Dominick Argento is an American composer
, best known as a leading composer of lyric opera
and choral music. Among his most prominent pieces are the operas Postcard from Morocco
, Miss Havisham's Fire, and The Masque of Angels, as well as the song cycles Six Elizabethan Songs and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf; the latter earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Music
in 1975. In a predominantly tonal context, his music freely combines tonality
, atonality
and a lyrical use of twelve-tone
writing, though none of Argento's music approaches the experimental avant garde fashions of the post World War II era. He is particularly well known for sensitive settings of complex, sophisticated texts.
As a student in the 1950s, Argento divided his time between America and Italy, and his music is greatly influenced both by his instructors in the United States and his personal affection for Italy, particularly the city of Florence
. May of Argento's works were written in Florence, where he spends a portion of every year. He has been a professor (and, more recently, a professor emeritus) at the University of Minnesota
in Minneapolis, and he frequently remarks that he finds that city to be tremendously supportive of his work and that he thinks his musical development would have been impeded had he stayed in the high-pressure world of East Coast music. He was one of the founders of the Center Opera Company (now the Minnesota Opera
), and indeed Newsweek
once referred to the Twin Cities as "Argento's town."
Argento has written fourteen operas as well as major song cycles, orchestral works, and many choral pieces for small and large forces, many of which were commissioned for and premiered by Minnesota-based artists. He has referred to his wife, the soprano Carolyn Bailey, as his muse, and she was a frequent performer of his works. She died on February 2, 2006.
immigrants, grew up in York, Pennsylvania
. Ironically, although he would go on to become an acclaimed composer, he found his music classes in elementary school to be "fifty minute sessions of excruciating boredom." Upon graduating from high school, he was drafted into the Army
and spent some time as a cryptographer
; he then began studying piano performance at the Peabody Conservatory on the G.I. Bill. He quickly decided to switch to composition.
He earned bachelor's (1951) and master's (1953) degrees from Peabody, where his teachers included Nicholas Nabokov, Henry Cowell
, and Hugo Weisgall
. While there, he was briefly the music director of Weisgall's Hilltop Musical Company, which Weisgall founded as a sort of answer to Benjamin Britten
's festival at Aldeburgh
- a venue for local composers (particularly Weisgall himself) to present new work. This experience gave Argento broad exposure to and experience in the world of new opera. Hilltop's stage director was writer John Olon-Scrymgeour, with whom Argento would later collaborate on many operas. During this time period he also spent a year in Florence on a Fulbright Fellowship, and has called the experience "life-altering;" while there, he studied briefly with Luigi Dallapiccola
. Argento went on to receive his Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music
, where he studied with Alan Hovhaness
, Bernard Rogers
and Howard Hanson
. Following completion of this degree, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship
and spent another year in Florence, thus inaugurating a tradition of spending long periods of time in that city.
, to be in residence there. Argento composed the short opera The Masque of Angels for the occasion as the first Performing Arts commission of the Walker Art Center
, and the work – with its complex harmonic language and an emphasis on expansive choral writing that prefigures his later role as a prominent choral composer – firmly established his local prominence, as well as providing a role for his wife.He Also spent time at his childhood friend's cabin, Russell Burris, and his family.
By 1971, when his daring surreal opera Postcard from Morocco
opened at Center Opera, his national reputation was secure, in part thanks to a glowing review by the principal music critic of the New York Times. He eventually received commissions from New York City Opera
, the newly formed Minnesota Opera
, Washington Opera, and the Baltimore
and St. Louis Symphonies, among others. He also developed close professional relationships with several prominent singers, notably Frederica von Stade
, Janet Baker
, and Håkan Hagegård
, and some of his best-known song cycles were tailored to their talents.
, The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
and Buffalo Schola Cantorum, and most recently the Harvard
and Yale
Glee Club
s.
In addition to his Pulitzer Prize, the recording by Frederica von Stade and the Minnesota Orchestra of his song cycle Casa Guidi won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Argento's book Catalogue Raisonné as Memoir, an autobiographical discussion of his works, was published in 2004.
