Scherzo

David Del Tredici composed his Scherzo in 1960 at the request of Milton and Peggy Salkind. Bold, even rhapsodic in character, it contains those elements which were later so expertly refined in the Alice in Wonderland pieces: intense, almost mechanical rhythms coupled with a Gothic lyricism bordering on the diabolical. The strength and ferocity of his keyboard writing is in a class by itself and belies the composer's own virtuosity at the instrument. (D.D.T.'s performances of the Lizst Totentanze are well remembered by a number of Bay Area listeners.)

In the mid-60's Del Tredici turned exclusively to writing pieces for voice and instruments, and in works such as Night Conjure-Verse and the more recent Vintage Alice (premiered last August at the Music in the Vineyards concerts) the formal aspects of the music take on a precise if somewhat stylized architecture. In these works an absolute symmetry of structure prevails, and there is hardly an idea which is not made to reappear upside down, backwards, transposed, and in different instrumental guise. Nevertheless, his gift for the fantastic, so evident in the Scherzo, remains. (One listener tells of an evening in Cambridge when, after a performance of the Lobster Quadrille by the Boston Philharmonia, the composer took his bows fully attired in motorcycle leathers.)

– JOHN ADAMS