Cuatro Concertinos

From his arrival in Puerto Rico in 1976 until his unexpected passing in 2005, maestro Roberto Milano devoted himself entirely to his creative and pedagogical endeavors, leaving behind a vast repertoire spanning nearly every musical genre, and a large group of disciples who have distinguished themselves in the field of composition.

He received his musical training in New York, his native city, where he graduated from the Manhattan School of Music. He then fulfilled his military service as a professor at the US Navy Music School. He continued his studies in musicology at the City University of New York, in theology at the George Mercer School of Theology, and in pedagogy at Columbia University.

He visited Puerto Rico at the invitation of friends and later decided to settle on the island, serving as cultural advisor to the Municipality of San Juan, where he promoted the founding of the Youth Symphony Orchestra of the capital city. In 1981, he was ordained as a priest of the Puerto Rican Episcopal Church and helped found the Institute of Sacred Music to develop liturgical music in churches of all denominations.

After teaching for a few years at the Interamerican University of Puerto Rico, in 1995 he joined the faculty of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music, where he helped revitalize the composition department. A composer by trade, he dedicated himself on his own initiative to composing for the institution’s ensembles, from elementary to advanced levels, and also for the faculty. At the time of his sudden departure, he left more than a dozen works unperformed.

Milano’s work presents two constant themes: first, the worship of God, manifested not only in his sacred works but also in much of his secular music; and second, an aesthetic pragmatism, akin to Gebrauchsmusik, that compelled him to create works for immediate use and in a style comprehensible to the average listener.

The four concertinos for wind instruments and string orchestra, composed between 2002 and 2005, share melodic, rhythmic, and formal elements, although each maintains its own character. The clarinet concertino, whose first movement reaches ten minutes in length, is more reflective than the others. The flute concertino is lighter in nature, as the title of its final movement reveals: “Rondo alla Haydn.” However, the central movement reaches a harrowing climax in the upper register of the instrument. The horn concertino takes advantage of the noble nature of the instrument, while also demanding passages of extraordinary agility. The saxophone piece begins with a sober tone but ends with a very festive tarantella. Milano makes other references to his Italian ancestry, for example, the appearance of the mandolin in the clarinet concertino, and the reiteration of the siciliana in the middle movements.

The concertinos present a composer in complete command of melodic, harmonic, and formal resources. The writing for the soloists is demanding but always subordinate to the musical content. All the works fully achieve the goal that Milano expressed in an interview: “my fundamental mission as a composer is that my music touches the heart of whoever listens to it.” We hope that this work reaches the hearts of many and that we can continue to disseminate more of the maestro’s music.

— Emanuel Olivieri, May 2020