Ballad in Yellow
(1998)
Duration:
5 min.
Premiere:
1 December 1997
HERE, New York
Robert Helps, piano
Dedication:
dedicated to Robert Helps
Program Note:
Ballad in Yellow is a transcription of a song I wrote to a Garcia Lorca poem. The pianist-composer Robert Helps, upon hearing the premiere of the song, said to me, "I wish, David, that that song was a piano solo. I'd love to play it" The moment he said this, I realized that a piano arrangement would require little alteration: I simply removed the vocal line and added a more pianistic ending. Needless to say, the piece is dedicated to Robert Helps, who played the premiere.
- David Del Tredici, 2001
Press:
"Ballad in Yellow" is beguilingly romantic.
-Budmen, American Record Guide, Vol. 68, No. 4, July/August 2005
The second half featured Mr. Del Tredici's unabashedly rhapsodic "Ballad in Yellow".
-Jeremy Eichler, The New York Times, Friday, June 10, 2005
Next to it, on the other hand, was "Ballad in Yellow," often sounding as if written by a Schumann who had lived few years longer than 1856, picked up some new harmonies along the way and had — to quote Count Basie's comment on bebop — "put mink coats on the chords."
-Bernard Holland, The New York Times, Monday, September 10, 2007
