I just discovered Ellen Taaffe Zwilich’s Peanuts Gallery for piano and orchestra. I have to share because it’s so ridiculously adorable. Each of the six movements comes in between 2 and 3 minutes making for a 15 minute piece. It begins with Schroeder’s Beethoven Fantasy, a bright, exuberant fanfare of course heavily quoting Beethoven and featuring the piano. Next is Lullaby for Linus, Snoopy does the Samba (can picture Snoopy and Animal from the Muppets side by side on this one), Charlie Brown’s Lament, Lucy Freaks Out and finally Peppermint Patty and Marcie Lead the Parade. The recording I am listening to right now was performed by the Florida State University Symphony (ETZ is currently their composer in residence). The piece was completed in 1997 and was featured on PBS in 2006. Like most of her work, it has been widely performed and has continued to gain popularity over the past several years.

Short, sweet and well worth a listen.

from the Theodore Presser Co. website:

Zwilich has been the subject of two cartoons in the late Charles Schulz’s celebrated Peanuts® series. The first cartoon, in which the Peanuts® characters attend the premiere of Ms. Zwilich’s Concerto for Flute, set off a chain of events which led eventually to the completion of Zwilich’s Peanuts® Gallery for piano and orchestra, which was also featured in Schulz’s comic strip. Peanuts® Gallery, which Ms. Zwilich wrote for a 1997 Carnegie Hall children’s concert, went on to become the basis of the second PBS documentary to feature her music (the first, “The Gardens: Birth of a Symphony”, featured Symphony No. 4 “The Gardens”). The acclaimed “Peanuts® Gallery” special has aired hundreds of times nationwide since its 2006 PBS debut, and will be rebroadcast during the 2007-2008 season.