William Bolcom: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 3, Seattle Slew Orchestral Suite. The Louisville Orchestra, Lawrence Leighton Smith. First Edition Recordings LCD007 (1992) 034063000721 :
Note: incomprehensibly, the CD’s barcode printed on the back cover, 034061006428, appears to be a typo. This is the barcode to an Albany CD, TROY 046 (1992) with works of Barber, Copland and Harris performed by the Pacific Symphony Orchestra under Keith Clark. I’ve provided the actual barcode, the one that will enable you to find the CD on your favorite commercial website.
Reissued First Edition Music FECD-0033 (2005) 809157003328:
Seattle Slew recorded 27.IX.90 at Memorial Auditorium, Louisville
Symphony No. 1 recorded 14.III.91, Symphony No. 3 recorded 1.V.91 at Robert Whitney Hall, Louisville
The two symphonies a fine introduction to the “serious” Bolcom
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 28 December 2007
William Bolcom’s First Symphony was composed in 1957 when the composer was 19, and for a debutante piece it is quite remarkable. In fact, it is as good as much that was composed in America in the late fifties. The first and third movements have a muscularity and drama reminiscent of Peter Mennin and William Schuman at their most advanced, with echoes of Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements in the first movement, while the finale is evocative of the festive cacophonies in Ives or the brutal military marches that Berg wrote in Wozzeck. The brooding second movement avoids any sentimentality and the kind of pastoral triteness so favored by American composers since the 30s and 40s, thanks to an anguished and angular lyricism rising to great intensity over an ostinato of string pizzicatis.
The Third Symphony is a much later piece (1979) and not surprisingly it is even more original and advanced in its language. It starts with melismatas on alto flute, followed by bassoon and English horn (symbolizing for the composer the “three spirits who watch over the process of our birth and death”), over a barely audible carpet of strings, a style reminiscent of the music of Karel Husa, in which the orchestra is used in a coloristic rather than melodic way. It is all very gossamer and delicate until it rises in dynamic intensity. Then around 4:45 the style becomes more Schoenbergian, angular and muscular, with typical unisono violins, and the music then alternates between these two styles (although there is nothing jarring about the transitions). Bolcom the eclectic is much in evidence in the second movement, “Scherzo vitale” a post modern exercice in quotations, starting as a sardonic and agitated scherzo, in which the colors of what seems to be a Hammond organ (but apparently is just an electric piano) immediately catch the ear. It moves on in rapid succession to an imitation of Medieval music then to a long stretch of arch-kitsch ballroom music framing what could be a take-off of Cagean indeterminacy. The kitsch music is interrupted by a demented takeoff of a Sibelius Presto (I don’t have time to check but I think it is the Vivace section in the 7th Symphony), and back to kitsch, and it alternates between these various motifs. The liner notes are not really informative about this quotation process and its meaning, other than saying that it is “a Seven Ages of Man in miniature”, with many different ideas propagated at the begining, all these ideas being in the end reduced to very little material, “no more than a handful of musical chromosomes”. But I feel that here Bolcom hasn’t solved the problem, which is that the quotation of kitsch music, even if it is to be taken with loads of salt, remains kitsch music. The short third movement, “chiaroscuro”, has reminiscences of Bartok’s scherzo moods in The Miraculous Mandarin and other passages of Bergian broodingness. The finale starts with a long (4:30), soft, brooding unisono melody for strings, reminiscent of the opening of Mahler’s 10th, rising to a climax of Bergian intensity (the Lulu-Suite comes to mind), leaving the violins bare in their most luminous upper reaches (8:00). Rising scales from woodwind and electric piano (another typically Bergian touch) then descending scales (flute, strings) (8:37) introducing a wistful and sensuous theme played first by oboe, ending with a short recap of the Symphony’s opening: the three “spirits” over hushed carpet of strings, and the circle is complete. One of the most appealing features of Bolcom’s serious style, I feel, is its stylistic freedom, the fact that it is subservient to no compositional dictums: Bolcom can write music as “advanced” as anybody, but he never loses his sense of color and drama and his appeal. It makes one curious to hear his next symphonies.
I much prefer this “serious” Bolcom to the “Ragtime” Bolcom exemplified in the Seattle Slew Orchestral Suite (the original ballet was given at the Seattle Opera House in March 1986, and the Louisville Orchestra gave the premiere of the Orchestral Suite in September 1989). The latter is a good Broadway composer, a type of which Morton Gould is a prime example (but that Morton Gould was also capable of composing superb contemporary music is shown by his “Soundings” and “Symphony of Spirituals”, both featured on another Louisville collection, Albany’s First Edition Series TROY 013-14 (link will open new tab to my review). Still, this well-filled disc (69+) is a fine tribute and introduction to William Bolcom.
The recordings date from 1990 and 1991. This disc, Louisville First Edition Recordings LCD007, was part of the batch that the label, successor of the famed Louisville First Edition Records LPs, issued at the turn of the millennium, and which didn’t go further than ten releases. It shared with LCD004 (Music of Ezra Laderman, see my review) and LCD008 (barcode 034061000822, devoted to the music of John Corigliano: Gazebo Dances, Voyage, Summer Fanfare, Promenade Overture, Piano Concerto) the advantage of one-composer program coherence, the others in the series bringing together, true to the time-honored Louisville custom, composers with often no stylistic or personal links. It has been reissued by First Edition Music, FECD-0033, in 2005. See here for all the details and links about the Louisville CD-discography.