{"id":4714,"date":"2012-05-02T19:21:56","date_gmt":"2012-05-02T23:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=4714"},"modified":"2012-05-24T20:26:56","modified_gmt":"2012-05-25T00:26:56","slug":"resounding-crumbs-ruggles-on-cd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.musicalamerica.com\/mablogs\/?p=4714","title":{"rendered":"Resounding Crumbs; Ruggles on CD"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sedgwick Clark<\/strong><\/p>\n

We hear entirely too little of George Crumb\u2019s music in New York. On 4\/19 Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra stepped into the breach with crackerjack performances of the American composer\u2019s early Variazioni <\/em>(1959, but not premiered until 1965) and Star-Child <\/em>(1977), played with power and sonority, especially\u00a0by Crumb’s beloved array of\u00a0exotic percussion. In between came Echoes of Time and the River (Echoes II)<\/em>, Crumb\u2019s 1968 Pulitzer Prize winner and a Botstein favorite.<\/p>\n

The first piece\u2014a partly 12-tone work that reveals his student infatuation with Berg\u2019s Lyric Suite <\/em>and Violin Concerto and Bart\u00f3k\u2019s MUSPAC, among others, along with clear evidence of the Crumb to come\u2014deserves frequent hearing, as does the more fancifully astronomical Star-Child<\/em>. The sheer size and virtuosity of\u00a0the latter’s\u00a0forces obviously mitigates against performance, but Botstein and the expanded ASO\u2014\u201cincluding soprano, solo trombone, children\u2019s choir, a male speaking choir that also plays hand-bells, organ, and enlarged sections that include six horns, seven trumpets, and eight percussionists,\u201d writes annotator Robert Carl\u2014were up to Crumb\u2019s demands in the resounding acoustic of Carnegie.<\/p>\n

Echoes of Time and the River <\/em>was more problematic. Crumb requires members of the orchestra to march across the stage and down into the parquet aisles in a precisely executed processional, all the while chanting and, at the end, whistling. In the program booklet, Botstein recalls his undergrad days as assistant conductor and concertmaster of the University of Chicago orchestra in 1967 and observing a rehearsal of the Chicago Symphony premiere of the piece in which the players refused to do the processionals. When Seiji Ozawa led the Boston Symphony in Echoes<\/em> at Carnegie in February 1976, the players looked mortified. I don\u2019t recall how the BSO audience reacted, but the ASO\u2019s audience laughed. Perhaps some preparatory words from the podium before the downbeat might have helped, but the players lacked any semblance of ritualistic evocativeness in either pace or expression (the women stomped resoundingly across the stage in hard heels). Perhaps a screening of the Shangri-la scenes of Lost Horizon <\/em>might have provided behavioral insight. But at least the \u201cProcession Coordinator\u201d should have insisted on rubber-soled shoes. As for the musical performance, Echoes<\/em> required a more sensitive hand than Botstein\u2019s presentational manner.<\/p>\n

Shaham in New Jersey <\/strong><\/p>\n

Gil Shaham playing the Berg Violin Concerto and a thoughtful program capped off by one of my favorite Prokofiev symphonies, the Third, enticed me to Newark\u2019s NJPAC on 4\/27. New Jersey Symphony\u2019s music director, Jacques Lacombe, puts together interesting repertoire, and the orchestra is a fine one. They will be playing works by Var\u00e8se, Weill, and Busoni next week, 5\/9, at Carnegie\u2019s Spring for Music. Don\u2019t miss it.<\/p>\n

Shaham\u2019s performance of the Berg concerto, unlike those of most virtuoso violinists, actually honored the composer\u2019s muted dynamic scheme. This is a very <\/em>quiet piece\u2014almost chamber music\u2014and Lacombe was with him all the way. At times one wished for a larger body of strings (playing quietly, of course) to support the pianissimos, but the orchestra\u2019s level of artistry was evident throughout. Shaham also played the world premiere of Richard Danielpour\u2019s Kaddish <\/em>for Violin and Orchestra, a lovely, affecting expansion for strings and harp of a sextet he composed after his father\u2019s death in 1977. It deserves wide performance.<\/p>\n

Prokofiev\u2019s Third Symphony (1929) uses themes from his opera The Fiery Angel<\/em>. It\u2019s loud, dissonant, aggressive, and the New Jersey performance was too well behaved and underpowered for the optimum effect I\u2019ve heard in concert from Philadelphia\/Muti and Chailly with the New York Philharmonic and Concertgebouw. Still, there were many beauties to enjoy in the quiet second movement and serpentine third.<\/p>\n

All of Ruggles on CD at Last!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hard on the heels of Michael Tilson Thomas\u2019s American Mavericks tour with the San Francisco Symphony, MTT\u2019s long unavailable recording of the complete works of Carl Ruggles is on CD at last. American music devotees have the new-music organization Other Minds (www.otherminds.org<\/a>) to thank for stepping in gloriously where Sony Classical had feared to tread.<\/p>\n

I remember Columbia\u2019s mid-seventies press conference to announce its new recording contract with Tilson Thomas. With irrepressible enthusiasm, he announced that his initial projects would be complete cycles of Ruggles and the French composer P\u00e9rotin (12th c.-13th c.), whose music has influenced minimalism. Nothing came of the latter, but the Ruggles project was recorded between 1975 and 1978 and released in 1980 to rave reviews. The orchestral works were played by the Buffalo Philharmonic, of which MTT was music director (1971-79) and getting impressive results in concert and on record. Such artists as soprano Judith Blegen, trumpeter Gerard Schwarz, Speculum Musicae, the Gregg Smith Singers, and pianist John Kirkpatrick, a friend and champion of both Ruggles and Ives, were enlisted for the chamber works. It was a class act and is unlikely to be duplicated.<\/p>\n

Other Minds has prepared a model reissue. Most importantly, the master source material of original producer Steven Epstein\u2019s recordings frees us at last from listening to the abominably pressed CBS LPs. The handsomely designed CD booklet, adorned with Thomas Hart Benton\u2019s portrait of Ruggles composing at the piano, reprints the LP notes by Tilson Thomas and Kirkpatrick and adds a 1946 essay about Ruggles by Lou Harrison.<\/p>\n

No one interested in American music should hesitate to buy this CD set.<\/p>\n

Looking forward<\/strong><\/p>\n

My week\u2019s scheduled concerts:<\/p>\n

5\/3 Metropolitan Opera, 6 p.m. Wagner: G\u00f6tterd\u00e4mmerung<\/em>. Fabio Luisi (cond.). Katarina Dalayman, soprano; Wendy Bryn Harmer, soprano; Karen Cargill, mezzo; Jay Hunter Morris, tenor; Iain Paterson, bass-baritone; Eric Owens, bass-baritone; Hans-Peter K\u00f6nig, bass.<\/p>\n

5\/7 Carnegie Hall, 7:30. \u201cSpring for Music.\u201d Houston Symphony\/Hans Graf. Shostakovich: Anti-Formalist Rayok<\/em>; Symphony No. 11 (\u201cThe Year 1905\u201d).<\/p>\n

5\/9 Carnegie Hall, 7:30. \u201cSpring for Music.\u201d New Jersey Symphony\/Jacques Lacombe; Hila Plitmann, soprano; Marc-Andr\u00e9 Hamelin, piano; Men of the Westminster Symphonic Choir. Var\u00e8se: Nocturnal<\/em>. Weill: Symphony No. 1 (\u201cBerliner Symphony\u201d). Busoni: Piano Concerto.<\/p>\n