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 NI 2522 Total Playing Time 66 minutes 56 seconds DDD Stereo |
CoplandMusic for the Theatre, Quiet City, Music for Movies, Clarinet ConcertoOrchestra of St Luke's, Dennis Russell Davies - Conductor, William Blount - Clarinet This is a lovely collection of music from Copland's first 25 years as a professional composer and the style varies from the naughty boy jazz-inflected Music for the Theater, through the urban blues of Quiet City and some homespun Americana for film, to the more sophisticated use of jazz in the Clarinet Concerto. In 1925 the Music for the Theater must have seemed to be outrageously modern - the bluesy/jazzy feel to much of the work and the jagged rhythms of the fast music, not to mention the spare orchestration - for Copland had learned a lot from both pre- and post-war Stravinsky. But there are some exquisite moments of reflection in this work - the third movement Interlude is an oasis of calm between the ribald Dance and Burlesque. For me, Quiet City is one of the unsung masterpieces of music - and not just music from America. Starting life as incidental music to a play which never achieved a production, Copland fashioned this real gem of a piece, full of urban loneliness, empty city streets, and a special yearning which I don't often find in Copland's music. Davies treats the piece as a nostalgic nocturne, not making the climax into the big moment, but allowing it to grow from the logical progression of the music. This is a heartfelt and deeply moving performance. Music for Movies is a five movement suite made up from music written for three films - The City (1939), Our Town (1940) (directed by Sam Wood, the man who gave us the Marx Brothers' A Night at the Opera) and Of Mice and Men (1940) (for which Copland was nominated for two Oscars) - and is an attractive work, which, as with Music for the Theater, benefits from the use of a smaller orchestra than might normally be engaged. There's a lot of the wide open space music for which Copland is justly famous, and the second movement, Barley Wagons, is as fine a piece of Americana as Copland ever produced. The Clarinet Concerto was written for Benny Goodman, and is in two parts, a gentle and very languorous quasi waltz and a riotous jazz section. It's a lovely piece and when played straight, that is without trying to jazz up the jazz section by adding extra turns and pulling the rhythm about, and fortunately Blount understands this and gives a very good performance, reveling in the gentle lyricism of the first half and the wild rhythms of the second. This is one of the best interpretations of the work I've heard on disk and gives Benny Goodman and Copland a run for their money.Bob Briggs, MusicWeb-international |
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| UPC: 710357252228, £ 10.75 plus postage and packingAll rights of the producer and of the owner of the recorded work reserved. Unauthorised copying, public performance and broadcasting of this recording prohibited. | ||