Elliot Roman - "Tzirklshpitz"
Elliot Roman - Tzirklshpitz
Tzirklshpitz employed intense rhythms and intricate meter changes to continually excite the listener and keep momentum all the way to the final snap pizzicato.
Tzirklshpitz, a winner of the 2021 BMI Student Composer Awards, is an insightful and engaging orchestral fanfare by the young composer Elliot Roman. Throughout the work, Roman flaunts his exquisite control of orchestration and timbre, quite a feat considering the expansive size of the agglomeration of brass, winds, strings, and percussion on stage. Roman's short usages of solo violin and violoncello clearly stuck out as effective, thought-out timbral nuances. He did not fall into many student composer pitfalls commonly heard in new works for full orchestra. The only aspect of his orchestrational language which was not incredibly effective, was the overuse of the solo piano. The specific orchestration, lacking doublings in most lines, does make the piece significantly harder on the performers. It was clear from the downbeat of the premiere, by the Manhattan School of Music Philharmonia Orchestra, that the players and conductor could have greatly benefited from additional rehearsal time. Maestro George Manahan, as outstanding as he is, was buried in the score during the performance, glancing up at the players only once. He focused primarily on catching all of the shifting meters, which looked unnatural to him, and was content with simply reaching the final double barline, unconcerned with major balance issues, wild intonation in the brass, and disunited playing within the string sections (watch the performance here).
Tzirklshpitz employed intense rhythms and intricate meter changes to continually excite the listener and keep momentum all the way to the final snap pizzicato. Roman also has a solid grasp on contemporary harmonic language. Tzirklshpitz felt as though Persichetti's Twentieth Century Harmony was aggressively crossed with the modern film scores of John Williams and Hans Zimmer. It was quite refreshing to listen to new orchestral music with advanced complex harmonic and rhythmic ideas, while still being amazingly approachable by the general audience. Overall, Roman quite effectively created a detailed and enjoyable concert opener, which will hopefully go on to see future, more convincing performances.
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