Daron Hagen :: Selected Reviews

Masquerade

double concerto for
violin, cello
and orchestra

"This four-movement work was blessed with the presence of violinist Jaime Laredo and cellist Sharon Robinson as soloists. If there ever was a poster boy for clarity and accurate tone on the violin, it's Laredo. Hagen's concerto is written as an intense dialogue between violin and cello, and these two musicians delivered. In this engaging and lightly dissonant work, the music traces an evolution from hope to lament, to a joyous end. Hagen has an affinity for writing interesting and original music for strings. It's music that takes on profound dimensions when instruments speak simultaneously. Laredo and Robinson played the four movements with their trademark robust sound. The orchestra, especially the strings, sounded taut throughout. Conductor Jackson was willing to let the music bloom, her conducting style crisp and efficient, yet filled with bursts of controlled emotional cues."

—Edward Ortiz, The Sacramento Bee, Sacramento, California, 2/19/08

"The four-movement, 30-minute Masquerade isn't quite a concerto, rather it is more like storytelling in the style of Berlioz' Harold in Italy in which the solo viola plays Harold. Here, the violin and cello are commedia dell'arte lovers in a soap opera typical of the style. The first movement, "Burlesque," in which the two fall in love and are subsequently broken apart by seduction by an intruder, dives right into the second, "Elegy," a forlorn lament for lost love. The solo violin and cello speak and sing, alone and together, in tonal language, while the orchestra provides the varying descriptions and moods with fluid tonalities.... In the third, "The Last of Pedrolino," the elderly dying character (also known as Harlequin) brings the two lovers, the violin and cello, back together, resulting in a tenderly beautiful duet, and a touching movement. In the final "Gallopade," the two reminisce about their happy childhood with an uplifting joyful romp. The work ... is superficially accessible, charming and attractive, but is complex enough that it will require repeated listenings to take it all in. The composer could not have asked for a more effective performance. Laredo and Robinson reveled in the lyricism of the work and their natural rapport achieved the musical intimacy necessary to make it work. Peters and the VSO successfully delivered the difficult score, supporting the soloists."

—Jim Lowe, The Barre Montpelier Times Argus, Burlington, VT, 5/5/08

Orpheus & Eurydice

triple concerto for
violin, cello, piano
and orchestra

"Hagen's Triple Concerto is music that's easy to appreciate at first hearing, but not because its tonal grammar talks down to the listener. Like his teacher Ned Rorem (to whose elegant craftsmanship Hagen's music owes a clear debt), the latter reimagines traditional melodic and harmonic contexts in all sorts of fresh, charming and even surprising ways. "Orpheus and Eurydice" is one piece listeners who have turned off to the dreary dissonances the modernist "serial killers" (as Rorem calls them) have been cranking out for decades should welcome with open ears. It's good news that the Amelia Trio will take the concerto to other youth and college-level orchestras. Kreston, Duckles and Aizawa make a superb team, and together they dug into the piece with a gusto and polish that did the piece proud. I cannot imagine any adult orchestra doing a more thorough job than Tinkham's fine group of preprofessional, college-bound players."

—John von Rhein, The Chicago Tribune, Chicago, Illinois, 11/20/07

Flight Music

treble chorus and
string quartet

"Daron Hagen balances aching dissonance and soothing consonance so delicately in his new 'Flight Music' that its harmonies reach beyond the ears and cause the skin to tingle. These choral settings of quotations by aviatrix Amelia Earhart advance from chord to chord not so much in functional patterns of tension and release as through a spectrum of rich and subtly shifting color. The 17 women of the superb choir [the Milwaukee Choral Artists, conducted by Sharon Hansen] fine-tuned Hagen's sky-high columns of sound. They set the overtones aglow and lighted up the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist with purely musical electricity. The women sang and Hansen conducted this difficult work with utter technical command and great sympathy for its ecstatic beauty, its meditative calm and its subtly propulsive rhythm. Earhart's texts are lumpy on the page — she can be something of a flowery aesthete on the beauty of flight — but Hagen's music ennobles them. He even makes the deadpan communication of aviation sound poetic. Such a phrase as 'We will repeat this message on six-two-one-zero kilocycles' becomes at once a meditative litany and an engine of rhythm."

—Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 11/20/05

Vera of Las Vegas

opera in one act

"Hooray for this work by the American composer Daron Hagen, whose music, smoochily played by a cabaret quartet, blends idioms — neo-Gershwin, jazz, soft rock, Broadway — with soaring melodies that send the characters looping off in arias of self-revelation. He has a gift for pastiche and musical surrealism as well as a distinctive voice for moments where words and music coincide."

—Robert Thicknesse, The Times of London, 11/04

"You cannot deny the theatrical audacity of Hagen's opera, Vera of Las Vegas, which elicited many cheers from the packed house."

—Anthony Tommasini, The New York Times 7/1/03

"Hagen is a fluent, creative, inventive composer, one whose sparkle and wit shimmer throughout the piece. From the Bernstein-like brashness of the opening bits to Doll's slow pop-ballad aria to Vera's eleventh-hour-save torch song, Hagen ... goes for broke."

—Daniel Felsenfeld, ClassicsToday.com 7/27/03

"Hagen describes the work as a 'postmodern meditation on the death of love,' but, whatever his thematic intent, the eclecticism of the music is dazzling: sharply pointed jazz lines are overlaid with slippery atonal harmony; a plaintive nineteen-seventies folk-rock ballad melds into a Broadway power anthem. Paul Muldoon's libretto is a marvel of virtuosic wordplay, exuberant, unsettling, and heroic by turns."

—The New Yorker

"Vera of Las Vegas is a gutsy, occasionally trashy cabaret opera, which details the fateful intersection of two on-the-lam IRA opertatives and a Las Vegas lap dancer who has a 'little secret' of her own."

—Time Out New York

"An entertaining and provocative opera ... The clever story mixes sleazy culture and big questions, while the contemporary music has many references to 20th century pop and stage music."

—BehindtheBeat.net

"Hagen's music wears its eclectic sources — classical, jazz, pop, rock — on its sleeve enjoyably enough for its cabaret format. The last of a two-day, sold-out, four-performance run attracted an unpretentiously hip, diverse crowd whose desire to be entertained was gratified. "

— Opera News (Online Edition)

"An emotional and very original piece of music, and altogether rather powerful."

— The Irish Literary Supplement

Duo for Violin and Cello

"A sophisticated, wide-ranging musical mind is at work here. Several of the movements are ruminations on music history. Though many allusions are highly specific and some of the sections are frankly modeled on historical precedents, Hagen is not merely aping or appropriating. He is responding, perhaps in the languages of other composers, but in his own voice and dialect. That voice is intelligent and warm; the new thoughts Hagen weaves about the idioms of Bartok, Bach, Copland, Ravel illuminate the older music and remind us of why we like it. This brainy formality is the foundation for attractive and friendly edifices. The dry wit and mock-innocent charm of the Ravel homage brings to mind the images of Paul Klee as much as impressionist music.

—Tom Strini, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/21/99

"The Duo shows us the point to which Hagen has traveled after a decade of work. This piece is even more imaginative, opening with an homage to Ravel that is very nervy indeed, considering the honoree's masterpiece in the form, which stands as a monument that every subsequent composer must face. Hagen faces it head-on with music that, while overtly Ravelian, is still very good indeed. I find the overall lyricism and invention of this work to be on a high level; the second movement — "Love Song" is an excellent example of a truly poignant melodic/harmonic sense that I suspect is a more overt window on the world of Hagen's operas than almost anything else in this collection [of Hagen string works]. The last movement is an homage to James Brown, and if the composer says so, I can't argue, but it seems far closer to Ravel than to the Hardest-Working Man in Show Business."

—Robert Carl, Fanfare Magazine, September/October 1999

"The Duo for Violin and Cello opens with an homage to Ravel's Sonata for the same combination. II is a broad, romantic "Love Song", which is further developed as IV; in between is a palindromic "Minute Scherzo" based on the same material. The Finale is another homage, this time to soul man James Brown, but here his "Gravity" becomes a syncopated figure that could have been written by Hagen himself (or Diamond or Copland, for that matter — maybe they should have been given guest appearances in the James Brown Show). The piece is very impressive and makes me curious to hear his works for string quartet."

