Program Note

Ever Upward! The word “excelsior” today has been used as university mottos, state seals, and even hotel names. We associate it with striving for greatness or to pursuing great aspirations. When H. W. Longfellow wrote his 1841 poem however, he used it to mean stubbornness, hubris, and eventually death. The poem tells the tale of a lone wanderer who ignores the warnings of the villagers along his path to ascend a great mountain, shouting “excelsior!” as a declaration of intent. The wanderer would succumb to the mountain however, and the villagers could still hear “excelsior!” in the wind off the mountain. In the opening of the piece, we hear a short motif. It is heroic but flawed and mimics the stress of the word “excelsior”. This motif is repeated several times in stubbornness. We can then hear the groan of the mountain and the objection from the villagers as the wanderer begins their ascent, starting from the bottom of the range of the tuba. As the wanderer climbs higher and higher, the motif begins to break down and even break rhythmically and becomes distorted, leading all the way to a final push to the top. After the climax, we can hear the ghost of Excelsior in the wind.

Performances

May 2, 2026 John A. Paulson Center, New York University, Manhattan, NY. Elihu Conant-Haque.

November 23, 2025 John A. Paulson Center, New York University, Manhattan, NY. Elihu Conant-Haque.