Joan Tower: Silver Ladders (1986), Island Prelude for Solo Oboe and String Orchestra (1988) (Peter Bowman, oboe), Music for Cello and Orchestra (1984) (Lynn Harrell, cello), Sequoia (1981). Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, Leonard Slatkin. Elektra / Nonesuch “Meet The Composer Orchestra Residency Series” 9 79245-2 (1990) barcode 075597924527
Sequoia Recorded 25.XI.84, Powell Symphony Hall. From LP Nonesuch 79118 with works of Christopher Rouse and Donald Erb. Other recording dates not indicated
Augmented reissue First Edition Music FECD-0025 (2004) barcode 809157000259, with Island Rhythms (Louisville Orchestra, Lawrence Leighton Smith 28.XI.90):
A fine collection of Joan Tower’s “early” orchestral works
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 20 July 2011
The career of Joan Tower is great news for all those who didn’t achieve the status of star at 25. “Sequoia”, which propelled her into the contemporary composers’ limelight in 1981 (a commission of the American Composers Orchestra), was her first orchestral composition, at the not so youthful age of 43. Until then, she had been a slow developer, active mainly as the pianist of the contemporary music Da Capo Chamber Players, and composing solo and chamber pieces for the ensemble and its members. Many orchestras programmed Sequoia (there is a live recording from 1982 with Zubin Mehta conducting the New York Philharmonic, collated in the magnificent 10-CD collection “The New York Philharmonic: An American Celebration”, NYP 9904, barcode 619054185320, see listing on Discogs.com, link will open a new tab), including the Saint Louis Symphony and Leonard Slatkin, who recorded it for Nonesuch in 1984. This is the recording that is reissued here; it was paired back then with Christopher Rouse’s “The Infernal Machine”; and “Ogoun Badagris” and Donald Erb’s “Prismatic Variation”, on Nonesuch 79118 – none reissued on CD as far as I know, even though Slatkin went on to record a full CD of music of Erb, New World Records NW 80415-2 (1992) barcode 093228041528 (link to my review on Amazon.com pending repost here). The following year he invited Tower to be composer-in-residence with the orchestra and two more works featured on the CD, “Silver Ladders” from 1986 and “Island Prelude” from 1988, resulted. On the concert in which Silver Ladders was premiered, Lynn Harrell played Dvorak’s Cello Concerto. He liked the music of Tower enough to ask to see the Cello Concerto (titled only “Music for Cello and Orchestra”, but Tower is being coy here) which she had composed shortly after “Sequoia” for the cellist of the Da Capo Chamber Players (1984), and he is the soloist here.
So the CD is a fine compendium of Tower’s early orchestral pieces and an important documentation of her compositional development. No wonder she was successful. The music is written in a style that may not be entirely original and distinctive, partaking in a trend that seems to be a kind of mainstream contemporary style since the early 1980s (Rouse, Tower’s companion on the original LP issue of “Sequoia”, writes very much in the same style), but which is effective, powerful and dramatic, violently pounding even at times in “Silver Ladders”, contemporary without being intractable, neither neo-romantic/backward-looking nor serial avant-garde, with a good grasp on architecture and the alternation of outburts and stasis, orchestral tutti and delicate gossamer of solo instruments, and a great sense of orchestral colors (just try the last 45 seconds of “Silver Ladders”). And Tower doesn’t shy away from melody either, as in the middle movement of the Cello Concerto, or in “Sequoia”, with the trumpets at 5:00 followed by clarinet then flutes over delicate and dreamy touches of orchestra, or the horn at 10:35 followed by plangent solo violin at 11:11. There are other such moments in “Silver Ladders”, and “Island Prelude” is just that, a long, wistful melody for oboe and strings, becoming more agitated about mid-way through before returning to the appeased and contemplative mood of the begining.
The Cello Concerto is couched in the traditional fast-slow-fast layout (the movements follow without break and are not cued, slow movement starts at 5:09, with an extended cadenza between 7:07 and 9:04, and the finale at 10:34), it is propulsive and angry in its outer movements, mournful almost in the middle one. It may not be entirely original, but it can take pride of place among the noteworthy American cello concertos written in the 2nd half of the 20th Century (since Barber’s and Thomson’s are from the 1940s, I’ll have that start with Peter Mennin’s 1956 Concerto, best found on a CD from Louisville with soloist Janos Starker, Albany First Edition Encores TROY044, with works of Peter Kurka and Walter Piston, link will open new tab to my review).
TT is a generous 67 minutes, the liner notes are very informative and, needless to say, the interpretations are authoritative, but note that the same program has been reissued on First Edition Music FECD-0025 (2004) barcode 809157000259, with the addition of the Louisville recording of Tower’s “Island Rhythm” from 1985 and a TT of 75. So it may appear that, if you don’t have the Louisville CD on which that piece was first issued (First Edition Recordings LCD006 with Otto Luening’s Kentucky Concerto and Sofia Gubaidulina’s Pro et Contra, link to my review), that augmented reissue of FECD-0025 would be the CD you should go to. That said, I haven’t heard it, and I’ve had some disappointing sonic experiences with some of the transfers of Louisville recordings by First Editon Music. For more on this and the details of the Louisville CD reissues, see my Louisville CD-discography.