Sonneck Society for American Music
Bulletin, Volume XXIII, no. 2 (Summer 1997)
Reviews of Recorded Material
Edited by Ann Sears, Wheaton College
Modern American Classics, Volume I: Music for Orchestra
Daniel Burwasser: A Well Traveled Road; William Thomas McKinley: Fantasia
Vaiazzioni; Marie Barker Nelson: The Medead; Heskel Brisman: Concerto
for Piano and Strings; Elaine Erickson: A Shipwrecked Landscape.
MMC Recordings, 1995. One compact disc.
The naming of the first volume of Modern Amerian Classics may arguably be overly optimistic, but what
is certain is that the five works by living American composers are well crafted and, in the words of the
excellent program notes, take the listener on "a pleasant excrsion through friendly musical
territory." All the works are in a contemporary, largely tonal style characterized by multi-textured,
colorful writing for orchestra. Sturdy, sympathetic performances by the Slovak Radio Symphony
Orchestra, Robert Black and Robert Stankovsky conducting, with Elaine Comparone, harpsichord, and
Josua Pierce, piano, are somewhat compromised by a muddy recorded sound.
Daniel Burwasser's (b. 1960) one-movement concerto for orchestra, A Well Traveled Road (1993),
might be more accurately described as a concerto for wind band with virtuoso writing for winds and
percussion. The strings are for the most part delegated to barely audible accompaniment. William Thomas
McKinley (b. 1938) is represented by his Fantasia Variazioni (1993), commissioned by the
harpsichordist, Elaine Comparone. The introduction and thirteen variations are a tour de force of integration
between the unlikely and potentially problematic harpsichord and full orchestra. Rich in color and
imagination, the work makes a convincing argument for the harpsichord as a living instrument, instead of a
deficient form of a piano suitable only for the recreation of musical museum pieces.
The Medead (1977) is a ten-minute tone poem for full orchestra by Marie Barker Nelson
(b. 1926) based on Euripides' Golden Fleece. Different themes represent the tragic characters:
Medea, Jason, their ill-fated children, and the princess for whom Medea was jilted. One could imagine
the work equally successful as a ballet. The Concerto for Piano and Strings (1965)
by Heskel Brisman (b. 1923) is in a classic three movements, with lively outer movements and an
introspective slow movement. Elaine Erickson's (b. 1941) A Shipwrecked Landscape (1988),
inspired by the composer's fascination with the sea, completes this most interesting and
rewarding disk.
--Amy E. Camus
Whitestone, New York
America: The Pro Arte Guitar Trio Plays the Music of Bernstein (West Side Story) and Gershwin
(Porgy and Bess)
ASV, CD WHL 2099, 1996. One compact disc.
In the hands of this English ensemble three guitars can clearly muster the power, delicacy, and
variety of mood to do justice to American masters George Gershwin and Leonard Bernstein. This 1996
release contains nearly sixty-two minutes of music, mostly from Porgy and Bess and West
Side Story, nicely offset by Gershwin's "Three Preludes," "Lullaby," Impromptu in Two Keys,"
and "Three Quarter Blues." The liner notes offer background on the chosen pieces and some biography on the
Pro Arte Guitar Trio. We would have welcomed a paragraph or two dealing with the nuts and bolts
of adapting such varied materials to this sort of ensemble.
Exquisitely performed and engineered, the chosen selections are perhaps a little too familiar to many
of us. Yet the Trio's ability to craft sonic effects from thesse three instruments (including a treble
requinto and an eight-string guitar) brings new energy and interest to the likes of "Summertime" and
"America." It's nice when an ensemble has something more to say when playing a piece transcribed
from another genre besides "we are limited by our own repertory, so let's steal someone else's."
Cornelius Bruinsma's arrangements from Porgy and Bess shine in particular. Very clever
is the use of plactra to imitate the sound of the banjo on "I Got Plenty o' Nuttin." Presumably
Bruinsma arranged the Gershwin instrumental works also. Raymond Burley's approach to the Bernstein
material is refreshing, exploring both the serious and lighter moods of "Maria" and "Gee, Officer
Krupke," for example.
We found this disc rewarding on all levels--from sheer fun and aural stimulation, to an appreciation
for the arrangers' skills and awe at the technical mastery of the performances. The sense of
ensemble is spellbinding.
