Mark Adamo: Four Angels

Concerto for harp and orchestra - piano reduction. Four movements: Overture: Metatron; Scherzo: Sraosha; Aria: Regina Coeli; Finale: Mik’hail. Commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington. The passionate and protean angels of art and scripture bear little resemblance to the images of simpering cherubim everywhere prevalent in mass culture. Likewise, the charismatic, potentially dominant harp— inevitably underscoring those images—has been constantly caricatured as just the golden vehicle of glamourous, glissando sentimentality. I wondered: could one make a concerto that uses only the personae—not any explicit narrative—of angels from different cultures to liberate both image and instrument from centuries of cliché? — Mark Adamo