Celebrating Betsy Jolas: Orchestral Works at Last

The French-American composer Betsy Jolas reaches her centenary this year, and this is being celebrated by the first recording of her orchestral music. These are all recent works, dating from 2006 to 2021, and reveal a composer who deserves far more attention for her music.

Betsy Jolas, 2006 (photo by Léonard Roussel)

This recording includes two works that showcase her humour and control of the medium: Letters for Bachville and B-Day for Symphony Orchestra. The former, written in 2019, was a joint commission from the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It takes the form of a walk through Leipzig, which she describes as the ‘mythic city’, walking in the footsteps of the great composer and filling her ears with his music. She goes on to say that the work ‘not only feature[s] the great moments of my Bach memories, but also illustrate[s] the way this music is so often heard today (boiled down to the opening notes of a few famous pieces, hastily put together for both easy listening and instant interruption)’. It’s a sad commentary about the great music of yesterday reduced to mere sound memes, but she’s right – how many of us know first themes but not second themes?

The closing work on the album is B-Day for Symphony Orchestra of 2006, which was written to celebrate a double birthday: Boston Modern Orchestra Project’s tenth birthday and the composer’s eightieth. Listen to how she creates a clever set of variations on the traditional birthday song. The work begins with the tuning up of the orchestra and then launches into some of the most interesting sounds from an orchestra that you’ve heard in a long time! Plus, of course, Happy Birthday.

Betsy Jolas: B-Day for Symphony Orchestra

The majority of the album is taken up with A Little Summer Suite, a seven-part suite commissioned in 2015 by the Berlin Philharmonic for Jolas’ 90^th birthday. The work is intended to be performed without separations between the movements. The odd-numbered movements are all ‘Strolls’ (Strolling away, Strolling about, Strolling under and Strolling home), taking a direct inspiration from Mussorgsky’s own walk around a gallery, Pictures at an Exhibition. The even-numbered movements are stationary (Knocks and clocks, Shakes and quakes and Chants and cheers), each focusing on a different part of the orchestra (percussion, brass, winds). Jolas said that this music was part of an ongoing exploration of ‘wandering music’ i.e., music that seems aimless and that could land anywhere at any time.

The most recent work on the recording is entitled Latest, written in 2021. The composer was 95 when she wrote this piece and it’s not called Last because she was working on something for Sir Simon Rattle (Les Belles Années, 2023). In many ways this work can be seen as somewhat biographical, particularly in its use of percussion to recall a trip she took to Bali in the 1970s and the occasional nod to jazz, and its use of vocals, which is important to her. The premiere of the work was given in November 2023 with Ludovic Morlot leading the San Francisco Symphony.

What’s surprising is that this student of Milhaud and Messiaen has not had major recordings of her music done. That her orchestral music hasn’t had its own separate issue until she’s 99 years old is a major insult to her as a composer. Three operas – no recordings, works for orchestras ranging from chamber orchestra to full symphony orchestra – this recording and she appears on two others, and the list could go on for her works for solo instrument with orchestra, works for large ensemble, her chamber music and so on. Congratulations to Ludovic Morlot for addressing her most recent orchestral music – let’s see more of it!