Mixed Media

Staff Picks: Orchestral Music by Dan Locklair

Composer Dan Locklair is now Composer-in-Residence at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, but many years ago he was Organist/Choir Master at First Presbyterian Church in Binghamton so, although I never knew him then, there are certainly lots of people in the area who did -- and still stay in touch with him.

So it was a real pleasure to get a copy of a recording of some of his music from the Naxos label in their American Classics series.  And then Performance Today programmed his concert overture "Phoenix" for the day after Thanksgiving, so now I have a good excuse to write about it.

There are five works on the CD, performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, led by Kirk Trevor.  The first the Symphony No.1, "Symphony of Seasons."  It is, as you might guess, a trip through the year, beginning with Autumn and end in a celebration of Summer with a fantasia on "Sumer is icumen in."  And if listen very carefully, you can hear "In the Good Old Summertime." If this is Symphony No.1, I eagerly await No.2.

"Lairs of Soundings" is next.  It is a triptych for Soprano and String Orchestra, based on two poems by Ursula K. LeGuin, the well-known sci-fi/fantasy author.  These form the outer movements, while the soprano, Janeanne Houston, becomes a wordless part of the orchestra for the middle movement.  This work a little more challenging, both for the listener and for the soprano, as some of the words are a little high in the tessitura to be fully understood; it's best to have the lyrics in front of you the first time you listen.

The following work, "Phoenix and Again" is not, as I first thought, the same work as "Phoenix."  The former was written in 1983 and uses the Wake Forest Alma Mater.  The latter, which was performed on Performance Today, was written in 2007.

On the back of the CD, the conductor is quoted as saying of the next piece "After the first read-through of In Memory -- H.H.L., I realized that we had found a worthy successor to the Barber Adagio (for Strings).  i really can't add anything to that description, other than to mention that it seems to me a warmer, more personal piece, with maybe a hint of humor in it.

Harpists might want to take note of the last piece, the Concerto for Harp and Orchestra, which is written in standard concerto fashion: two lively movements enclosing a slow, tender middle movement.  The harpist, Jacquelyn Bartlet, is never lost in the orchestral texture, and even gets to be her own percussionist a few times.

One quibble about the packaging: I thought that the days were long gone when people posed for photographs with nicotine-delivery devices, but that said, it's really the music inside that counts.
Once again, the CD simply called "Dan Locklair" and it's on the Naxos label, catalog number 8.559337.

- Bill Snyder is the classical music director at WSKG.

Staff Picks: Vassily Sinaiski conducts Rimsky-Korsakov

I had intended to have my first Staff Pick be pianist Simone Dinnerstein's performance of Bach's Goldberg Variations, but I really haven't had enough time to listen to it.

Instead I'm using a CD I got at the beginning of the month for myself of some Rimsky-Korsakov works performed by the BBC Philharmonic led by Vassily Sinaisky.

The main reason I ordered it was because it contains a piece I've never heard before.  No wonder I haven't; it's rarely been recorded and, although it's familiar enough in Russia, it doesn't get performed much in the West.  It's an odd little piece: a three and a half minute arrangement of Luigi Denza's "Funiculi, funicula"  called "Neapolitan Song."  It certainly is energetic and, except in a few characteristic harmonizations, it doesn't sound much like Korsakov at all.  In fact there is one brief passage that sounds jarringly right out of the overture to Gilbert & Sullivan's IOLANTHE! 

It's his last work, Op.63, and dates from the time when he was persona non grata to the government because his comic opera THE GOLDEN COCKEREL was interpreted as a satire on the disastrous Russo-Japanese War.  He died the next year and the "Neapolitan Song" was not even published until 1966. 

At any rate, it's a roller coaster of brilliant and instantaneously pivoting modulations that would be great in a "Pops" concert.

Also on the CD is the ever-popular and much-recorded Capriccio Espagnole.  I really don't need yet another recording of that, but I've never noticed some inner parts of it brought forward with such clarity.  That's the BBC Philharmonic for you!

Two pieces that I've not really known well are also on the CD: "Legend" and the Sinfonietta on Russian Themes.  They are both from the time when Korsakov was studying composition with Mily Balakirev, and were written almost simultaneously.  The Sinfonietta started out as a string quartet, which got one rehearsal at which Korsakov was horrified at how badly the whole thing fit the players fingers.  He quickly orchestrated it, to much better results.

"Legend" was originally titled "Baba Yaga" and Balakirev objected to so many things about it the Korsakov was on the verge of ripping it up.  Cooler heads prevailed, mainly Korsakov's wife's head.  She was an excellent pianist and a pretty good composer in her own right.  I don't know whose idea it was, but the decision was made to change the title and not have any specific program attached to it. 

The big surprise to me on the CD are the overtures to Korsakov's two Ivan the Terrible operas, THE MAID OF PSKOV and THE TSAR'S BRIDE.   (I should say "two and a half" because the former underwent operatic parthenogenesis and spawned a one-act stand-alone opera with the impressive name of BOYARINA VERA SHELOGA).  Korsakov wrote MAID OF PSKOV before he had even resigned from the Navy, while TSAR"S BRIDE is a product of his musical maturity and it's easy to tell. 

The MAID OF PSKOV overture is sort of a French pot-pourri overture without much in the way of development, and the opera is sort of a historical pageant that tries to explain why, when Ivan the Terrible was ruthlessly destroying cities while taking them, he spared the city of Pskov.

THE TSAR'S BRIDE is a much more psychologically deep, almost verismo, story where the furiously jealous mezzo and brutally lustful baritone take center stage, the soprano and tenor barely get an aria each, and Ivan the Terrible becomes Ivan the Innocent Bystander (in fact he is seen only once and is played by a supernumerary).  Ir's sort of like Amneris meets Scarpia. The overture, consequently is hair-raising good fun, and I've never heard in such a hair-raising performance as on this CD. 

By the way, this is a CD on the Chandos label, number 10424

- by Bill Snyder