Argento is now retired from teaching but he retains the title of Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. He still lives in Minneapolis, and his musical output has remained steady. The world premiere of his latest piece, Evensong: Of Love and Angels, was presented by the Cathedral Choral Society
in March 2008 at Washington National Cathedral
. The work was written in memory of his late wife and in honor of Washington National Cathedral's centennial. http://www.cathedralchoralsociety.org
. He then collaborated with John Olon-Scrymgeour on a number of works, including The Masque of Angels; Christopher Sly (1962), based on an episode from The Taming of the Shrew
; and The Shoemaker's Holiday, (1967) a "ballad opera
" based on a play by Thomas Dekker.
After Postcard from Morocco
in 1971, which had a libretto by Jon Donahue, the commissions afforded him were much larger. The University of Minnesota and Minnesota Opera together commissioned The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe in 1975-76, with a libretto by Charles Nolte
. As a result of that work, which received wildly enthusiastic reviews upon its premiere, the New York City Opera
commissioned him and received Miss Havisham
's Fire (1977), with a libretto by Scrymgeour. Although not well received initially, Argento eventually revised it into a one-act form entitled Miss Havisham's Wedding Night (1981). Miss Havisham's Fire was itself revised in 1995.
In 1984, the Minnesota Opera commissioned Casanova's Homecoming
, with text by the composer; it went on to a well-received run at New York City Opera, where at the insistence of Beverly Sills
it became the first opera performed in New York in English to have English supertitles, to ensure the audience would understand all the jokes. The opera won the 1986 National Institute for Music Theatre Award. He then wrote The Aspern Papers (1987), to his own libretto adapted from the story
by Henry James
, as a vehicle for Frederica von Stade. His next opera, and arguably largest work to date, was The Dream of Valentino
, which premiered at the Kennedy Center in 1993. Critic Anne Midgette
of the New York Times has noted that Argento's operas tend to be very well received upon their premieres, but they lack an "easy popular hook" and are rarely revived.
; and A Few Words About Chekhov (1996), which adapts letters by Chekhov
.
Argento's other song cycles include A Water Bird Talk, which combines a Chekov short story with passages from Audubon
's Birds of America; The Andrée Expedition, which includes journal entries by Salomon Andrée during his ill-fated attempt to travel to the North Pole
by balloon; and Miss Manners on Music (1998), which sets newspaper clippings by columnist Judith Martin
(aka "Miss Manners"). One of the few major song sets Argento has written that use "traditional" verse as text is his popular Six Elizabethan Songs.
Other solo vocal works by Argento include:
and is scored for male chorus, brass, and an array of percussion instruments. Peter Quince at the Clavier, a setting of the poem by Wallace Stevens
, was commissioned by Pennsylvania State University
in honor of the state's tercentenary (both Stevens and Argento are Pennsylvania natives.) For the Dale Warland Singers, Argento wrote I Hate and I Love (1981), with text by Catullus
, and Walden Pond (1996), based on excerpts from Thoreau. Argento composed a massive Te Deum
in 1987 which integrates the Latin text with medieval English folk poetry. A Toccata of Galuppi's (1989), a 20-minute setting of a Robert Browning
poem, is one of many works inspired by Argento's time in Florence. In 2008, the Harvard Glee Club
premiered Apollo in Cambridge, a multi-movement setting of texts by Harvard-affiliated writers of the 19th century.
Other choral works by Argento include:
written when he was a student. He has produced numerous orchestral suites based on his operas, including Le tombeau d’Edgar Poe (1985), adapted from The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe, and the popular Valentino Dances (1994), from The Dream of Valentino. He has written two ballet
s that were then fashioned into orchestral suites, The Resurrection of Don Juan (1956) and Royal Invitation (Homage to the Queen of Tonga) (1964). His 1982 Fire Variations was nominated for the Kennedy Center Fridheim Prize in Music.
Other orchestral works include:
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...
, best known as a leading composer of lyric opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and choral music. Among his most prominent pieces are the operas Postcard from Morocco
Postcard from Morocco
Postcard from Morocco is an opera in one act composed by Dominick Argento and libretto written by John Donahue that was comissioned by the Center Opera Company . It is based on A Child's Garden of Verse by Robert Louis Stevenson. The setting is a train station in an exotic place, 1914...
