American Melting Pot
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
It’s an evening we might call an American melting pot, since we are featuring mostly American composers, in honor of out American Music Festival. Speaking of “American Melting Pot” . . .
. . .that’s the title of a great work by Henry Cowell that we hear in our first hour. Its seven movements are intended as a celebration of various immigrant groups—Celts, Teutons, French, Orientals, Slavs, Africans, Latin Americans. Richard Auldon Clark conducts the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra. Music from Copland, Corigliano, and Barber take us into hour two, when Rameau’s “Le temple de la gloire” Suite is performed by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan conducting. McGegan and his group will be joined by soprano Lisa Saffer at Zankel Hall on February 23rd, when they’ll perform mostly Handel, with a bit of Rameau thrown in to spice things up a bit.
Samuel Barber’s “Capricorn Concerto” was named after a house in Mount Kisco where Barber lived for more than thirty years. As Lou Harrison says, its “bubbling opalescence” abounds with Baroque techniques. Barber said the work had no program, just “cheerful noises.” These noises are brought to us by the St. Louis Symphony and various soloists under the ebullient baton of Leonard Slatkin.
“Why Patterns?” is a work by Morton Feldman for flute, glockenspiel, and piano, each instrument with its own pattern that overlays those of the others, producing fascinating juxtapositions. Members of the California E.A.R Unit are the players.
A little bit of Bach on mandolins and a soupçon of Schubert on piano, and then we return to home-grown talent with David Baker’s “Refractions,” but played by the Czech National Symphony under Paul Freeman. This work has great movement titles: “Crescent,” “Crepuscule,” and “Convergence.” Baker says each movement is intended to embody an element of its title’s definition. The evening draws to a close as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra plays a piece that needs no comment, Charles Ive’s “Three Places in New England.”
. . .that’s the title of a great work by Henry Cowell that we hear in our first hour. Its seven movements are intended as a celebration of various immigrant groups—Celts, Teutons, French, Orientals, Slavs, Africans, Latin Americans. Richard Auldon Clark conducts the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra. Music from Copland, Corigliano, and Barber take us into hour two, when Rameau’s “Le temple de la gloire” Suite is performed by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Nicholas McGegan conducting. McGegan and his group will be joined by soprano Lisa Saffer at Zankel Hall on February 23rd, when they’ll perform mostly Handel, with a bit of Rameau thrown in to spice things up a bit.
Samuel Barber’s “Capricorn Concerto” was named after a house in Mount Kisco where Barber lived for more than thirty years. As Lou Harrison says, its “bubbling opalescence” abounds with Baroque techniques. Barber said the work had no program, just “cheerful noises.” These noises are brought to us by the St. Louis Symphony and various soloists under the ebullient baton of Leonard Slatkin.
“Why Patterns?” is a work by Morton Feldman for flute, glockenspiel, and piano, each instrument with its own pattern that overlays those of the others, producing fascinating juxtapositions. Members of the California E.A.R Unit are the players.
A little bit of Bach on mandolins and a soupçon of Schubert on piano, and then we return to home-grown talent with David Baker’s “Refractions,” but played by the Czech National Symphony under Paul Freeman. This work has great movement titles: “Crescent,” “Crepuscule,” and “Convergence.” Baker says each movement is intended to embody an element of its title’s definition. The evening draws to a close as the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra plays a piece that needs no comment, Charles Ive’s “Three Places in New England.”
