Program Notes

Glen B. Cortese

“The Garden of the Gods” A Tone poem for Large Orchestra (2006)  

I have always been a “place” sensitive individual and since childhood, I was fascinated with the southwestern United States. Growing up in the northeast made the allure of the southwest even more attractive and mysterious; it was a landscape and place that was completely strange and alien to me, yet looked powerful and beautiful. When I finally visited the Grand Canyon, the Painted Desert, Pikes Peak and the Garden of the Gods, I was a young adult driving across the United States on the way to meet Larry Smith for the first time. I was to be his assistant conductor at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara and I took a long tour of the southwest on the way to California. I remember the feeling of awe that I experienced at the Grand Canyon, the loneliness in the expanse of the Painted Desert and the reverence of seeing the Garden of the Gods.

This attraction and almost religious experience has led me to create several works that deal with the southwest and Naïve American culture. The first work was a set of variations for solo harp , “Aspen Variations” (based on the 13 points on an aspen leaf, not the city!) which began to explore this idea. I wrote this work at the Music Academy while I was working and studying with Larry. The next work came 14 years later my “Millennium Variations” (…the Spirit Dwellings) that depicts the journey of a spirit from earth to heaven through various places in the southwest. When Larry asked for a new work to celebrate our twenty years of friendship, I thought it would be most appropriate to create a piece that pays tribute to that first trip across the USA as well as something very close to Colorado Springs, hence the title “The Garden of the Gods”.

This piece draws on the Ute legend (below) of how the Garden was made and also on the names of some of the formations in the Garden, The Gateway Rocks, The Kissing Camels, Cathedral Rock, the Bear and the Seal, Balanced Rock and the Siamese Twins.

 

The Ute Legend

“…In the nestling vales and on the grassy plains, which lay at the foot of the Great White Mountain that points the way to heaven, lived the Chosen People. Here they dwelt in happiness together and above them on the summit of the Mighty Peak where stands the Western Gates of Heaven, dwelt the Manitou. And that the Chosen People might know of his love the Manitou did stamp upon the Peak the image of his face that all might see and worship him....

"But one day as the storm clouds played about the Peak, the image of the Manitou was hid...and down from the North swept a barbaric tribe of giants, taller than the spruce which grew upon the mountain side and so great that in their stamping strides they shook the earth. And with the invading host came gruesome beasts - unknown and awful in their mightiness- monstrous beasts that would devour the earth and tread it down....

And as the invading hosts came on the Chosen Ones fell to the earth at the first gentle slope of the mountain and prayed to Manitou for aid. Then came to pass a wondrous miracle. The clouds broke away and the sun shone down upon the Peak. And from the very summit, looking down, appeared the face of Manitou himself. And sternly he looked upon the advancing host, and as he looked the Giants and the beasts turned into stone within their very steps....

And when the white men came they called the spot the Garden of the Gods...but we who know the history of the race still call it 'Valley of the Miracle,' for here it was that Manitou gave aid to save his chosen people...."