—Gimbel, American Record Guide, September/October 1999

Susurrus

orchestra

"The world premiere of a specially commissioned 'encore' piece by the prodigiously gifted American composer Daron Hagen followed [Respighi's Feste romane] immediately. Titled 'Susurrus,' this deliciously orchestrated four-minute composition was noteworthy for its ethereal delicacy. Imagine the gentlest of ticklings, administered by a feather that is more often anticipated than actually felt."

— Tim Page, The Washington Post, 8/19/03

We're All Here

mixed chorus & ten instruments

"Soul is hard to define, but you know it when you hear it. It filled our ears, our hearts ... as Present Music premiered Daron Hagen's 'We're All Here.' Hagen's setting ... has a sense of autumnal sunset about its sentiments and colors, but 'We're All Here' is not about the dying of the light. Its golden hues glow brighter as the music passes, from murmuring embers driven by tremolo chords on the marimba to a bonfire of familial warmth at the end of the Fennimore Cooper poem, which gives the piece its name. The harmonies build to searing heat and the volume rises, but the music remains light and transparent. The climax does not crush; it glows and pulses with joy colored by a yearning for a world filled with pure and all-embracing love."

— Tom Strini, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/24/03

"An ineffably beautiful new choral work."

— Kevin Lynch, The Capital Times, 3/24/02

Seven Last Words

concerto for piano left hand and orchestra

"[Hagen's] journey cuts deeper than any specific doctrine, exploring the passage from suffering into some form of acceptance and spiritual expansion that lies at the core of human experience. [He] brought considerable gifts to this ambitious effort ... a sharp ear for orchestral color underlined vivid emotional contrasts."

—Joanna Sheehy Hoover, The Albuquerque Journal, 12/16/01

"The music, trembling and ethereal, seemed to float into the sky. Long known for his chiseled technique, Graffman played the piece's crystalline runs with every note clearly articulated. For a while, Hagen's piece took on a rhythm that reminded me of Dave Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk," and here, with the series of staccato beats, the pianist's strength really showed. At the piece's end, he dropped back, pretty much joining the orchestra and becoming one voice among many. I liked to think Hagen was implying becoming one with God (or the universe, if one wanted to leave religion out of this). "

—Mary Kunz, The Buffalo News, 2/2/02

"Flanked by the bright rationality of Haydn and Mozart, Daron Hagen's dreamy and ecstatic "Seven Last Words of Christ" didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense at Sunday's Waukesha Symphony concert.

Note that "Seven Last Words" is not a choral piece. It is a piano concerto for left hand alone, in seven connected movements spanning about 30 minutes. On first hearing, it seemed a squirming mass of through-composed gesture and color with no discernible overarching structure. The attachment of each movement to a New Testament quotation ("Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do," "Today, thou shalt be with me in Paradise," "Woman, behold your son; son, behold your mother," "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" "I thirst," "It is finished," "Father, into Thy hands I commend my Spirit") didn't help. Not in a million years would a listener connect this music with those phrases, if not directed by the concerto's title and program annotations.

For me, the words were distractions — I spent three movements searching in vain for such connections, and a couple more searching for some formal through-line. As it went on, the piece made me more and more skeptical, almost to the point of exasperation. Finally, I gave up rational engagement and resorted to simply taking in the fantastical riot of wailing Middle Eastern scales, rumblings from the bowels of the piano, chorale-fanfares from the brass, high harmonics in the violins, chants from the low strings, tubular bells clanging, bass drum banging, and much more.

A funny thing happened at the end, as the music evaporated into a mist of ethereal strings. I couldn't say why, as the architecture of the piece never became clear to me, but "Seven Last Words" suddenly came to feel dramatically and emotionally satisfying. Surely, that had something to do with the fiercely committed, commanding performance of soloist Joel Fan, conductor Alexander Platt and the members of the Waukesha Symphony Orchestra, who brought Hagen's gestures and colors to full shape and hue.

