In fact the string nonet version of ‘Last Round’ was the first version. It was commissioned by Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) in 1996 through their Sound Investment scheme (one of the first examples of ‘crowd funding’!). I was one of the ‘Sound Investors’ in ‘Last Round’, which entitled me to attend all the rehearsals and the first performance – which took place in Birmingham on 25th October 1996 conducted by Stefan Asbury.
BCMG gave quite a number of performances of it over the next 10 years or so, and I heard a further four live performances from them, all in different locations, over the years. Their ‘parent’ ensemble, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO), also gave a performance of the string orchestra version, conducted by Miguel Harth Bedoya, in Symphony Hall, Birmingham on 15th February 2007.
I believe it was the programme notes for that CBSO performance which told me that the string orchestra version dates from 2000. That version seemed to be very popular with orchestras in the US in the early years of the century – for a while Golijov’s website was listing all performances of his music and those of ‘Last Round’ appeared to exceed one hundred.
The Warner/EMI recording by the St Lawrence and Ying quartets is very good and has the advantage of being coupled with several other fascinating works by Golijov. However there is another excellent SACD recording of it on the Amsterdam Sinfonietta’s ‘The Argentinian Album’ (Channel Classics CCS SA 33014) of 2014, where it is coupled with works by Piazzolla and Ginastera. That recording is also of the nonet version, though they used more strings in both the other works on the disc.
Golijov also incorporated the 2nd movement of ‘Last Round’ into his score for the 2009 Francis Ford Coppola film ‘Tetro’ and it is the St Lawrence/Ying recording of that which is included on the DG soundtrack album.
Message Thread
« Back to index | View thread »
Thank you for taking part in the MusicWeb International Forum.
Len Mullenger - Founder of MusicWeb