Synopsis

“Spaghetti western” is a nickname given to a genre of Italian films from the 1960s, most famously directed by Sergio Leone, and often starring Clint Eastwood as the taciturn, gun-toting anti-hero.

Spaghetti Western also is the title of a Concerto for English horn written by American composer Michael Daugherty that received its premiere performance on today’s date in 1998 at a Pittsburgh Symphony concert conducted by Mariss Jansons.

“Just as Leone’s films redefined the Western genre from an Italian perspective,” writes Michael Daugherty, “I redefine the European concerto … within an American context. In my ‘Spaghetti Western,’ the English horn soloist is the ‘Man with no Name,’ moving through a series of sun-drenched panoramas, barren deserts, and desolate towns of the Wild West, … [one of ] the gun-slinging characters who haunt the landscape.”

Daugherty gave Italian titles to his three-movement concerto: “Strade Vuote” (“Empty Streets”), “Assalto all’Oro” (“Gold Rush”) and “Mezzogiorno di Fuoco” (“Noon of Fire”). And since Eastwood was unable to play the English horn for the Pittsburgh Symphony premiere, Harold Smoliar removed the cigar from his parched, suntanned lips, adjusted his poncho and took up his English horn for the performance.

Music Played in Today's Program

Michael Daugherty (b. 1954) Spaghetti Western Harold Smoliar; University of Michigan Symphony; Kenneth Kiesler, cond. Equilibrium 63