Program Note:

A deceptively ingratiating, unexpectedly consequential piece from Hagen’s student years, the Divertimento brings superb craftsmanship and a wealth of moods and narrative approaches to an unorthodox instrumental grouping. The opening movement, Mazurka, is marked “gracious, charming,” and is in seven, rather than the customary three beats per bar. (A quarter century later, Hagen revisited this movement, revised and expanded it, and included it as the first movement of his third piano trio.) An Aubade is a poem or song of or about lovers separating at dawn; this one is marked 'breezy' and lasts sixty seconds. (Hagen returned to it for the song, I'll sing a song to my love from the song cycle Letting Go a decade later.) Meditation begins with the marking “extroverted” and continues with a contrasting section marked “introverted” before concluding with a section that combines the two moods. Owl Light (marked “scarcely heard, veiled”) features a rolling ostinato in the harp and a languid, pensive melody in the viola.  The sixty-second companion movement to Aubade follows: the other shoe drops in the quizzical Finding Out, a tense collage of three discrete ideas. (Hagen added this movement to the suite sometime in March 2018 during a working stay in Nicaragua.). The Divertimento wraps up with Riffs for Les, which rings changes on an eight bar 'head' by Hagen’s first composition teacher, Les Thimmig. Hagen writes, “Around Christmas 1984 I was living in Philadelphia when I had word that Les had just become a father. I immediately sketched out the eight-bar head of a number from Les’ Stanzas, Book V from memory and composed some choruses on it, which I then sent off to him under the title Merry Christmas, it’s a Boy.” Divertimento was written for percussionist Charles Ross, harpist Therese Elder, and violist Lisa Ponton, who premiered it at the Curtis Institute of Music on April 13th, 1984.