Fanfare Reviews
from November/December 1996

Reviews: Daugherty - Stravinsky - In Concert

DAUGHERTY: Metropolis Symphony. Bizarro. David Zinman conducting the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. ARGO 452 103-2 [DDD]; 52:00.

The penetration--if not virtual absorption--of "high culture" by "pop" culture has been a source of much disdainfully indignant comment among neoconservative cultural critics over the past decade or so. The emergence of the "crossover" phenomenon within the classical music world is but one facet of this development and has resulted in both mutual fertilization as well as considerable dilution on both sides, depending on the circumstances. This writer is no stranger to the lures of demotic culture, especially the movies and the extraordinary achievements of the classic American popular song and its interpreters in the pre-rock decades. But comic books are something else!--not that such an interest is a prerequisite to enjoyment of this Metropolis Symphony, all five of whose movements arc inspired by a specific aspect of the "Superman" myth.

Though born in 1954, Michael Daugherty should not just be lumped together with the minimalist and/or postmodernist generation, with whom he nonetheless shares some superficial traits. In the symphony--as well as its accompanying appendage Bizarro (scored for just winds and percussion and also inspired by yet another "Superman" element)--Daugherty never eschews complexity or tension or scale. Each of the movements which really constitute a kind of suite whose sections are self-sufficient enough to be performed separately--is constructed like a large, intricate. and arbitrary exercise--a perpetuum mobile. a microtonal antiphony, a miniature concerto for orchestra, a set of variations on a tango-ized version of the Dies irae--designed to display the virtuoso capabilities of his gigantic orchestra. Although the themes are mostly short, repetitive, self-contained motifs, the full panoply of contemporary orchestral techniques plus a huge percussion arsenal (including bells, a referee's whistle, and a siren--shades of Jolivet and Varèse!) are called into play to create a vast, all-engulfing sonic tapestry.

This labor is all carried out by Daugherty with enormous skill, efficiency, and ingenuity, providing a good deal of sensory excitement and stimulation to the auditory imagination. But somehow this listener was left with a sense of aesthetic overkill and exhaustion by the music's noisily oppressive atmosphere and overbearing calculation. There is none of the charm and playfulness that a Morton Gould or a Jerome Moross might have injected into such a project and absolutely no suggestion of lyricism. Daugherty's sense of humor is never lighthearted or tongue-in-cheek--merely a kind of insistently knowing jokiness, a monolithic deadpan literalism which powers his industrial machine of a score. Of course, these qualities inhere in the comic book culture, true, but it still seems so much effort should have resulted in a level of transfiguration or at least redemption of the "vulgar" source material.

Zinman, who both midwifed and premiered the symphony, is to be hailed for the astonishingly high level of stamina and musicianship shown by the Baltimore Symphony, which he has truly turned into a first-class orchestra.

This release certifies that Argo is the world's premiere recorded showcase for new music of note and significance, and all those with an interest or curiosity about the cutting edge of contemporary creativity will want to hear this disc and make up their own minds.

Paul A. Snook

STRAVINSKY: Symphonies of Wind Instruments¹. Septet¹. Octet for Wind Instruments¹. Tango for Piano². Piano-Rag-Music². Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments^1,2. H. Robert Reynolds conducting the Detroit Chamber Winds and Friends¹; James Tocco, piano². KOCH INTERNATIONAL 3-7211-2 H1 [DDD]; 63:14.

This disc contains colorful performances of a cluster of works written between 1919 and 1924, to which are added the Tango for Piano of 1940 and the rarely recorded Septet of 1953. which was written for clarinet, horn, bassoon, piano, violin. viola, and cello. There is only one other recording of the Septet listed currently--on Vox Allegretto--and I was unable to find it. It can't be the instrumentation that keeps it from being performed--the Octet (1923/1971) has pairs of bassoons, trumpets, and trombones added to a single flute and clarinet, certainly a distinctive group. I imagine the problem is the music itself--later Stravinsky has never been as popular as the earlier works, and yet this piece is sprightly, vigorous. and in its own way, tuneful. I recommend it highly in this recording.

