Many Happy Returns – David Evan Thomas

Program Note: The seven brief movements of Many Happy Returns are unified by a first-movement ritornello. At first it does not change, though it is abbreviated, varied in movement V and finally transformed to D major. The remaining movements share no material and their contrast deepens with passing time, as increasingly slower music alternates with quick music. While the work is not programmatic, a curious and skittish mountain goat found its way from my summer campsite at Ousel lake in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana into the third movement.

Many Happy Returns was written in 1987 while I was living in Montana. Support for the work was provided by the Eastern Montana College Foundation. It was premiered by the Yellowstone Chamber Players in Billings in 1988. 

In its original version, Many Happy Returns was recorded for Composers Recordings Inc. (CRI) by members of the Natonal Orchestral Association, a recording funded by a Recording Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. It received a Discover America II award from The Chicago Ensemble in 1995. An arrangement for clarinet, percussion and piano was premiered by the Minnesota ensemble Zeitgeist in 2008.