Tyshawn Sorey rejects concerto narrative in Philadelphia premiere

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s premiere of Tyshawn Sorey’s "For Marilyn Crispell" reconfigures the piano as a site of resonance rather than a vehicle for display. By prioritizing sostenuto (the holding of a note for its full value) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sostenuto], Sorey constructs a landscape of static harmonic blocks that avoids the kinetic development typical of the concerto form. The decision to pair this with the 1873 version of Bruckner’s Third Symphony—the "Wagner" Symphony—is a rare instance of intelligent programming. [Score on IMSLP. Where the later revisions of the Bruckner attempt to smooth out the composer's architectural disruptions, the 1873 original embraces the same unyielding sonic masses found in Sorey’s score. The program frames both works not as narratives, but as tectonic shifts in sound.