Esterházy String Quartet - Wide Missouri: Chamber Music of Michael Horvit (2006)

Michael Horvit is Professor of Composition and Theory at the University of Houston Moores School of Music. For 25 years he served as music director at Congregation Emanu El in Houston. During his studies at Yale University, Tanglewood, Harvard University and Boston University, Horvit’s teachers were Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, Walter Piston, Quincy Porter and Gardner Read. In other words, Horvit is one of the last links between the great American Symphonic School and today’s music. Not surprisingly one can hear echoes of this illustrious past in such works as the Cullen Overture and Concerto for Brass Quintet and Orchestra (on TROY265, works for orchestra), resplendent pieces which conjure up great open vistas and exuberant optimism. This exceptional disc of chamber music further reveals his traditionalist style, particularly in the String Quartet No. 2, “The Wide Missouri,” whose thematic material is mostly based on one of his favorite folksongs, Shenandoah. This is truly heartfelt American music.