Ezra Laderman: Violin Concerto (Elmar Oliveira), Sanctuary, Citadel. The Louisville Orchestra, Lawrence Leighton Smith. First Edition Recordings LCD004 (1990) barcode 034063000424
Sanctuary recorded 29.IV.87, Concerto recorded 31.VIII.89, Citadel recorded 1.V.90, all Whitney Hall, Louisville
A little too “anchored to the tonal tradition” to set claim to a strong hold on one’s memory
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 25 November 2007
From 1954 onwards, The Louisville Orchestra’s own LP label, Louisville First Edition Records, had a major role in the modern and contemporary music scene by releasing scores of works from composers of all stylistic adherences and nationalities. From what I’ve been able to reconstruct, in the early 1990s, they continued their activities with ten CDs on a label now called First Edition Recordings (but, more or less simultaneously, Albany had also released ten others in the late 1980s, pairing new stuff and reissues of older material, on a series that after a few releases was christened “First Edition Encores”). The material from these ten CDs was simultaneously released on what turned out to be the label’s last LPs, but with different couplings and shorter timings. As it happens, these CDs turned out to be also the last ones released by the orchestra under its own label. The catalog was then acquired by a Santa Fe Music Group, which in 2000 started re-releasing the back catalog in intelligently conceived composer monographs or collections (but sometimes sonic blemishes in their transfers). But it was over with the release of new recordings, except, occasionally, on other labels. At the time of writing, the Santa Fe Music Group seems to have ceased its operations as well. (And a post-script from 2025 upon repost: for the details and links of the Louisville CD issues and reissues, see my Louisville CD-discography, link will open a new tab).
The three compositions by Ezra Laderman featured on this well-filled (67:30) LCD004 were all recent compositions and recordings at the time of release (1987-90) and the two purely orchestral pieces were Louisville commissions, made to celebrate the orchestra’s 50th anniversary in 1987. They came out on LP as LS 794 (“Sanctuary”, paired with “Shadow Music” by Raymond Luedeke, a Canadian composer) and LS 800 (Violin Concerto and “Citadel”). The last LP to be published on First Edition Records was LS 802.
I don’t hear much in the Violin Concerto that I find original, inventive or personnal. It is couched in a style broadly reminiscent of Berg’s Violin Concerto, with whiffs of Stravinsky’s and Bartok’s, not to mention a score of composer with less distinctive personalities active in the 1940s and 1950s. It is certainly enjoyable, highly lyrical (and that is certainly its distinctive mark), but can set no claim to a hold on one’s memory.
“Sanctuary” is a traditional theme and variation, but with a program which gives it a semblant of originality. It is a reminiscence upon and a compendium of the various influences and techniques through which Laderman went in the course of his compositional career. The “sanctuary” of the title is a theme of broad romantic contour, stated by strings alone and harking back to Mahler (Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony) and even more to Richard Strauss (Metamorphosen). It is then subjected to various “onslaughts”, in the form of variations using the full array of 20th-Century techniques – atonality, serialism, indeterminacy and all. But the theme, re the liner notes, “persists and maintains its identity through all these struggles, retuning every time, in ever simpler form, until the end”, for, to quote the composer, “I admit inflences of other manners and techniques, but I remain anchored to the tonal tradition”. Well, it will say much about my own tastes and expectations that I side without hesitation with the onslaughts – they are dramatic, full of ear-catching musical events. As for the “sanctuary”, Strauss and Mahler were there already, so who needs a Laderman to mimic what they did so masterfully?
“Citadel” is considered by the composer as a pendant to “Sanctuary”. Its best moments to me are those in which the musical language is most dramatic and angular, and its most trite those couched in a lyrical idiom which points to Copland and Harris. In between lie passages strongly reminiscent of Britten (as at 1:07, track 18) – but then it is because of Britten, not Laderman.
Again, the disc is pleasurable, but there not much in it that sets Laderman apart from hundreds of good composers in activity.