64 min.

7 October 1976
Orchestra Hall, Chicago
Barbara Hendricks, soprano / Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Sir Georg Solti, conductor

Folk group: 2ssax, mandolin, tenor banjo, accordion
Orchestra: 4(II,III,IV=picc).4(IV=corA).4(III=bcl,IV=Ebcl).4(IV=dbn)-6.4.4.1-timp.perc(7):glsp/susp.crot/t.bells/vib/marimba/xyl/bongo dr/4 tom-t/anvil/cowbell/cyms/hi-hat/2 susp.cym/tam-t/tgl/ratchet/5 tpl.bl/whip/BD/SD/tamb/2 TD/siren/theremin/wind chimes (several sets, both glass and wood)-2 harps-cel-strings (18.16.12.12.9)

from "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll; "Alice Gray" by William Mee; and "Disillusioned" (author unknown)

"Dedicated to Sir Georg Solti"

in honor of the United States Bicentennial with the participation and funding of the National Endowment for the Arts for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston saymphony, Clevelend Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the Philadelphia Orchestra

The Trial in Wonderland
Scene: Assembly of the Court -
The Accusation -
Alice Grows -
Aria I: The Set of Verses - Recitative -
Aria II: She's All My Fancy Painted Him - Recitative -
Scene: The King's Muses - Recitative -
Aria III: Contradictory Evidence - Recitative -
Aria IV: Still More Evidence - Recitative -
Fuga: Arguments in the Jury Chamber -
Scene: Alice's Awakening; Remembrance -
Aria V: Apotheosis: Acrostic Song

"Final Alice is a series of elaborate arias, interspersed and separated by dramatic episodes from the last two chapters of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, centering around the Trial in Wonderland (which gradually turns to pandemonium) and Alice's subsequent awakening and return to 'dull reality.' To this I have added an Apotheosis.

"Final Alice teeters between the worlds of opera and concert music. It is, on the one hand, opera-like in its dramatic continuity, its arias, its different characters. On the other hand, it is a Grand Concerto for voice and orchestra, as a single person must perform all these various functions (maintaining then the familiar concert hall confrontation between soloist and orchestra). If I were to invent a category for it, I would call Final Alice an 'Opera, written in Concert Form.'

"Of the poems used, only texts of Arias I, II and V are by Lewis Carroll (and only the poem of Aria I appears in the Alice story). Arias II and IV are the Victorian originals. The relationship between these parodies and originals I found particularly intriguing and ultimately inspiring. Arias I and II are not only Carroll texts, but also two version of the same poem: Aria II is an earlier version not appearing in Alice. Both share the same world of confused pronouns and very little sense. Further, they first line of Aria II copies the first line of Alice Gray, a sentimental song by William Mee that was popular at the time. 'Did Carroll introduce Mee's poem into the story because the song behind it tells of the unrequited love of a man for a girl named Alice?' So queries Martin Gardner in a footnote from his book 'The Annotated Alice.' Aria IV, 'Still more Evidence,' an extended setting of the poem Alice Gray, is my answer. What moved me here was the desire not just to set the words 'at face value,' but rather to capture and convey the feelings those words must have aroused in the breast of the shy Oxford don. 'Disillusioned,' the second Victorian original, imitates closely the meter of Alice Gray, but grotesquely distorts and mocks its sentiment. It is a cracked mirror-image; a devil's version of the angels' Alice. These two poems, Alice Gray and Disillusioned, are set side by side to music of the most violent contrast, as Aria III, 'Contradictory Evidence.'

"Aria V is a setting of the concluding poem from the second Alice book, Through the Looking Glass. This poem is an acrostic, the initial letters of the lines spelling out the name of the 'real' Alice (ALICE PLEASANCE LIDDELL).

"Final Alice tells two stories at once; primary is the actual tale of Wonderland itself, with all its bizarre and unpredictable happenings. All of these are painted as vividly as possible. But 'reading between the lines,' as it were, is the implied love story of Lewis Carroll and Alice Liddell, as suggested by the poems Alice Gray and the Acrostic Song. By introducing these additional poems into the Trial as depositions of evidence, given by the White Rabbit (acting as a kind of chief prosecutor), I wished to bring that love story closer to the surface — not so much as to disturb the amusing, eccentric, sometimes terrifying story as it goes on and on in its inexorable fashion — but enough to leave a recognition; to add what one might call the human dimension of the man, seen only intermittently to be sure, but (one hopes) always affectingly, perhaps lingering in memory after the dream of Wonderland itself has faded."