--David & Ginger Hildebrand
Peabody Conservatory
The Art of Robert Black, Composer & Conductor: Music of Robert Black and Igor Stravinsky
Bridge 9061, 1995. One compact disc.
Clarinet Sonatas by Easley Blackwood and Max Reger
John Bruce Yeh, clarinet, Easley Blackwood, piano. Cedille Records CDR 90000 022, 1995. One compact disc.
These new discs contain world premiere recordings of compositions by two prodigious performing talents:
Easley Blackwood (b. 1933) and Robert Black (1950-1993). This is not the saxophonist or the double bassist
Robert Black, but rather the pianist and conducor of numerous new music recordings on William Thomas
McKinley's MMC, as well as on CRI, Bridge GM (including a recording of "Pierrot Lunaire" with
Phyllis Bryn-Julson), and Orion (on which he was the pianist in solo works of LIszt and Beethoven).
The new Bridge recording presents him for the first time as a composer, which he seems to have been
seriously interested in becoming only the last three years of his life. (Well, Anton Bruckner started
composing at age forty-two and went on to quite a career). Though he studied with Roger Sessions and
David Diamond, the strongest influence on his own music seems to have been that of composers whose
large works he conducted, such as Ralph Shapey (Three for Six), and especially Charles
Wuorinen (New York Notes), with bold contrass veering from starkly simple gestures to
wildly hysterical flights of fancy. Black's Three Pieces for Violin and Piano, inspired by
poet and former violinist David Shapiro's requst for "a piece for a ruined violinist" are ably essayed
by Gregory Fulkerson and Charles Abramovic. They contain much of the same material expanded in Black's
orchestral piece in three sections, inspired by Shapiro's poetry: Capriccio (Blown Apart),
which opens the disc. Jerzy Swoboda conducts the Warsaw Philharmonic, an orchestra that Black himself
conducted on many occasions. In between, James Winn plays Black's only piano piece, the sprawling Foramen
Habet! whose title was inspired by an incident in a Paul West novel involving Peter the Great and
which the composer dedicated to his piano teacher, Beveridge Webster. The disc concludes with Black
conducting the PRISM Orchestra that he founded in a live (undated) performance of Stravinsky's
Dumbarton Oaks Concerto. The motoric energy of the conductor is in evidence almost right
to the end, where it seems to peter out. Although he left a mighty legacy, his early death from
cancer must still be deemed a tremendous loss.
Easley Blackwood, a pianist known for dazzlingly dexterous performances of works by Schoenberg, Sessions, Wuorinen,
Liszt, Boulez, Ives, and John Perkins, is still very much alive, composing and performing, but the
harmonic style of his compositions has taken a decisive turn to the right. SInce 1978 he has been writing
in what he calls "a conservative tonal idiom, which ... I have found more convivial than conventional,
academic modernism." Sandwiching Max Reger's 1909 Sonata No. 3 for Bb Clarinet and Piano
between Blackwood's two new works for clarinet and piano (the Sonata for A clarinet and the
Sonatina for Eb clarinet) on the new disc reveals the older work to be similar in harmonic language but
somehow more inspired (or at least less mechanically repetitive), even if not quite as technically
demanding. Clarinetist John Bruce Yeh and pianist Blackwood are fully up to the demands. In this Brahms
centennial yeaer, it is indeed appropriate to be thinking of enriching the clarinet sonata repertoire
which truly begins with the two Brahms sonatas. I confess that a third of a century ago, having once
successfully masqueraded a piece of my own as Schumann's I too had such aspirations, composing,
performing, and even recording a piece I modestly called 'Brahms' Clarinet Trio No. 2." But, as Nadia
Boulanger, teacher of Blackwood and so many American composers (including this writer) might have
asked: "What for do you want to write in someone else's style? You have your own voice, do you not?"
--Leonard J. Lehrman
President and Archvist, The Long Island Composers Alliance
Notes in Passing
Trio Indiana
Jean-Michel Defaye: Six Pieces d'Audition; Peter Schickele: Dances for Three;
Gary Kulesha: Political Implications; Michael Kibbe: Ebony Suite; Frederick
Fox: Time Weaving. Crystal Records, CD 732, 1996. One compact disc.
