Music for Cello and Orchestra (1984)

After a strikingly dramatic opening, this one-movement work is in three contrasting sections…. The piece is brilliantly scored, using far more percussion than one usually hears in a piece for cello solo. Tower has written so cleverly that there are huge climaxes, but the cello is never overwhelmed…. This [piece] seems like an eminently worthwhile addition to the cello repertory and I predict we will be hearing it again.

Joan Tower’s “Music for Cello and Orchestra” [has an] angular sense of drama, bright primary colors and edge-of-the-chair intensity…. Miss Tower’s piece, to borrow a phrase from Gertrude Stein, does not repeat, but insists. Repetitive figures in shifting instrumental colors begin it, but the movement is constantly altered by subtle changes of rhythm and phrase length.

…At the end, Miss Tower’s colors turned even brighter and more fierce—with high-pitched wind and percussion chords and evocative uses of mallet percussion instruments. “Music for Cello and Orchestra,” a busy, tense, and very effective piece, is dedicated to Mr. [Andre] Emelianoff, Mr. [Gerald] Schwartz, and the Y Chamber Symphony.