Fanfare Reviews
from March/April 1993

Reviews: Thompson

THOMPSON: The Testament of Freedom. Frostiana: Two Excerpts. Alleluia. HANSON: Song of Democracy. NELSON: Behold Man. COPLAND: The Tender Land: The Promise of Giving. Simple Gifts. BERNSTEIN: Candide: Make Our Garden Grow. Dr. Timothy Seelig conducting the Turtle Creek Chorale and Dallas Wind Symphony. REFERENCE RECORDINGS RR-49CD [DDD]; 64:55.

There has long been a consensus that Randall Thompson's The Testament of Freedom is one of the landmarks of American choral literature. It is surely one of the most uncannily appropriate settings of what is a formal prose document of a public nature with little or no expressive dimensions. But Thompson's amazingly flexible melodic lines and his vibrant but restrained harmonic textures imbue the abstract language of Thomas Jefferson with a feeling of conversational naturalness and incontrovertible conviction. This results in an authentically "democratic" canticle which fuses the common touch with republican virtù in an outpouring of straightforward eloquence and unadorned grandeur.

Thus the work's first appearance on CD--and as a demonstration disc for a new technique of enhanced digital sound reproduction (HDCD--see below)--is cause enough for excited anticipation. However, this is a first recording of a "special arrangement" for wind symphony prepared by John Corley "in collaboration with the composer" and, sad to say, the absence of a strong and resonant string complement is immediately apparent, as a direct comparison with the two previous analog recordings bears out--particularly Howard Hanson's surgingly majestic account on Mercury. Seelig and his talented cohorts--both singers and instrumentalists--give us a slower, cooler, more deliberately paced reading which emphasizes the ceremonial solemnity of the music to the exclusion of its hymnal fervor.

The string section is even more sorely missed in the opening pages of Hanson's Song of Democracy (as a quick reference to the composer's own version on Mercury indicates), where the orchestra slowly uncovers and gathers up the moving thematic ground bass of the piece, before the chorus softly begins intoning Whitman's very personalized musings on youth and the educational experience in a society like ours.

Probably the most interesting element in this mix is a first recording of--alas!--only two movements from Thompson's lovely Robert Frost cycle--Frostiana (if only Seelig and Reference had seen their way clear to the coup of recording the entire work!). The program also includes shorter works by Ron Nelson and Thompson (his staple Alleluia)--both a cappella--plus well-known tidbits by Copland and Bernstein--all of them impeccably executed but comprising such a miscellany that the "grab bag" bias is underscored.

As for the "High Definition Compatible Digital" process, there's no mistaking the significant increase in clearer definition or "imaging" so that every word is intelligible at normal room volume even on conventional equipment, even though a "decoder" device will be on the market in a year to enable all listeners to reap the full benefit of this technical marvel. Too bad the musical criteria are not on a comparable level.

Paul A. Snook

Copyright © 1988 by Fanfare, Inc. Reprinted by permission from Volume 16, No. 4 (March/April 1993), page 314.

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