Deemed “Brooklyn’s post-millenial Mozart” (Time Out New York) and “among the most inventive and surprising composers working today” (The New York Times), GRAMMY®-nominated composer Missy Mazzoli has established herself as “the 21st century’s gatecrasher of new classical music” (NPR). She has been commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Symphony, LA Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Opera Comique, Scottish Opera, and Opera Philadelphia, among many others, and artists who have championed her work include the Kronos Quartet, Emmanuel Ax, and Jennifer Koh, and more. Her 2026-27 season includes the world premiere of two operas, Lincoln in the Bardo at The Metropolitan Opera (the first opera by a woman to be solely commissioned and premiered by The Met) and The Galloping Cure at the Edinburgh International Festival, and a new piano concerto for Leif Ove Andsnes to be premiered by the New York Philharmonic and Elbphilharmonie Orchester.
Missy Mazzoli
Dissolve, O my Heart (2010)
Dissolve, O my Heart has its roots in a late-night conversation over Chinese food and cupcakes with violinist Jennifer Koh. She told me about her Bach & Beyond project, a program that combines Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas with newly commissioned works, and asked if I would write a piece that referenced Bach’s Partita in D Minor. This request was, to put it mildly, utterly terrifying; the last movement of the Partita, the Chaconne, is undoubtably the most famous piece of solo violin literature in the world. It overwhelmed Brahms, has been subject to hundreds of transcriptions and arrangements over the past two centuries, and is dizzying in its contrapuntal complexity. But something about Jennifer’s enthusiasm was infectious, and I agreed to the project before I realized what I was getting myself into. Jennifer seemed to approach Bach through the lens of contemporary music, and I realized that this was what this new piece should do as well.
Dissolve, O my Heart begins with the first chord of Bach’s Chaconne, a now-iconic d minor chord, and spins out from there into an off-kilter series of chords that doubles back on itself, collapses and ultimately dissolves in a torrent of fast passages. The only direct quote from the Partita is that first chord, which anchors the entire piece even as it threatens to spiral out of control. The title comes from an aria in the St. John’s Passion, but has many potential interpretations. Dissolve, O my Heart was commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic and was premiered in 2011 as part of their Green Umbrella Series in Disney Hall.
— Missy Mazzoli