Symphony in One Movement

Julia Perry composed Symphony in One Movement for Violas and Basses in 1961. She had enjoyed enormous early success as a composer of songs and choral works beginning while still an undergraduate at Westminster Choir College. After moving to Italy in 1951, she impressed critics with her Stabat Mater, especially when performing as the contralto soloist. Major houses continued to publish many of her works, including orchestral works.

By 1961, Perry was in her late 30s, and her career path was changing. Following her return to the United States in 1959, she continually sought the support of managers, publishers, and recording companies, but the response was meager. The New York Philharmonic did perform her Short Piece for Orchestra in 1965, and a few other performances occurred throughout the 1960s. But after 1966, she received no further offers from publishers. In 1971, she suffered a paralytic stroke that left her unable to speak and paralyzed on the right side. She continued to compose, sometimes prolifically, by writing with her left hand. When she died on April 24, 1979, the majority of her work remained unpublished.

Symphony in One Movement shows Perry at the height of her powers. The manuscript is clear, detailed, and meticulous, unlike scores from later in her career which can be difficult to read because of her stroke. The work exhibits Perry’s characteristic tautness of expression, her mastery in developing powerful material from short thematic cells, and her compositional rigor. Every bar demonstrates a composer writing with imagination and confidence.

The scoring is unusual. By leaving out violins and cellos—instruments ordinarily featured over violas and basses—Perry seems, as in many of her works, to be going against the grain. She divides violas and basses into two groups each, which mostly play independent parts. But nearly three-quarters of the way through the final section, Perry divides the violas into three parts instead of two, making the work unperformable by just two violists. It raises the question of how large a group she intended—perhaps a minimum of six violists, allowing the section to be divided into two or three parts equally?

As with other major mid-century American works—Samuel Barber’s Symphony No. 1 and Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement come to mind—Symphony in One Movement is divided into well-defined sections, in a sequence typical of a symphony: fast—slow—fast. In her manuscript, Perry marks these separate sections with Roman numerals.

The first section is full of energy and athleticism. The basses begin by introducing a seven-note theme, establishing patterns that recur throughout the first section. The theme reappears, twice as slow, in a broad statement at the end of the first section, setting up a transition to the second part. In the middle section, Perry reduces activity to a virtual stasis, a device she used often in other works. Here, in place of the melodic and rhythmic activity of the outer movements, she explores subtle shifts in color. She also calls for non-traditional techniques like striking the string with the bow or plucking it with the fingernail. The quick final section begins with a nervous theme in the violas. The motive is repeated many times with many variants right through to the coda. The music is constructed with a series of related but independent sections of irregular groove-based, driving rhythms. Rapid-fire rhythmic cells interlock, creating considerable dramatic tension. The meter is almost entirely five eighths to the bar, but with shifting patterns, adding to the virtuosic demands on the performers. As in many of her works, the ending comes abruptly, allowing the energy and complexity of the music to speak for itself.

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