Most of the other pieces can be found done in somewhat more vigorous, devil-may-care style in rival recordings. Reynolds's conducting of the Symphonies of Wind Instruments (1920/1952) has formidable competition in Boulez's more pointed reading. and in recordings by Dutoit, Rattle, and Welser-Most. In fact, Reynolds's band sounds a bit stiff in its opening phrases and later, as compared to the Boulez. The Octet is well played, though not as suavely as the version by Järvi. The two solo piano works are pleasant fillers, even it James Tocco's Tango for Piano is a bit timid--I think he might have allowed himself somewhat bolder gestures, in keeping with the spirit of the tango. Again there is little competition. Reynolds allows the striking contrasts of the Concerto for Piano and Wind Orchestra (1924/1950) to come through: elsewhere I find myself wishing he and his band were a little wilder, more startling. Still, this is a very attractive collection of music, some of it difficult to find elsewhere.

Michael Ullman

IN CONCERT. Eugene Corporon¹ and Terence Milligan² conducting the Cincinnati Wind Symphony. KLAVIER KCD 11067 [DDD]; 62:30. (Distributed by Albany.)

STAMP: Gavorkna Fanfare¹. TCHEREPNIN: Statue¹. TIPPETT: Mosaic¹. GRAINGER: Irish Tune From County Derry². The "Gum-Suckers" March². WEINSTEIN: Concerto for Wind Ensemble¹. SKALKOTTAS: Greek Dances¹.

Klavier continues its rerelease of recordings from the vaults of the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) Wind Symphony--known more simply, thankfully, as the Cincinnati Wind Symphony--with In Concert, previously available on the ensemble's own label as MCD 877. Although this recording is drawn from a 1991 concert at the Golden Anniversary Convention of the College Band Directors National Association at the University of Missouri, listeners would never know this is a live performance, because there is absolutely no audience noise, which is fine by me. The benefits are obvious--the spontaneity and excitement of a live performance without distractions.

The recording begins at full throttle with the adrenaline rush of Gavorkna Fanfare, written especially for Eugene Corporon and the Cincinnati Wind Symphony and the occasion of this concert. I believe this is the same recording of the fanfare used on a recent all-Stamp disc on Citadel (CTD 8105), reviewed by Paul A. Snook in Fanfare 18:4. The wind symphony plays to the hilt, making the most of the fanfare's one and a half minutes. The excitement scales back with the next two works, Ivan Tcherepnin's Statue and Michael Tippet's Mosaic. Statue was commissioned in 1986 by the American Wind Symphony to be performed at the unveiling of the restored Statue of Liberty. The work--divided into two movements, a four-and-a-half-minute fanfare and a ten-and-a-half-minute canzona--mixes American and French tunes in a style reminiscent of, but not nearly as good as, Charles Ives. While the fanfare has a few bright spots--the buildup to the end, for example--it's simply too long. The canzona, with a lovely setting of America the Beautiful, fares much better and sounds more fully developed to these ears. Tippett originally composed his Mosaic from 1963 as the first movement of his Concerto for Orchestra. Klavier's typically informative (and typically uncredited) liner notes describe the work as "an elaborate kaleidoscope of superimpositions--a 'mosaic' constructed of sound." While I understand the composer's intent, the rather aimless work continually failed to maintain my interest. Terence Milligan, a colleague of Corporon at CCM, guest conducts with aplomb on the two popular works by Percy Grainger. Anyone who has ever played in a band knows these works well. They've been recorded many times over, yet Milligan and his forces infuse them with a freshness, especially in the march, that makes these performances more than worthwhile. Michael Weinstein's bold, complex Concerto for Wind Ensemble of 1989 uses a variety of symphonic colors to good effect and recalls the Baroque concerto grosso form with its alternation of solo and tutti passages. For unexplained reasons, only the first and third movements of the three-movement work are included here. Nikos Skalkottas, once cited by teacher Arnold Schoenberg as one of his "most gifted disciples," was an avid collector of Greek folk and dance music and composed thirty-five dances for orchestra from 1933 to 1936. In the early 40s, he transcribed nine of them as a suite for band. The four short ones included here, completed by Gunther Schuller in 1990 from the manuscript scores, are pleasant morsels but a poor choice for the closer. The final dance, Kritikos, with its abrupt ending, fails to recapture the excitement of the disc's opening fanfare.

While the program has its ups and downs, I'm grateful nonetheless to Corporon for continuing to make new band music available on recording. Despite any perceived shortcomings in the program, Corporon, now at the University of North Texas, continues to coax playing of the highest caliber out of his young charges.

Randy A. Salas

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Fanfare Reviews from November/December 1996

Fanfare Reviews
from November/December 1996