The mad religious ecstasy of "Seven Last Words" contrasted sharply with the earthy, sensible joys of Haydn's Symphony No. 104.

—Tom Strini, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, 1/28/07

Fire Music

orchestra

"Fire Music [performed by the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall] is violent in a benign and appealing way. Its rhythmic energy and hard, shiny sound jump out and pounce. The chorale-like center is played on a vibraphone, maintaining the coolness of the sound. Choruses of brass instruments babble and chatter among themselves. ...It has a bright, forward charm."

— Bernard Holland, The New York Times, 3/17/04

"Tonal, except for a brief middle section of aural splurts and splotches, it is a big, bold, glittery affair built on multifaceted techniques and nods to Bartokian rhythms here, Janacek brass there, a lush melodic string line elsewhere, moments of clever counterpoint and complex manipulation of harmonies against a kaleidoscope of muted figurations."

—Donna Perlmutter, The Los Angeles Times, 3/30/92

"Hagen's score starts fast and never lets up in its demands. When Hagen doesn't call for speed, he requires sensitivity. When he doesn't demand power, he insists on delicacy. Notes are tossed back and forth around the orchestra. All the effects worked (although the shattering of the glass had to be electronically amplified)."

—David Levinson, Press-Telegram, Los Angeles, 3/30/92

"The [St. Louis Symphony] tossed off its intricate, cross-cutting rhythms without apparent difficulty, while a listener could be absorbed in its multi-level structure."

—John Huxhold, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 12/2/95

Much Ado

orchestra

"What helped this sometimes dazzling piece to succeed was Hagen's clever way of introducing new ideas or textures every few bars.... Much Ado served as a nifty appetizer to a carefully designed evening of good vibrations. This was, after all, the season-opener."

—Alan Bostick, The Tennessean, 9/5/03.

"An uncommonly audacious romp. ...Hagen's sound is mostly large and rich, marked by a steady pulse driving intricately lively textures that recall both the Renaissance lute and Charlie Parker's saxophone. Amid this lusty turbulence swim long, strong brass melodies that rise, and disappear, and rise again. Hagen quotes a line from Shakespeare's comedy that also fits his own work: 'What a merry, exhilarating play.' Much Ado was a beautifully chosen piece for this orchestra in this hall, filling the venue's space with vital energy."

--Marcel Smith, Nashville Scene, 12/11/03

Joyful Music

mixed chorus, mezzo-soprano, and orchestra

"Joyful Music grabbed attention instantly as the trumpet set out alone on an extended syncopated line that would build into a complex force throughout the work. Vibes, flute and soon many instruments all resounded around and through each other, almost verging on a brilliant chaos with no singer to be heard. Then her voice appeared, with a startling change of key, like the sound of a mother goddess demanding her many children to shush and listen. But Kitt Reuter-Foss quickly shifted to a warm, lyrical manner. And so the fluid 14-minute work grew, with a welter of contrapuntal lines rising in a lyrical mood to sudden and swerving key shifts. These changes marked the music's sumptuous form and character, as if this were all deep, shifting waves of the spirit. It felt like music of the present, uncertain and complex in its undercurrents, but driven by massed human forces that would muddle, rise again, persevere and rejoice for staying afloat. There are still untold depths of spirit to summon up here in America, as Joyful Music revealed."

—Kevin Lynch, The Capital Times, Madison, WI, 12/6/93

Bandanna

full-length opera

"Hagen not only composed this opera, but conducts it as well. From the outset, I'll state that the performances and production values are superlative, that the instrumentalists and chorus from the University of Nevada Las Vegas never seem short of professionalism, despite their student status, and I doubt any opera's recorded premeire could be better than this. Henry Fogel has already reviewed this piece ... he feels it's a masterpiece, and it was on his 2006 Want List. Hagen is an extremely savvy and lyrical compsoer. His text setting is great for highlighting the strengths of each vocal type, and it leads to almost flawless English enunciation. One of the work's greatest coups is the orchestration, which is for wind ensemble. The result is so fluent one really doesn't ever miss the strings, and it's a great argument for this to be done far more often, especially considering the great logistical burdens new oepras face. ... The overall result is dramatically sure and lyrically compelling.