, Miss Havisham's Fire, and The Masque of Angels, as well as the song cycles Six Elizabethan Songs and From the Diary of Virginia Woolf; the latter earned him the Pulitzer Prize for Music
Pulitzer Prize for Music
The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943. Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will, but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded each year...
in 1975. In a predominantly tonal context, his music freely combines tonality
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
, atonality
Atonality
Atonality in its broadest sense describes music that lacks a tonal center, or key. Atonality in this sense usually describes compositions written from about 1908 to the present day where a hierarchy of pitches focusing on a single, central tone is not used, and the notes of the chromatic scale...
and a lyrical use of twelve-tone
Twelve-tone technique
Twelve-tone technique is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold Schoenberg...
writing, though none of Argento's music approaches the experimental avant garde fashions of the post World War II era. He is particularly well known for sensitive settings of complex, sophisticated texts.
As a student in the 1950s, Argento divided his time between America and Italy, and his music is greatly influenced both by his instructors in the United States and his personal affection for Italy, particularly the city of Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. May of Argento's works were written in Florence, where he spends a portion of every year. He has been a professor (and, more recently, a professor emeritus) at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
in Minneapolis, and he frequently remarks that he finds that city to be tremendously supportive of his work and that he thinks his musical development would have been impeded had he stayed in the high-pressure world of East Coast music. He was one of the founders of the Center Opera Company (now the Minnesota Opera
Minnesota Opera
The Minnesota Opera is a performance organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was founded in 1963 by the Walker Art Center, and is known for premiering such diverse works as Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and Frankenstein by Libby Larsen...
), and indeed Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
once referred to the Twin Cities as "Argento's town."
Argento has written fourteen operas as well as major song cycles, orchestral works, and many choral pieces for small and large forces, many of which were commissioned for and premiered by Minnesota-based artists. He has referred to his wife, the soprano Carolyn Bailey, as his muse, and she was a frequent performer of his works. She died on February 2, 2006.
Early life and education
Argento, the son of SicilianSicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
immigrants, grew up in York, Pennsylvania
York, Pennsylvania
York, known as the White Rose City , is a city located in York County, Pennsylvania, United States which is in the South Central region of the state. The population within the city limits was 43,718 at the 2010 census, which was a 7.0% increase from the 2000 count of 40,862...
. Ironically, although he would go on to become an acclaimed composer, he found his music classes in elementary school to be "fifty minute sessions of excruciating boredom." Upon graduating from high school, he was drafted into the Army
Army
An army An army An army (from Latin arma "arms, weapons" via Old French armée, "armed" (feminine), in the broadest sense, is the land-based military of a nation or state. It may also include other branches of the military such as the air force via means of aviation corps...
and spent some time as a cryptographer
Cryptography
Cryptography is the practice and study of techniques for secure communication in the presence of third parties...
; he then began studying piano performance at the Peabody Conservatory on the G.I. Bill. He quickly decided to switch to composition.
He earned bachelor's (1951) and master's (1953) degrees from Peabody, where his teachers included Nicholas Nabokov, Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell
Henry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...
, and Hugo Weisgall
Hugo Weisgall
Hugo David Weisgall was an American composer and conductor, known chiefly for his opera and vocal music compositions...
. While there, he was briefly the music director of Weisgall's Hilltop Musical Company, which Weisgall founded as a sort of answer to Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's festival at Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh
Aldeburgh is a coastal town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. Located on the River Alde, the town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily, and the Aldeburgh Yacht Club...
- a venue for local composers (particularly Weisgall himself) to present new work. This experience gave Argento broad exposure to and experience in the world of new opera. Hilltop's stage director was writer John Olon-Scrymgeour, with whom Argento would later collaborate on many operas. During this time period he also spent a year in Florence on a Fulbright Fellowship, and has called the experience "life-altering;" while there, he studied briefly with Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola
Luigi Dallapiccola was an Italian composer known for his lyrical twelve-tone compositions.-Biography:Dallapiccola was born at Pisino d'Istria , to Italian parents....
. Argento went on to receive his Ph.D. from the Eastman School of Music
Eastman School of Music
The Eastman School of Music is a music conservatory located in Rochester, New York. The Eastman School is a professional school within the University of Rochester...
, where he studied with Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness
Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
, Bernard Rogers
Bernard Rogers
Bernard Rogers was an American composer.Rogers was born in New York City. He studied with Arthur Farwell, Ernest Bloch, Percy Goetschius, and Nadia Boulanger. He taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music, The Hartt School, and the Eastman School of Music...
and Howard Hanson
Howard Hanson
Howard Harold Hanson was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music...
