The Power of Three

By Christopher DeLaurenti

Exciting, wistful, funny and bold: The U.S. premiere of the Three Continents Cello Concerto showcases the sonic explorations of not one, but three composers. “I wanted a different kind of concerto,” declares cellist Jan Vogler, who joins the Seattle Symphony March 23 & 25 to perform the work on a program alongside the Overture to the School for Scandal by Samuel Barber and Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, and conducted by Yue Bao. He commissioned Nico Muhly, Sven Helbig and Zhou Long, three acclaimed composers who hail from three continents — North America, Europe and Asia, respectively. 

A globe-trotting musician who embraces risk, Vogler is no stranger to mixing eras and genres. His repertoire — played on a 1707 cello made by Antonio Stradivari — ranges from J. S. Bach to Schubert to a panoply of living composers. A string of excellent releases on Sony Classical and projects such as the Three Continents Cello Concerto attest to Vogler’s dedication to tradition and adventure. 

Vogler exhorted the Three Continents composers to each write a 10-minute piece for cello and orchestra in their own distinctive styles. Responding to the notion that he served as a kind of DJ by determining the overall flow of the concerto, the cellist laughed and admitted he was “more of a curator. The only thing I told them was who had which movement.” 

Vogler hastens to add that Three Continents has multiple meanings: musical, personal and philosophical. “For me, it was not so much uniting the composers in a traditional sense.” The cellist urged them to be themselves and to reflect their cultural origins. “Nico didn’t have to be concerned with Sven’s or Zhou Long's ideas,” he added. Vogler trusted that formal unity — and common elements — would emerge through difference and discernible contrasts. “By playing it together and having one orchestra and one soloist, we unite them for the listener.” 

The participating composers embraced the challenge, too. In an interview shortly after the 2020 premiere in Germany of Three Continents, Muhly stated, “I wanted my movement to feel like it was just part of a whole” — a fitting sentiment for a composer whose film scores, including The Reader (2008) and Kill Your Darlings (2013) as well as the BBC adaptation of Howards End (2017), extended his reputation as a keenly sensitive and generous collaborator. 

Reflecting on his first movement contribution, Cello Cycles, earlier this year, Muhly recalled “It was great fun! I thought all three pieces worked really well together and it felt nice, in a sense, to be part of a group show rather than a solo exhibition. Juxtaposition and context, I find, often make work more interesting to the listener. Just as pairing, say, a piece of Ravel next to Stravinsky versus Schoenberg next to Stravinsky changes the lighting, as it were, on both pieces.” Vogler describes the fluttering colors and frisky urgency of Cello Cycles as “motoric” and “driving.” 

Sven Helbig needed a title for his movement, the second. Vogler suggested Aria after an initial rehearsal of the movement’s dusky yet luminous solo part. According to the cellist, “Aria is almost New Age and influenced by pop music.” Helbig, whose collaborators include beloved rapper Snoop Dogg and 1980s icons Pet Shop Boys, underpins Aria with two themes. The first is a slow lament that gently descends into the instrument’s lower register. The second theme, a wistful air, emerges after an interlude for the orchestra led by the woodwinds and sparkling percussion.  

Like Muhly, Helbig sought to accommodate his collaborators. In a program note, he hopes that Aria “could ideally function as a bridge” between the two movements by foreshadowing the traditionally fast finale. “After a reprise of the sustained first theme, the orchestra and soloist become more energetic, gain strength and extend their hand to the third movement.” 

Longtime Seattle Symphony concertgoers will remember Zhou Long, who was Composer in Residence in 2002 and championed by then Music Director Gerard Schwarz. Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for his opera Madame White Snake, the composer grew up in China, survived the Cultural Revolution and afterwards, moved to New York, bringing his inimitable ear for arresting melodies and unusual sonority to solo, chamber and orchestral music. 

Based on the Chinese poet Du Fu’s classic “Song of Eight Unruly Tipsy Poets,” Zhou’s propulsive and slyly humorous Tipsy Poet concludes the concerto. The composer categorizes his movement as a scherzo, traditionally a sprightly, playful symphonic movement. Vogler calls the vivid (and sometimes laugh-out-loud) portrayals of Du Fu’s lumbering, burping, teetering and otherwise bibulous friends as “picturesque,” and wonders with a hint of mischief, “who wouldn’t want to hear a drunken poet?” 

Three Continents also has a personal and philosophical resonance for Vogler, who was born in the former East Berlin. Living in and travelling to and from three continents has been a way of life for the cellist and his family for decades. “My wife is Chinese and our children grew up between German, Chinese and American cultures, visiting those places and our families.” While not everyone has such a far-flung family, most of us have had to cope with and reconcile travel, distance and family. 

Instead of a programmatic world tour of national or continental styles, Vogler also hopes Three Continents might serve as a possible emblem of tolerance and acceptance: “The chance here is to embrace different cultures and to hear a musical approach to coexistence.” 

Yue Bao’s performances are generously sponsored by Mr. and Mrs. William G. Reed, Jr.  

Jan Vogler’s performances are generously sponsored by Steve and Sylvia Burges.  

Three Continents Cello Concerto is presented as part of the Seattle Symphony’s New Music WORKS initiative, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.