—Robert Carl, Fanfare, May/June 2007

"Daron Hagen's opera Bandanna received its European premiere in the somewhat unlikely surroundings of the Parr Hall, Warrington, on 29 April. ... Hagen's vocal writing is masterful. His use of the wind orchestra is equally stunning, to the point where one was never aware of a wind band, but simply of dramatic music. He brilliantly explores the various ensembles within the band, which not only gives the ear welcome changes of colour but also creates a lightness of texture which rarely overpowered the voices. Were the performance given in a theatre with the orchestra in the pit, the balance, which was generally excellent, would have been perfect throughout. The musical language is a very individual one, with Puccini-esque grand gestures alternating with positively modernist orchestration, all in perfect support of the drama. I particularly enjoyed his use of the mariachi band and was deeply moved by the serene final soprano aria set with three solo violins. ... For me, the highlight was to see [the orchestra and chorus] so engaged, with many in tears in the final scene. This was, after all, a modern opera, yet it spoke directly to each and every player and singer. Putting this on with a community band in Warrington was nothing short of insane. After the composer, the hero of the evening was Mark Heron. His vision, determination, organisation, musical brilliance and sheer ambition (for his band, not for himself) gave all present a night they shall never forget. The boundaries of the community band in Britain have been truly shattered and a very healthy audience was there to witness it."

—Clark Rundell, CBDNA Journal, Fall 2006

"Bandanna is a banner of triumph! Hagen's descriptive music soars and swells, invoking tender hopefulness in Mona's prayer of faith, while also describing the intense emotions of the distraught Miguel with discordant chord structuring and rhythmic patterns ... this opera should be destined to become a standard in the repertoire. "

—Carolyn Wardele, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 3/4/00

"Hagen's masterful score captures the rage, intrigue, and tender resignation of the tale."

—Jerry Young, Austin American Statesman, 2/99

"You will find Bandanna's weave most intricate."

—Andrew Osborn, Boston Review, 3-4/99

"Sonorous, highly-varied, rhythmically gripping, dramatic music; one can scarcely imagine another living composer pulling it off."

—Clarino Magazine, Germany

"The drama is powered by a strong emotional thrust, most of it conveyed in the form of popular song, and leads to a shattering climax."

—Read Ireland Book Reviews, Ireland

Philharmonia

orchestra

"Thursday night's New York Philharmonic program was notable for an interesting new fanfare by Daron Hagen. Mr. Hagen's Philharmonia features antiphonal solo trumpets and repeated-note tremors. The latter appear out of the orchestra's various sections, each time bearing a different weight and color. A balance is struck between strident announcement and a wider, more variegated symphonic display. This is a successful piece, one that uses its virtuoso performers wisely."

—Bernard Holland, The New York Times, 10/20/92

"Like everything else by Hagen I've encountered, Philharmonia (A Fanfare) moves with a surety and naturalness that shows the hand of an experienced craftsman. It is eclectic, but it is linear; it has a glittering surface but there is substance beneath; it is dense with events, yet it never seems cluttered. I would welcome the opportunity to hear it again."

—Tim Page, New York Newsday, 10/20/92

"Commissioned for the Philharmonic's 150th anniversary, [Philharmonia] is a notably substantial work for its kind. Its very elaborate, especially in its quadraphonic brass writing. The bold sonics beckoned hearing more of Hagen's music."

—Bill Zakariasen, New York Daily News, 10/20/92

Shining Brow

full-length opera

"Shining Brow is one of the most important American operas of the past decade. Don't miss it."

—John von Rhein, Chicago Tribune, 7/27/97

"Hagen skirts the ahistoricism of popular Broadway styles without throwing in contemporary distractions simply to show the flag."

—Philip Kennicott, The St. Louis Post Dispatch, 7/31/97

"From the evidence of Shining Brow, the Milwaukee-born Hagen is a composer born to write operas."

—John Von Rhein, American Record Guide, July/August 1993

"Mr. Hagen is a wizard at ornamentation, at form without function, at rhapsodic revellings in rhapsodic Strauss, at A-minor monologues, at perky orchestration, at blues and hymn and barbershop."