. Following completion of this degree, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
and spent another year in Florence, thus inaugurating a tradition of spending long periods of time in that city.
Minnesota Years
Argento moved to Minneapolis in 1958 with his new wife Carolyn to begin teaching theory and composition at the University of Minnesota. Within a few years he received commissions from virtually every major performing group there. He has remarked that this constant feeling of strong community interest in his work made him feel particularly at home in Minnesota, despite the fact that he resisted moving there at first and hoped for several years that a position on the East Coast would beckon. Argento became involved in writing music for productions at the then-new Guthrie Theatre, and in 1963, he and Scrymgeour founded the Center Opera Company, which later became the Minnesota OperaMinnesota Opera
The Minnesota Opera is a performance organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was founded in 1963 by the Walker Art Center, and is known for premiering such diverse works as Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and Frankenstein by Libby Larsen...
, to be in residence there. Argento composed the short opera The Masque of Angels for the occasion as the first Performing Arts commission of the Walker Art Center
Walker Art Center
The Walker Art Center is a contemporary art center in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is considered one of the nation's "big five" museums for modern art along with the Museum of Modern Art, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and the Hirshhorn...
, and the work – with its complex harmonic language and an emphasis on expansive choral writing that prefigures his later role as a prominent choral composer – firmly established his local prominence, as well as providing a role for his wife.He Also spent time at his childhood friend's cabin, Russell Burris, and his family.
By 1971, when his daring surreal opera Postcard from Morocco
Postcard from Morocco
Postcard from Morocco is an opera in one act composed by Dominick Argento and libretto written by John Donahue that was comissioned by the Center Opera Company . It is based on A Child's Garden of Verse by Robert Louis Stevenson. The setting is a train station in an exotic place, 1914...
opened at Center Opera, his national reputation was secure, in part thanks to a glowing review by the principal music critic of the New York Times. He eventually received commissions from New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
, the newly formed Minnesota Opera
Minnesota Opera
The Minnesota Opera is a performance organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was founded in 1963 by the Walker Art Center, and is known for premiering such diverse works as Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and Frankenstein by Libby Larsen...
, Washington Opera, and the Baltimore
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra
The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra is a professional American symphony orchestra based in Baltimore, Maryland.In September 2007, Maestra Marin Alsop led her inaugural concerts as the Orchestra’s twelfth music director, making her the first woman to head a major American orchestra.The BSO Board...
and St. Louis Symphonies, among others. He also developed close professional relationships with several prominent singers, notably Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade is an American mezzo-soprano. Born in Somerville, New Jersey, she acquired the nickname "Flicka" in her childhood. Von Stade attended the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in 1970 and in 1971 appeared as Cherubino in The...
, Janet Baker
Janet Baker
Dame Janet Abbott Baker, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.She was particularly closely associated with baroque and early Italian opera and the works of Benjamin Britten...
, and Håkan Hagegård
Håkan Hagegård
Håkan Hagegård is a Swedish operatic baritone.He studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm and has performed on stages across the world, including Carnegie Hall, the London Royal Opera House, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera, the Sydney Opera House, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Vienna...
, and some of his best-known song cycles were tailored to their talents.
Choral Prominence and Later Life
In the mid-1970s, he began writing choral works for the choir of Plymouth Church in Minneapolis, which his friend, Philip Brunelle, directed. The partnership with Brunelle was particularly fruitful with commissions and premieres taking place at Plymouth Church and at the Minnesota Opera where Brunelle was Music Director. It is from this period, that Argento composed Jonah and the Whale (1973) co-commissioned by Plymouth Congregational Church and the Cathedral of St. Mark-Episcopal. From this beginning, Argento began to receive larger and larger commissions for choral works, eventually penning major pieces for the Dale Warland SingersDale Warland Singers
The Dale Warland Singers was a 40-person choral group in the United States, based in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. Founded in 1972 and conducted by Dale Warland, the ensemble tackled a repertoire of difficult, complex, and beautiful polyphonic works for both a cappella...
