Peter Westergaard
Mr. & Mrs. Discobbolos

"My second opera, Mr. & Mrs. Discobbolos, a chamber opera after Edward Lear (1965), was started while I was on a Guggenheim grant in 1964-1965 and was finished just in time for the first rehearsal in 1966. It was first performed by the Group for Contemporary Music on March 21, 1966, in Macmillan Theater at Columbia University. The score bears the dedication "to my wife and children."

The manuscript of the Divertimento on Discobbolic Fragments quotes these lines from Mr. & Mrs. Discobbolos:
        And all the Discobbolos family flew
        In thousands of bits to the sky so blue
My starting point on the composition of the Divertimento was the various bits and pieces of music that I had left over after the completion of the opera, and many of the compositional procedures I used were ones I had explored in the process of composing the opera but had put aside as the single-minded qualities of the opera began to take shape in my mind. (The original title had been "Divertimento on Discobbolic Remains," which -- despite its acuracy -- seemed a little too gruesome in view of what happens to the whole of the clan Discobbolos.) The piece is in six movements and was dedicated to my friends and, at the time, colleagues at Columbia University, Harvey Sollberger and Charles Wuorinen, who first performed it in 1967.

Peter Westergaard, from the notes for a CD of his music, CRI CD 696, 1995; it includes:

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