—Paul Griffiths, The New Yorker, 5/17/93

"Hagen's music makes no errors. And like the stronger stretches in the theater and concert music of, say, Dominick Argento and John Harbison, he sustains the idea of non-minimalist tonality as a still-viable medium. At one point, two characters meet for a painful reconciliation; they stand motionless and leave it to the orchestra to pour out softly Hagen's most moving music. The show was an event."

—Leighton Kerner, The Village Voice, 5/5/93

"[Shining Brow] is a daring venture on the part of several bright young talents. The entire enterprise exuded intelligence. Mr. Hagen has a gift for the big tune, and he serves up some beauties in the choruses, evoking the blues and a Colonial hymn. Mr. Hagen is most interesting when he assaults the ear roundly or falls squarely back on tradition. The musical texture is well varied and consistently engaging. http://daronhagen.com. One scene in particular, evoking a disastrous news conference held by Wright on Christmas 1911 to explain his relationship to Cheney despite his continuing marriage to Catherine, was utterly brilliant."

—James R. Oestreich, The New York Times, 4/28/93

"Shining Brow deserves the Pulitzer Prize for three reasons: It is a quintessentially American opera (you won't find such a ravishingly beautiful hymn to work and craft in any German, Italian, or French opera). Its libretto is unusually inventive and poetic, rich in repetitive motifs and allusions. The music is by turns soaringly lyrical and wrenchingly dramatic. More to the point, it is that rarest of all finds: an enduring piece of contemporary repertoire."

—Jacob Stockinger, The Capital Times, Madison, WI, 5/6/93

Oboe Concerto

string orchestra

"The concerto is tuneful and accessible, but formally smart and harmonically spicy. The solo part is virtuosic but within reach of most professionals. The first movement, built on germinal, interlocking figures in flowing 6/8 time, is especially engaging. Hagen builds his harmony from aggregates of the melodic figure, which yields a lot of comforting triads and enough tense, closely voiced chords to give the music an edge. Hagen relieves that pressure with open, Coplandesque consonances that blow in like cool, fresh breezes. A brief solo meditation for oboe links the first movement to the second, a sweetly beautiful cradle song that crept out of the room before it could be fully absorbed."

—Tom Strini, Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, 8 November, 2000

Wedding Dances

symphonic band

"A terrific new work...."

—Barry Kilpatrick, American Record Guide, March, 2000

"...The [piece] includes two waltzes, a rumba, a tango, a 1950's rock-n-roll song, and a concluding ballad. This arrangement uses optional endings so that each dance can be performed separately or as a whole. The percussion scoring requires a minimum of five players doubling on equipment that includes a drum set. The varied and transparent scoring includes many solo opportunities for flute, oboe, alto and tenor saxophone, and trumpet."

—John Thomson, Winds Magazine

Light Fantastic

cantata for tenor, two part chorus, and ten instruments

"The real spine-tingling music came in the second section, a rhapsodic description of sunset by Walt Whitman that Hagen's music catches perfectly. Mysteriously, the music sounds at once dangerously intimate and impossibly distant, with yearning harmonies underlying a popular-sounding melody."

—David Lewellen, Canton Repository, Akron-Canton, Ohio, 11/27/99

Songs of Madness & Sorrow

for tenor & 14 instruments

" I sense that Hagen found plenty of inspiration when composing it. It is mesmerizing."

—Kilpatrick, American Record Guide, 11-12/04

"A riveting one-man opera and a dialogue with a forgotten past that feels strangely familiar in our own time."

--Frank Oteri, NewMusicBox, 10/04

Bandanna Overture

band

"...This work is challenging and noble. The percussion scoring is especially demanding and includes unison vibraphone and marimba lines doubling the opening woodwind scoring. Structured in four large sections with numerous meter and tonal changes, this piece will definitely challenge performers."

—James W. Lambert, Winds Magazine

"Well written and resourcefully scored, [it] should become a staple of the wind repertory."