, The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra
The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra is an American symphony orchestra located in Buffalo, New York. Its primary performing venue is Kleinhans Music Hall, which is a National Historic Landmark. Its regular concert season features gala concerts, classics programming of core repertoire, Pops...
and Buffalo Schola Cantorum, and most recently the Harvard
Harvard Glee Club
The Harvard Glee Club is a 60-voice, all-male choral ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1858 in the tradition of English and American glee clubs, it is the oldest collegiate chorus in the US. The Glee Club is part of the Holden Choruses of Harvard University, which also include the...
and Yale
Yale Glee Club
The Yale Glee Club is a mixed chorus of men and women, consisting of students of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1861, it is the third oldest collegiate chorus in the United States after the Harvard Glee Club, founded in 1858, and the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club,...
Glee Club
Glee club
A glee club is a musical group or choir group, historically of male voices but also of female or mixed voices, which traditionally specializes in the singing of short songs—glees—by trios or quartets. In the late 19th Century it was very popular in most schools and was made a tradition...
s.
In addition to his Pulitzer Prize, the recording by Frederica von Stade and the Minnesota Orchestra of his song cycle Casa Guidi won the 2004 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. Argento's book Catalogue Raisonné as Memoir, an autobiographical discussion of his works, was published in 2004.
Argento is now retired from teaching but he retains the title of Professor Emeritus at the University of Minnesota. He still lives in Minneapolis, and his musical output has remained steady. The world premiere of his latest piece, Evensong: Of Love and Angels, was presented by the Cathedral Choral Society
Cathedral Choral Society
The Cathedral Choral Society is a 200-voice symphonic chorus based at the Washington National Cathedral. J. Reilly Lewis has been music director since 1985. He succeeded Paul Callaway, who founded the group in 1941...
in March 2008 at Washington National Cathedral
Washington National Cathedral
The Washington National Cathedral, officially named the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, is a cathedral of the Episcopal Church located in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. Of neogothic design, it is the sixth-largest cathedral in the world, the second-largest in...
. The work was written in memory of his late wife and in honor of Washington National Cathedral's centennial. http://www.cathedralchoralsociety.org
Operas
Argento's operatic output is eclectic and extensive. Two of his early operas, written while he was a student – Sicilian Limes and Colonel Jonathan the Saint - have been withdrawn by the composer, but one work, The Boor, written in 1957 as part of his PhD work, was published by Boosey & HawkesBoosey & Hawkes
Boosey & Hawkes is a British music publisher purported to be the largest specialist classical music publisher in the world. Until 2003, it was also a major manufacturer of brass, string and wind musical instruments....
. He then collaborated with John Olon-Scrymgeour on a number of works, including The Masque of Angels; Christopher Sly (1962), based on an episode from The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1591.The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the Induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself...
; and The Shoemaker's Holiday, (1967) a "ballad opera
Ballad opera
The term ballad opera is used to refer to a genre of English stage entertainment originating in the 18th century and continuing to develop in the following century and later. There are many types of ballad opera...
" based on a play by Thomas Dekker.
After Postcard from Morocco
Postcard from Morocco
Postcard from Morocco is an opera in one act composed by Dominick Argento and libretto written by John Donahue that was comissioned by the Center Opera Company . It is based on A Child's Garden of Verse by Robert Louis Stevenson. The setting is a train station in an exotic place, 1914...
in 1971, which had a libretto by Jon Donahue, the commissions afforded him were much larger. The University of Minnesota and Minnesota Opera together commissioned The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe in 1975-76, with a libretto by Charles Nolte
Charles Nolte
Charles Nolte was an American actor and educator.-Career:Nolte was born in Duluth, Minnesota and moved to Wayzata, Minnesota with his family in the early 1930s. He graduated from Wayzata High School in 1941 and performed in an acting company that later became Old Log Theater...
. As a result of that work, which received wildly enthusiastic reviews upon its premiere, the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
commissioned him and received Miss Havisham
Miss Havisham
Miss Havisham is a significant character in the Charles Dickens novel Great Expectations . She is a wealthy spinster, who lives in her ruined mansion with her adopted daughter, Estella, whom she has sent to France, while she herself is described as looking like "the witch of the place."Although she...
's Fire (1977), with a libretto by Scrymgeour. Although not well received initially, Argento eventually revised it into a one-act form entitled Miss Havisham's Wedding Night (1981). Miss Havisham's Fire was itself revised in 1995.
In 1984, the Minnesota Opera commissioned Casanova's Homecoming
Casanova's Homecoming
Casanova's Homecoming is an opera in three acts by Dominick Argento to an English libretto by the composer, based in part on Giacomo Casanova's memoirs. It was first performed by the Minnesota Opera in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1985....
