Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Robert Xavier Rodríguez
A Colorful Symphony (1987)
- G Schirmer Inc (World)
Commissioned by The National Endowment for the Arts for the Indianapolis, Syracuse, and Buffalo Symphonies
- 3(pic)222/4231/timp.3perc/hp.pf/str
- Narrator
- 20 min
- Norton Juster from “The Phantom Toll Booth”
- English
Programme Note
Based on a classic children's story, A Colorful Symphony has become a musical classic in its own right, with regular performances throughout the United States on youth and family concerts.
Scores
Reviews
A Colorful Symphony (1987) is based on a chapter from Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth (1961), in which a boy enters a magical land where an orchestra and its conductor play color into the world each day. Rodríguez's music takes full advantage of the orchestral palate, using one physical sense, hearing, to create another, seeing. He accomplishes this with great skill. For example, his creation of the rainbow is a tour de force.
27th March 2012
...a work that would delight children and adults alike...Rodríguez' symphony works on all levels, as a charming story of a boy, Milo, who finds himself in a magic land where sounds and colors are the same, as a guide to the orchestra's various sections and instruments and, simply, as a piece of music.
...a closely knit union of imaginative words and music...The story tone-poem deserves a long life.
...one of the finest compositions addressed to young audiences. Not since Prokofiev's 1936 Peter and the Wolf and Britten's 1945 Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra has such a piece entered the repertoire.