I haven't gotten around to visiting the Tucson music festival, but there is
obviously some fine music-making going on out there. This disc was made at the
March 1997 concerts, and if you have a spark of adventure in you, I do urge
you to sample this totally enjoyable release. The Bartók immediately
grips your attention, with its earthy and lively opening Hungarian melody played
with great pungency. The work was inspired by the great jazz clarinetist Benny
Goodman, and it is a sense of improvisation that characterizes this account,
with Patricia Shands providing the agility and vivacity the outer movements
require. Carmit Zori does have a moment of questionable intonation in the first
movement, but elsewhere her playing is excellent. Ensemble is not quite as tight
as one would expect from studio sessions, and if it does not match the inspiration
of the Szigeti/Goodman/Bartók recording, it is certainly up there with
the best of the rest.
Twilight Music was written to a 1984 commission by the Chamber Music Society
of Lincoln Center, and is a listener-friendly score that speaks in a new idiom
while retaining a flowing melodic invention as the motivating force. The music
is depictive of three musical voices meeting at dark: They converse, argue,
and in the end go their separate ways, a story line that allows John Harbison
ample scope to explore the range of sonorities of each instrument. Rosenthal
is the fine violinist who, as the music demands, gets blown away by Todd's suitably
aggressive horn, Blaha acting as the soothing voice in the fracas.
The German-Swedish composer Ingolf Dahl spent much of his time conducting and
teaching, the second half of his life spent in the United States, where he died
in 1970. He would have wished to spend more time composing, and after this introduction
to his music, we can equally share his regret. He was known as a person of a
jocose personality, and that sense of fun propels the three-movement concerto.
There is a strong influence of Stravinsky: The jagged rhythms and the violin
solos strongly remind one of The Soldier's Tale, to which Dahl has added his
own brand of jazz syncopations. The Zori-Shands partnership is here joined by
Rejto's suitably piquant cello, the crunchy harmonies perfectly captured.
Pan Dreams is the odd man out. Jon Kimura Parker's 1989 score is framed in a
more progressive modernism. It is the story of Pan's awakening, and it ends
in a frenzied dance. The Walker/Fitz-Gerald duo brings vivid animation to the
score, though toward the end those hectic flute passages do not always find
the instrument clearly speaking.
Tucked away in a corner in small print is the name of the producer and engineer,
Matthew Snyder. Any other release with such outstanding sonics would have his
name in headlines. He may have used a simple microphone setup, for there is
a natural balance between the instruments, and a meticulous balance between
clarity and warmth that you rarely encounter.
David Denton
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