—James Story, Fanfare Magazine, January/February 2002

Qualities of Light

solo piano

"A dazzling piece ... that should prove a welcome addition to the repertory. It will please audiences with its colorful accessibility and pianists for its virtuosic writing. The harmonic range is wide, from the dark dissonance of II to the unabashedly tonal romanticism of the big tune in the middle of the finale. The opening, 'Dusk', is spare and lonely, in a style that seems highly personal; the other two movements recall Messiaen in their modal harmony, wide-spacing voicing, percussive pass, and brilliant showers of notes raining down from the treble."

—Sullivan, American Record Guide, November/December, 1999

"Hagen ...appears to be an interesting postmodern voice reminiscent of no other composer except, perhaps, Olivier Messiaen. Clearly, Hagen's notion of tonality is a far more vague concept than Barber's."

—Walter Simmons, Fanfare Magazine, July, 1999

"Hagen's three-movement work ... isn't typical sweet night-music. Tonal is the word to describe Dusk, the work's first movement. But if Built Up Dark is a case of the night terrors that ends badly, Gloaming comes as the gentle antidote."

—Peter Dobrin, Philadelphia Inquirer, 8/9/99

Symphony No. 3

orchestra

"The symphony opens with a movement titled Profanation, in which Hagen juxtaposes fragmented sounds and ideas.... The movement unfolds into a powerfulmosaic of sharp-edged, brilliant shards of sound. Although the piece culminates in a strong finale, via a third movement, titled Paean, it is the second movement, titled Prayer, that listeners are likely to recall long after the concert is over. Prayer is an elegant, contemplative fugue based on the Christmas carol O Come, O Come Emmanuel. Hagen displays his mastery of both orchestration and contrapuntal writing here. But, more importantly, he writes a deeply moving piece of music."

—Elaine Schmidt, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal, 4/29/98

Symphony No. 2

orchestra

"...Big, exuberant, brashly scored and infectiously enjoyable."

—John von Rhein, The Chicago Tribune, 11/23/88

"....bright, lively, accessible, amusing and contemporary without being in any way difficult for the sophisticated listener. The Chicago Symphony might find it an ideal encore for their next tour."

—Robert C. Marsh, The Chicago Sun-Times, 11/21/88

"The music beguiles by its instrumentation. It is chunky in its chordal tendencies, pixieish in intent."

—Barbara Zuck, The Columbus Dispatch, 10/6/90

"....showed a firm compositional hand in its structural logic and conviction of utterance, a sensitive ear in the delicately transparent textures, and a sure heart in the soaring melodies it ultimately yielded."

—Nancy Miller, The Milwaukee Sentinal, 8/6/88

"[The last movement] begins with a meandering harp solo with just enough pointed dissonance to place it on the cusp between arpeggio and melody. In a string of solos for cello, oboe, and trumpet, material first heard in the harp mutates into a lush adagio melody that peaks in a statement by the violins. A lively, carnival-like theme enters, distantly at first, like an approaching parade. As this theme "nears," it becomes clear that it is in a competing key, and there is a long bi-tonal episode as it "passes." When the carnival tune fades away, gentle music based on the harp material brings the piece to a quiet, satisfying conclusion.

—Tom Strini, The Milwaukee Journal, 4/20/90

"[The final movement] is a 15-minute orchestral adagio reminiscent in modest terms of those of late Mahler and Prokofiev.... Melodies were elegantly spun, episodes flowed coherently into one another, and textures remained clear even during employment of the entire orchestra."

—Nancy Raabe, The Milwaukee Sentinel, 4/20/90

"[The finale], in its local premiere [by the New York Philharmonic], combined different thematic material to weave its multi-hued textures, which range from sparse and subtly- drawn to opulent and boldly glittering. Some melodies are dangerously beautiful - Hagen teeters on the edge of sugary, but never falls in."

—Susan Elliot, The New York Post, 7/30/90

"[The finale's] melodic profusion and playful ebullience were a welcome tonic after the dourness of the [other] works. Hagen's piece opens and closes with an extended solo for the harp. [It has an] appealing palette of orchestral colors. Toward the middle, the piece turns into an extended Straussian circus...."