, with text by the composer; it went on to a well-received run at New York City Opera, where at the insistence of Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills
Beverly Sills was an American operatic soprano whose peak career was between the 1950s and 1970s. In her prime she was the only real rival to Joan Sutherland as the leading bel canto stylist...
it became the first opera performed in New York in English to have English supertitles, to ensure the audience would understand all the jokes. The opera won the 1986 National Institute for Music Theatre Award. He then wrote The Aspern Papers (1987), to his own libretto adapted from the story
The Aspern Papers
The Aspern Papers is a novella written by Henry James, originally published in The Atlantic Monthly in 1888, with its first book publication later in the same year. One of James' best-known and most acclaimed longer tales, The Aspern Papers is based on an anecdote that James heard about a Shelley...
by Henry James
Henry James
Henry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, as a vehicle for Frederica von Stade. His next opera, and arguably largest work to date, was The Dream of Valentino
Rudolph Valentino
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor, and early pop icon. A sex symbol of the 1920s, Valentino was known as the "Latin Lover". He starred in several well-known silent films including The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, The Sheik, Blood and Sand, The Eagle and Son of the Sheik...
, which premiered at the Kennedy Center in 1993. Critic Anne Midgette
Anne Midgette
Anne Midgette is an American journalist and classical music critic. Her father was the painter Willard Midgette.Midgette is a 1986 graduate of Yale University. After university, she lived for 11 years in Munich, Germany, reviewing opera, music and art throughout Europe for The Wall Street...
of the New York Times has noted that Argento's operas tend to be very well received upon their premieres, but they lack an "easy popular hook" and are rarely revived.
Song Cycles and "Monodramas"
Argento's song cycles are notable in his frequent use of dramatic, unusual text, most often prose that does not have immediately apparent musical possibilities; they blur the distinction between straightforward groupings of songs and dramatic works, which he terms "monodramas". His best-known song cycle is From the Diary of Virginia Woolf, with a text he assembled from the book of the title. Written for Janet Baker in 1974, it won the Pulitzer Prize and is performed frequently. Other prominent works in a similar vein include Letters from Composers (1968), which uses as its text letters written by Chopin, Puccini, and others; Casa Guidi (1983), which sets letters written by Elizabeth Barrett BrowningElizabeth Barrett Browning
Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...
; and A Few Words About Chekhov (1996), which adapts letters by Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
.
Argento's other song cycles include A Water Bird Talk, which combines a Chekov short story with passages from Audubon
John James Audubon
John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He was notable for his expansive studies to document all types of American birds and for his detailed illustrations that depicted the birds in their natural habitats...
's Birds of America; The Andrée Expedition, which includes journal entries by Salomon Andrée during his ill-fated attempt to travel to the North Pole
North Pole
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is, subject to the caveats explained below, defined as the point in the northern hemisphere where the Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface...
by balloon; and Miss Manners on Music (1998), which sets newspaper clippings by columnist Judith Martin
Judith Martin
Judith Martin , better known by the pen name Miss Manners, is an American journalist, author, and etiquette authority. Martin's uncle was economist and labor historian Selig Perlman.- Early life and career :...
(aka "Miss Manners"). One of the few major song sets Argento has written that use "traditional" verse as text is his popular Six Elizabethan Songs.
Other solo vocal works by Argento include:
- Songs About Spring (1950–55), text by E. E. CummingsE. E. CummingsEdward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
, for voice and piano - Ode to the West Wind (1956), text by ShelleyPercy Bysshe ShelleyPercy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
, for soprano and orchestra - To Be Sung Upon the Water (1972), text by Wordsworth, for voice, clarinet and piano
- The Bremen Town Musicians (1998), text by the composer, a "children's entertainment" with narrator and orchestra
Major Choral Works
Argento's first large-scale choral work, if one discounts The Masque of Angels (parts of which, such as the "Gloria" and "Sanctus", are frequently excerpted), is The Revelation of St. John the Divine (1968), which sets portions of the Book of RevelationBook of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
and is scored for male chorus, brass, and an array of percussion instruments. Peter Quince at the Clavier, a setting of the poem by Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens
Wallace Stevens was an American Modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as a lawyer for the Hartford insurance company in Connecticut.His best-known poems include "Anecdote of the Jar",...
