Night of the Flying Horses
Osvaldo Golijov
About the Composer
Born December 5, 1960, Osvaldo Golijov grew up in an Eastern European Jewish household in La Plata, Argentina. He was raised surrounded by classical chamber music, Jewish liturgical and klezmer music, and the works of Argentine tango composer Astor Piazzolla. Golijov began his musical studies with piano at the local conservatory in La Plata, and in 1983 moved to Israel to study at the Jerusalem Rubin Academy, where he immersed himself in the colliding musical traditions of the city. In 1986 he moved to the United States to pursue his Ph.D. at the University of Pennsylvania under the tutelage of George Crumb. Golijov spent the summer of 1990 studying with Oliver Knussen as a fellow at the Tanglewood Music Center. Currently, he serves as the Loyola Professor of Music at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.
Golijov’s output includes music for orchestra, chamber ensemble, opera, chorus, and film. He has received numerous commissions from prestigious groups in both the United States and Europe, and is the recipient of many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship (1995), a MacArthur Fellowship (2003), and two Grammy Awards (2007). In his music you can hear the amazing tapestry of cultures and sounds that he has experienced during his life; it is this facet of his output that has earned him a reputation and as a champion of diverse musical traditions.
About the Music
Written in 2002, Night of the Flying Horses, weaves together many of Golijov’s distinct compositional elements. Golijov originally wrote its opening Yiddish lullaby for Sally Potter’s 2000 film The Man Who Cried. The film centers itself around a love story between a young Jewish woman and a young Romani man and provides an incredible canvas for Golijov to explore two diverse cultures with his music. Eventually the opening lullaby transforms into dark doina (a Romani slow, rubato genre) featuring the lowest string of the violas. The doina eventually gives way to fast gallop with a central theme that, according to Golijov, “[he] stole from [his] friends of the wild gypsy band Taraf de Haïdouks.” The gallop climaxes into a canonical chase that pits two groups of the orchestra against one another and features many distinct elements, like pitch-bending, from the represented folk traditions. In this hauntingly beautiful work, Golijov seamlessly blends the music of the Yiddish and Romani traditions and takes his audience on a journey through a very special kind of dreamland.
Note by Christina Dioguardi