In 1997, Albert Hurwit's five-minute Adagio for Orchestra was premiered by the Hartford Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Michael Lankester. The audience's enthusiastic response, as well as positive comments from many area professionals, encouraged Hurwit to expand the piece into a full symphony. In 2000, after Lankester heard a draft of the first movement of the symphony, he offered to serve as Hurwit's mentor. Two years later, the full-length Symphony was completed. In 2003, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edward Cumming, premiered the new work's Third Movement, "Remembrance". Symphony No.1 is Hurwit's first recorded work.
Albert Hurwit was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1931. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Tufts Medical School. He retired from his medical practice in 1986 in order to dedicate his energies to composition.
Movement I (Origins) interweaves
moods and themes that describe the changing emotional landscape
of my ancestors in their eastward migration from Prague to Russia.
Movement II (Separation) memorializes the persecution
of my family and others in the pogroms of the late 1800s. The
movement starts with saber-wielding Cossacks on horseback terrorizing
the villagers. That violent music is suddenly replaced by the
message given to my mother and her parents by the family elders:
three ascending notes cry out “YOU MUST GO.” The family then recollects
the songs and dances they shared. But their reveries are interrupted
by the return of the Cossacks, whose threats force the family
to separate forever .
Movement III (Remembrance) reflects the family's sadness,
which is voiced in the first theme. This initial theme is subsumed
by the second theme, with its expression of compassion and love.
The movement ends with intimations that the departing family will
survive.
Movement IV (Arrival) heralds the ocean voyage and arrival
in America, where the family finds safety and freedom.
Click on the icons
above to listen to selections from the symphony.
Yeshea (1797-1903), great-great-grandfather of Albert Hurwit,
born in Prague. In the Diaspora, he moved eastward to Milkowitz, a small
village in Russia.
Zelig Milkowitz (1841-1925), son of Yeshea, and his wife
Goldie (1841-1929)
Isaac Milkowitz (seated),
son of Zelig and Goldie, his wife Hanna, and their children. Helen (front
row, center) is the composer's mother. [New Britain, Connecticut - c.
1912]
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