, was commissioned by Pennsylvania State University
Pennsylvania State University
The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...
in honor of the state's tercentenary (both Stevens and Argento are Pennsylvania natives.) For the Dale Warland Singers, Argento wrote I Hate and I Love (1981), with text by Catullus
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
, and Walden Pond (1996), based on excerpts from Thoreau. Argento composed a massive Te Deum
Te Deum
The Te Deum is an early Christian hymn of praise. The title is taken from its opening Latin words, Te Deum laudamus, rendered literally as "Thee, O God, we praise"....
in 1987 which integrates the Latin text with medieval English folk poetry. A Toccata of Galuppi's (1989), a 20-minute setting of a Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Robert Browning was an English poet and playwright whose mastery of dramatic verse, especially dramatic monologues, made him one of the foremost Victorian poets.-Early years:...
poem, is one of many works inspired by Argento's time in Florence. In 2008, the Harvard Glee Club
Harvard Glee Club
The Harvard Glee Club is a 60-voice, all-male choral ensemble at Harvard University. Founded in 1858 in the tradition of English and American glee clubs, it is the oldest collegiate chorus in the US. The Glee Club is part of the Holden Choruses of Harvard University, which also include the...
premiered Apollo in Cambridge, a multi-movement setting of texts by Harvard-affiliated writers of the 19th century.
Other choral works by Argento include:
- A Nation of Cowslips (1968), seven bagatelles on nonsense text by Keats
- Tria Carmina Pasachalia (1970), an EasterEasterEaster is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
CantataCantataA cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
for women's chorus - Jonah and the Whale (1973), a large-scale oratorio on medieval English texts
- Spirituals and Swedish Chorales (1994)
- Dover Beach (2003), written for the Yale Glee ClubYale Glee ClubThe Yale Glee Club is a mixed chorus of men and women, consisting of students of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1861, it is the third oldest collegiate chorus in the United States after the Harvard Glee Club, founded in 1858, and the University of Michigan Men's Glee Club,...
- Four Seascapes (2004) the words of Herman MelvilleHerman MelvilleHerman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
, Mark TwainMark TwainSamuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...
, Henry JamesHenry JamesHenry James, OM was an American-born writer, regarded as one of the key figures of 19th-century literary realism. He was the son of Henry James, Sr., a clergyman, and the brother of philosopher and psychologist William James and diarist Alice James....
, and Thorton Wilder set to music - Numerous anthemAnthemThe term anthem means either a specific form of Anglican church music , or more generally, a song of celebration, usually acting as a symbol for a distinct group of people, as in the term "national anthem" or "sports anthem".-Etymology:The word is derived from the Greek via Old English , a word...
s for choir and organ and a cappellaA cappellaA cappella music is specifically solo or group singing without instrumental sound, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. It is the opposite of cantata, which is accompanied singing. A cappella was originally intended to differentiate between Renaissance polyphony and Baroque concertato...
motetMotetIn classical music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions.-Etymology:The name comes either from the Latin movere, or a Latinized version of Old French mot, "word" or "verbal utterance." The Medieval Latin for "motet" is motectum, and the Italian...
s
Orchestral works
Argento's non-vocal output is relatively small; there are, for example, no symphonies, and just one String QuartetString quartet
A string quartet is a musical ensemble of four string players – usually two violin players, a violist and a cellist – or a piece written to be performed by such a group...
written when he was a student. He has produced numerous orchestral suites based on his operas, including Le tombeau d’Edgar Poe (1985), adapted from The Voyage of Edgar Allan Poe, and the popular Valentino Dances (1994), from The Dream of Valentino. He has written two ballet
Ballet
Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
s that were then fashioned into orchestral suites, The Resurrection of Don Juan (1956) and Royal Invitation (Homage to the Queen of Tonga) (1964). His 1982 Fire Variations was nominated for the Kennedy Center Fridheim Prize in Music.
Other orchestral works include:
- Divertimento (1954) for piano and strings
- Variations for Orchestra (The Mask of Night) (1965)
- Bravo Mozart (1969), an "imaginary biography"
- A Ring of Time (1972) for orchestra and bells
- In Praise of Music (1977), a set of "songs" for orchestra
- Capriccio ‘Rossini in Paris’ (1985), essentially a clarinet concerto
- Reverie (Reflections on a Hymn Tune) (1997)
- Other small works for chamber groups of instruments