"Possibly the most valuable product of our Bicentennial celebrations, Final Alice speaks articulately in a modern musical language, with an easy, old-fashioned accent. Or is it the other way around? It doesn't matter.
"What does matter is that Del Tredici, in his most grandiose 'Alice' setting, has created a work of broad and immediate appeal, a work of wit and whimsy and poignance too, a beguiling jumble of lyricism, satire and not-so-mock melodrama.
"Along the way, he does some virtuoso juggling of several tables of stylistic contents: bravura arias, recitatives, Sprechgsang, coloratura burlesque, magnificently orchestrated pandemonium, scrambled Strauss (Richard), weird punctuation by synthetic Theremin plus infusions of folksy exotica, subtle quotations, sentimental ditties and Vitorian parodies — all made to co-exist with a poetic logic that defies reason. It is bizarre and wonderful."

"When the last stroke died away at the Chicago Symphony concert, the audience broke into sustained applause which quickly grew into a standing ovation. Cheers and bravos mingled with the handclaps. The performers repeatedly were summoned back to the stage. All the way from Orchestra Hall to the parking garage patrons could be heard humming snatches of the music and expressing their delight. It was the most enthusiastic reception of a new work that I have ever heard at a symphony concert."

"...the main business of the evening was David Del Tredici's witty, outrageous, bumptious, brilliant Final Alice. Teetering as it does between 'magic places' and 'dull reality,' Final Alice is one of the best things to happen to music in a long time."

"The performance under Eugene Ormandy reinforced my opinion that Final Alice is most likely the finest American concert work written in the past decade. Calling it a 'concert work,' though, may be misleading. Del Tredici has thrown virtually every facet of music-making save stagecraft into his 63-minute Whatchamacallit.
"Rarely has any composer tried to do so much; almost never has one succeeded so well. Final Alice is a masterpiece."

"...a truly unique composition that may well be ranked among the most significant musical works of our time. Final Alice is a strange but successful mixture of recitation, melodrama, song cycle, and symphonic suite that is one of the most exciting contemporary pieces produced in recent years. The music is in perfect accord with the text — delightfully mad, and yet always having some logical basis for its aberration. The thematic matieral is manipulated with Wagnerian skill and portions of the score sound like some of the most beautiful moments in 'Der Rosenkavalier.'"

"Final Alice is an exhilarating experience — a brilliant gallimaufry of sounds, effects and techniques from just about everywhere — yet it sounds like the music of nobody else."

"People were coming out of Carnegie Hall humming and whistling the 'Alice' theme, Mr. Del Tredici may well have composed one of the few repertory works for full orchestra since 1950."

"...it has immediate appeal as theatre and as music. The orchestral writing is layered and full of simultaneous events that suggest chaos, madness, the oddity of Alice's growing. But for all that, the effect is one of clarity and simplicity. Even the elaborate fugue near the end is transparent in its elements and its expression. "Del Tredici has incorporated much of the current lexicon of musical means in his work, and he has succeeded in producing a work with a quality that few contemporary works seek — charm."

"The basic thematic material of Final Alice is an irresistibly lilting tune that is, like Diabelli's innocuous little waltz, wholly deceptive in its apparent simplicity. For during the hour's length of the piece Del Tredici develops, stretches, fractures, fugues, and ultimately apotheosizes that tune. It is abundant and unabashed music; despite the undercurrents of adult knowledge in it, it is an ode to joy."

"As Chicago's entry in the bicentennial sweepstakes it received its world premiere in October 1976 and has since that time garnered as much (or more) praise as any musical composition written in the latter half of this century.
"There is no question that Del Tredici's work is a major contribution to the realm of the modern concert repertory. Del Tredici's piece communicates, it makes a virtue of virtuosity, it strikes a chord in its listeners. I would venture a guess that there were few if any in the audiences last night who would not like to hear a repeat of the performance, than which there is no truer test.
"There are many intimations here of Richard Strauss, not in the music per se but in the quality of the vibrancy, in the use of recognizable musical syntax, in the unerring use of traditional musical devices alternating with new and different ones. To know how and why to use one of the other of these, when to switch, how long to sustain, how often to reiterate, how to shape climaxes and produce exquisite contrasts, how to balance off complexity with simplicity, were Strauss's genius — and Del Tredici's."