Trio Indiana is composed of three superb clarinetists: James Campbell, Eli Eban, and Howard Klug. All three
joined the faculty of the Indiana University School of Music in 1990, the year they formed the trio. Here they
present excellent performances of pieces written for clarinet ensemble since 1980. They play with
impeccable intonation and well-matched sound, and the quality of recorded sound is uniformly good. The
opening piece by Defaye has nicely varied movements, ranging from some jazzy moments in the second movement
to vignettes of etudes in the fifth movement. It ends with a long, slow, improvisatory movement which
seems an odd way to end a suite, but the performance carries it off. Peter Schickele's dances are a
combination of Baroque and Latin character. This unusual juxtaposition works quite well, and the result is
a suite which is tuneful, clever, and very entertaining. Schickele's instrumentation of two Bb clarinets
and bass is beautiful, and the bass clarinet playing by Howard Klug in this pieces is wonderfully
expressive. Kulesha's Political Implications shows the influence of Stravinsky, with wide
ranges, extensive use of trills, and short repeated motives. This threee-movement sonata for four clarinets
(including Eb and bass clarinet) may remind listeners of both The Rite of Spring and The
Firebird, but this will probably intensify interest. This is a lovely piece, and any homage to
Stravinsky is skillfully interwoven with Kulesha's own ideas. The concluding two pieces were written
for Trio Indiana; both are attractive additions to the chamber music for clarinet. Longer space
between pieces would enhance the overall effect of the compact disc and longer liner notes would have
been interesting; however, the fine renditions of these little known works make this a very impressive disc.
Richard Stolzman: Alchemy
William Thomas McKinley: Concerto for Clarinet No. 3 ("The Alchemical"); Burt Fenner:
Arundo Donas; John Carbon: Clarinet Concerto. Richard Stolzman, clarinet;
Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra; George Manahan, conductor. MMC Recording, MMC 2031, 1997. One
compact disc.
Clarinet lovers will also enjoy Richard Stolzman's Alchemy, a collection of three works for clarinet.
This disc features the flawless performances Stolzman's admirers expect of him, and the orchestra matches him
very well. The first two works show the influences of other composers: McKinley's Concerto for Clarinet
No. 3 echoes Vaughan Williams' The Wasps and Bartok's The Miraculous Mandarin in
brief by strongly reminiscent passages; Fenner's melodic shapes in the slow section of his piece certainly call
Copland to mind. John Carbon's Clarinet Concerto provides some lucious atmospheric, introspective moments,
supported by a thoughtful orchestral performance. All thre of these concertos were written for
Richard Stolzman. The disc is a reminder of how strongly a brilliant performer cna shape repertoire,
especially when he/whe is willing to be an advocate for new music. The liner notes compare Stolzman to Anton Stadler
(Mozart's friend), and Woody Herman and Benny Goodman (for whom Stravinsky and Copland wrote music). Whether these
three concertos take their place with the works fo early composers remains to be seen, but Stolzman has
certainly provided compelling arguments for all of them.
Black-Tie Banjo at Home: Serenades and Dances from the Parlor and Concert Hall
Geoff Freed, 5-string banjo, Ann Frenkel, piano. Black-Tie Banjo, BTB 1101. One compact disc.
This compact disc is a delightful romp through a selection of parlor and twentieth-century pieces for banjo and piano by
composers born from 1862 to 1950. The parlor pieces, which parallel the large repertoire of salon music for piano,
were originally for banjo. The cakewalks, polkas, and serenades will be familiar styles and sounds to most. The
twentieth-century Nocturnes for Banjo and Piano, op. 104 by Timothy Mainland are truly concert
pieces. The banjo and piano mingle effectively, and the solo banjo work is
beautifully played. The piano here is primarily accompaniment and is appropriately
subordinate to the banjo. The disc has a well planned flow of fast and slow pieces and mode changes.
The quality of the recorded sound is good, but volume levels fluctuate occasionally, and one wishes the lower
register of the piano were more perfectly in tune here and there. These small
quibbles aside, this disc is a refreshing, light-hearted mix of cheerful and melancholy, upbeat
and introspective music. One might like to share this lilting disc with a gathering of friends around
a warm stove, thinking of the days when music-making at home flourished and the banujo, both
solo and as part of a banjo ensemble, was heard more frequently. For those in or near Boston,
Black-Tie Banjo appears regularly at the Museum of Fine Arts on the third Friday of each
month November to April from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m. For further information, please contact
Black-Tie Banjo, P.O. Box 750047, Arlington, MA 02175-0047, Tel: (617) 787-5276.
--Ann Sears
Wheaton College
Updated 9/22/97