National Philharmonic recently announced that the 2021-22 season will open October 16, 2021 with the premiere of Dehlinger’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, a large-scale rhapsody for voice and orchestra composed for soprano Danielle Talamantes with text by T.S. Eliot. Music Director & Conductor Piotr Gajewski leads the orchestra.

In his program notes on Dehlinger’s work, musicologist James Melo writes:

The history of Western music has been enriched beyond measure by composers who were inspired by specific performers to write groundbreaking works and, in some cases, to completely revive their creative powers.

In The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, Dehlinger approaches the voice [of Talamantes] as another instrument capable of the most varied and nuanced delivery. He took the stream of consciousness technique that is the basis of the poem by T.S. Eliot and gave it musical expression through a perpetually changing combination of vocal and instrumental textures.

The use of leitmotivs (guiding motives) to represent different emotional states of the protagonist serves to weave the musical fabric and unify the various melodic and rhythmic strands that course through the work.

Dehlinger also honors the internal structure of Eliot’s poem by using references to different musical genres to articulate the various sections of the music, such as the complex rhythms of the dance-like scherzo that concludes the work, an example among many.

NatPhil looks forward to welcoming audiences back to The Music Center at Strathmore this Fall.

More to come…