Fanfare Reviews
from May/June 1997

TEARS. Malcom W. Rowell Jr. conducting the University of Massachusetts/Amherst Wind Ensemble. ALBANY TROY206 [DDD]; 70:50.

KHACHATURIAN (arr. Satz): Armenian Dances. WILSON: Dance of the New World. GRAINGER: Early One Morning (arr. Kreines). Youthful Suite: English Waltz (arr. McKinney). Molly on the Shore. Lincolnshire Posy. TICHELI: Postcard. COPLAND (arr. Patterson): Down a Country Lane. MASLANKA: Tears. IVES (arr. Sinclair): Country Band March.

Malcom W. Rowell Jr. and his charges at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst seem to have a special affinity for the works of David Maslanka. Their recording of his Tears follows an all-Maslanka disc (A Child's Garden of Dreams and Symphony No. 2) that they released in 1996 (even though it was recorded nearly six years earlier). Despite its title, Tears is not a work steeped in melancholy or nostalgia. Although one might expect it to be a ballad, it doesn't even simmer down until about three-fourths of the way through its fourteen-minute duration. It is equally hard-edged and majestic, a powerful piece that commands the listener's attention even as it fades away toward a whispered Finale. As described by the composer, "Tears is about inner breaking, and coming to terms with the pain that hinders the voice of praise; Tears is about the movement toward the heart of love." Dana Wilson's Dance of the New World, inspired by Christopher Columbus's landing in the New World, was also recently recorded by Eugene Corporon and the North Texas Wind Symphony on the Klavier label (see my review in the last issue of Fanfare). Rowell's rendition grooves a bit more than the previously reviewed recording, but both are outstanding. Corporon has also recorded Frank Ticheli's Postcard (Fanfare 18:5, p. 444), written in memory of University of Michigan bandmaster H. Robert Reynolds's mother. Both are all-around-fine recordings that are so close in performance that there is only one second's difference in timing. There is little descriptive to say about the Khachaturian, Grainger, Ives, and Copland works, since just about all are among the most performed and recorded in the catalog. (In fact, Albany's so-so liner notes don't even mention the Copland.) Suffice it to say that all are competently played. In sum, Rowell and his musicians have assembled a well-performed, generous sampling of new and old band music that should please most fans of the genre.

Randy A. Salas

URBAN REQUIEM: NEW MUSIC FOR WINDS AND PERCUSSION. Gary Green conducting the University of Miami Wind Ensemble. ALBANY TROY 212 [DDD]; 50:53. Produced by Margaret Donaghue and Lorrie Holt.

DAUGHERTY: Motown Metal. DAHL (arr. Boyd): Hymn. MCALISTER: Elegia pare Quijote y Quijana. COLGRASS: Urban Requiem.

Michael Daugherty wrote his 1994 work, Motown Metal, at the behest of the Detroit Chamber Winds. Drawing inspiration from the industrial side of the ensemble's namesake city, the work uses only metal instruments--trumpets, trombones, horns, tubas, and metallic percussion such as glockenspiel and even brake drums. It begins with a series of meaty, ascending glissandos in the trombones, and soon adds a funky tuba line, some jazzy trumpet hits, and an undercurrent of highly rhythmic and frenzied percussion. All of this, including some descending trombone glissandos that sound like speeding cars, vividly recreates the urban clamor of the Motor City--although I hear little of "the '60s Motown sound and the '90s techno beat" described in the liner notes. The result is a seven-minute work that is heavy on effect but light on melody. Motown Metal sounds as if it's a blast to perform, but wears thin with repeated listenings. After the adrenaline of Motown Metal, the rest of the disc is a rather somber affair. Ingolf Dahl's fifty-year-old piano solo, Hymn and Toccata, is heard in a new orchestration for band by John Boyd of Indiana State University. Described in its original incarnation by a student of Dahl as "resembling a Baroque chorale fantasy," the nine-minute Hymn is a lyrical work whose climax about two-thirds of the way through adds a glimpse of majesty, then fades away to a quiet Finale. Clarke McAlister's Elegy for Quixote and Quixana forms the third movement of his Diferencias sabre Cervantes, or Variations on Cervantes. Less than eight minutes long, the work characterizes Sancho Panza with an English horn and Don Quixote with a double bass, played respectively by UM professors and Florida Philharmonic principals John Dee and Lucas Drew; Drew also commissioned the work. The compelling Elegy offers an enticing glimpse of the larger work, which I wish had been recorded in its entirety. Urban Requiem, according to composer Michael Colgrass, "might be described as an urban tale, inspired by a diversity of random impression. I thought of our urban areas, where the saxophone was spawned, and of the tragedies and struggles that occur in this environment daily. But I also was inspired by the energy and power of our cities and the humor inherent in their conflicts. I feel that the saxophone is particularly well suited to express the variety of emotions required for this idea, because it can be not only highly personal and poignant in character but also powerful and commanding . . . . In my mind, I heard four saxophones singing like a vocal quartet, a music that was liturgical in nature but with a bluesy overtone, a kind of `after hours' requiem." Soloists David Fernandez, Tom McCormick, Stephen Welsh, and George Weremchuk--all of the UM Wind Ensembles--turn in wonderfully expressive, virtuosic performances that bring out the best in Urban Requiem, namely its blues-drenched and melancholy passages. But the work's intentional excursions into cacophony prove tiresome over its twenty-seven minutes, providing a frustrating and uneven listening experience. While I admire Gary Green greatly for adding new works for band to the recorded catalog, and while the UM Wind Ensemble's talents are never in question, a more varied program would have gone a long way with this listener. The recorded sound is fine, and each work gets its own cuing point, including only one for the lengthy requiem.

Randy A. Salas

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Fanfare Reviews from May/June 1997

Fanfare Reviews
from May/June 1997