I had never heard of Robert Di Domenica when I bought the Oehms CD with James Levine conducting his Symphony with the Munich Philharmonic, OC 502 (paired with a superb rendition of Elliott Carter’s Variations for Orchestra, Roger Sessions’ Piano Concerto and Charles Wuorinen’s Grand Bamboula), part of a set of 12 documenting Levine’s Munich years. I even conjectured – to quote my review – that he’d be one of those younger generation American composers happy to embrace a brilliant but eclectic style, if not (oh dreadful thought) a neo-romantic rehash of music that had turned stale already when it was penned by David Diamond and the likes (apologies fans of David Diamond, not that I am so familiar with his music, and I am taking him more as a symbol, but, like, on the opposite pole, the music of Wuorinen, my few encounters have yielded little pleasure). “Di Domenica” – didn’t sound too auspicious, way too reminiscent of “Menotti” or “Giannini”.
Entirely off the mark. In case you are more familiar than I am with the New York and New England scene and wondered, this IS the same Robert Di Domenica better known as a free-lance flautist often playing with the Met Orchestra, New York City Opera, New York Philharmonic AND the Modern Jazz Quartet, and as former dean of the New England Conservatory. Although this is probably less known (and certainly not illustrated on sound recordings), Di Domenica was also a prolific composer, but one apparently not always played (when the CD came out, only one out of his five operas had been performed), a pupil of Wallingford Riegger (one of the great introducers of Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique in America, who doesn’t enjoy the popularity he deserves – link to my Riegger presentation page) and (apparently more influential) Josef Schmidt, himself a former student of Berg. The Symphony was composed in 1961, as Di Domenica completed his studies with Schmid (which certainly makes him a late developer). From the start and to the end Di Domenica adamently adhered to the twelve-tone technique, even though, by 1961, strict serialism was starting to be outmoded and even Boulez and Stockhausen were moving to other things. Hence, possibly, his lack of public recognition.
But what makes the Symphony such an outstanding work is that, while you’ve had many compositions that sounded “serial” but, claimed their composers, weren’t, “not really”, the Symphony is strictly serial but doesn’t sound at all like it. It sounds, alternately, hugely dramatic and powerful, and wonderfully evocative.
So, now I know that, besides the works that sound serial but aren’t really, there can be works that don’t sound serial but are, really. It makes me jump on Discog.com’s search engine to find out what more of Di Domenica has been recorded – and come up with the depressing answer: not much, which includes another performance of the Symphony conducted by Gunther Schuller on his own label GM Recordings GM2061CD barcode 781007206120, and his piano music played by his wife, again on GM Recordings GM2001CD, barcode 781007200128. I need to listen to more works of Di Domenica (and will let you know when I have)