Nova

Press and Program Notes

Nova was premiered by The Manhattan Quintet at Carnegie Recital Hall on September 27, 1979. Nova (short for Nova Scotia salmon) was composed during the summer of 1979 on a commission from the Manhattan Quartet as a companion piece for Schubert's Trout Quintet, hence the instrumentation: violin, viola, cello, bass, and piano.

Nova
Notes about the Composition

The composer/conductor John Adams wrote, in 1984:

"Picker's music rests firmly in the serial tradition. Unlike the scores of his contemporaries, it is freer and more flexible and it conveys a spontaneity of gesture all too often missing in other recent twelve-tone music. Picker is not an abstract theorist but rather a practical and practicing craftsman. He knows how to make the instruments sound well. One gets the impression of a music which fits perfectly the nature of the instrument. Nova, to date his most successful work, shares the easy-going, bouncy good humor of its Schubertian ancestor. Its rhythmic profile is clean and well-articulated, giving the already attractive tonal palette a fresh, almost breezy energy."

In an article for the San Francisco Chronicle on December 19, 1981, Robert Commanday wrote:

"...Betraying no hint of whimsy in his manner, Tobias Picker of New York, 27 years old and already a much honored composer, gave a fishy explanation of his quintet, Nova (1979) -- at least of the title. "Of course, it refers to lox," he said, as in Nova Scotia salmon. "The piece was commissioned by a group of friends who formed in order to play Schubert's Trout Quintet and this was its companion piece."

""It didn't occur to name it after a fish until it was finished. I thought for days about what fish to name it. No, not Hamilton Fish. I'm not a political composer. The people who didn't pick up the joke thought I meant the star, and others thought I meant the car. It's really whimsical. It's a piece which swims along."

""The composition of it also went swimmingly. Usually writing a piece is a tremendous operation. The spirit of the Trout contributed but it wasn't particularly in my mind and my piece is short by comparison, 10 to 12 minutes, in three movements."

"Carrying the metaphor along, it turns out that Nova was spawned by another Picker work written four years before. "That piece was transformed into an entirely new piece (Nova), not a rewrite, all different," he explained. "The source wouldn't be recognizable, except to me.""

The New Yorker
Andrew Porter

"...Nova was planned as a companion piece, in forces, to Schubert's Trout Quintet... That's why it's named for a form of fish. (When -- if -- Nova is played in Paris, the joke will need a footnote.) The piece, in three movements, and lasting ten minutes, is thoroughly enjoyable -- rich, exuberant, unschematic. I don't understand what makes this young composer tick but do know that I like his music. It flows forth -- uninhibited, unconventional, accessible, yet not undisciplined. It's not exactly "like" anything else. Nova lived along every instrumental line, and held the attention."

The New York Times
Joseph Horowitz

"...Mr. Picker's Nova, which was commissioned by the Manhattan Quintet, is the work of an ardent, skillful young composer with something to say. It lasts 12 minutes, and falls into three connected movements. The brisk sections have a protean vigor, but even where the pace is slower, a great deal is going on. As in the music of Elliott Carter, who was one of Mr. Picker's teachers, the ear is gripped by an evolving, nonrepetitive fabric, moved forward by a steady energy source. A sorrowful chorale -- shades of Berg's Violin Concerto -- provides an unexpected, ineffable close.

San Francisco Examiner
Richard Pontrious

"...Picker's Nova, short for Nova Scotia salmon, written in 1979 as a companion piece to Schubert's Trout Quintet, deserves an immediate place in the repertoire right next to the Schubert...Nova is a refreshing blend of contemporary and traditional compositional styles. It is bright, alive, and writen with the kind of transparency one expects to find in a Mozart quartet. Most impressive, however, is its honesty. The music works because it relies on itself, not on extraneous devices or effects.

"Nova was brilliantly performed by a quartet of [San Francisco] Symphony strings, with the composer at the piano."

San Francisco Chronicle
Robert Commanday

"Nova, an attractive chamber work by Tobias Picker, made an appealing impression in this performance by violinist Jorja Fleezanis, violist Geraldine Walther, cellist David Goldblatt, bassist Michael Burr, with the composer at the piano.

"The fluid, often decorative action of the piano, the pace and grace of the music's conversational quality do carry out the work's intended relationship to Schubert's Trout Quintet. There's a fine melodious touch in the work, a peppy and buoyant rhythm, and keen reference without the anguish, more sweet than bitter. Whatever more personal a reference Picker may have had in mind, this coda ended Nova on a gesture of affection for music he has loved, simply that."