The orchestral canon is rife with works by composers pushing back against the institutions and conventions that shaped their training, and Tyler Taylor’s Permissions continues this lineage. Written as a dissertation while studying at Indiana University, the piece combines a contemporary voice with reflections on the Romantic orchestral tradition. At once a capstone academic statement and an artistic milestone, it situates Taylor within a tradition of early-career orchestral essays while codifying the evolving voice of a young composer. 

Taylor frames Permissions as “a response to the current state of the American orchestral institution.” Its title reflects this intent in a myriad of contexts. 

Permissions breaks from the familiar model in which winds, brass, and percussion play a secondary role to the strings. Here, the winds and brass are, in the composer’s words, “granted a special kind of permission — one that would give them the opportunity to be the leaders in this scenario.” This redistribution of power reshapes the role of the strings, whose writing becomes more varied and layered. Drawing on his perspective as a horn player, Taylor foregrounds timbres he knows most intimately, creating a powerful interplay in which winds and brass influence and lead the strings from behind, establishing a continual give-and-take between sectional groups and the whole ensemble. 

The work is highly organized, built from four continuous lines or gestures that transform throughout the piece. These are introduced in the opening — a clamor of competing ideas presented “urgently over each other in a manner that makes it impossible to discern any of them individually.” At times, these lines echo with resentment or sympathy; at others, they are met with apathy. Along the way, Taylor deploys percussive punctuations and rhythmic layering. This results in both a strict structure and moments of florid, perfumed counterpoint, juxtaposed with strident, glassy harmonies. 

The play of forces unfolds across 10 minutes, beginning with an eruption of plucked strings, pinging percussion, and trilling winds that heighten the tension. Stacked brass dissonances and the rumble of timpani and bass drum set the stage for a striking contrast: a soaring solo violin in its highest register, expressive and operatic. The violin’s passion soon dissolves into glissandos that weave through the strings. Textures melt and re-form like a Dalí painting, flecked with pointillistic brass and sharp rhythmic interjections. 

New episodes emerge in quick succession, and the climax arrives not with triumph but with interruption. “The progress of the lines is cut short,” the composer explains, “by the executive action of a trio of percussion. … Their ominous warnings freeze the action of all the ensembles except the strings, who, not understanding the severity of the situation, proceed without any input from the other ensembles except the percussion’s brutal hits. Left to their own devices, they slowly evaporate.” The piece ends not with resolution but with unpredictable blows from the percussion over slowly ascending pianissimo strings. 

Permissions is at once a technical statement, a metaphor for power and leadership, and a young composer’s gambit at subverting orchestral hierarchies, embodying the push-and-pull of individuality, compromise, and conflict. While it closes without optimism, Permissions affirms Taylor’s belief that each generation must redefine its relationship to tradition — and that even the most venerable of institutions can be reimagined when new voices are permitted to lead. 

— Nicholas Landrum 

Nicholas Landrum is a composer, performer, author, and educator who serves as director of music & liturgy at the Church of the Annunciation in Minneapolis. He contributes regularly to the Minnesota Orchestra’s pre-concert talks and writes program notes for many of America’s leading ensembles. 

Composer’s Note

This piece is a response to the current state of the American orchestral institution — one which is concerned mostly with music and musical practices from the 18th and 19th centuries. This preoccupation with the music from the past, nuanced as the situation may be, has led to the perpetuation of certain ideas and attitudes that I find highly problematic. My efforts to subvert these ideas led me to each decision I made about this piece. 

Before I wrote a single note, I knew I wanted to write a piece that would grant the winds and brass a special kind of permission — one that would give them the opportunity to be the leaders in this scenario. However, instead of using them as a single unit, they are separated into several “chamber” ensembles based on certain qualities. These qualities include timbre, range, and other instrumental connotations and characteristics. These ensembles create several blended “voices,” each with their own specific musical profile that ache to be noticed, felt, heard, and acknowledged. 

Granting this special permission to the winds and brass inherently changes the way the strings participate — the strings shadow and imitate what is happening around them. Without any strong sense of unifying identity, the tutti strings are torn between the various wind and brass ensembles, resulting in a musical profile that is varied and ambiguous. To heighten the drama of this treatment of the tutti strings, the principal players of each string section are removed from their traditional position of leadership and are divided amongst the wind and brass ensembles during portions of the piece. The members of this solo string quintet move fluidly between their roles as participants in the wind and brass ensembles, as a unified ensemble in and of itself, and as the only group sympathetic to the tutti strings. … 

— from a composer’s note by Tyler Taylor