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 |  |  | | | | Track Listings | | | Symphony No. 1, "Emily" (1978) | | | 1 I. Con moto | 3:38 | | 2 II. Molto allegro | 5:20 | | 3 III. Lento | 8:22 | | Lidice (1973) | | | 4 I. "The Village" | 5:14 | | 5 II. "The Destruction" | 5:46 | | Concerto for Oboe, op. 57 (1992) | | | 6 I. Rubato | 9:57 | | 7 II. | 6:23 | | 8 III. | 3:29 | | Concerto for Cello, op. 55, "Homage to Jaqueline DuPre" (1991) | | | 9 I. | 13:50 | | 10 II. | 1:31 | | Total time: | 64:02 |
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| | | | | | Eric Funk (Volume I) | | | Our Price: $9.95  | | | | Item Number: MMC2033 | | Audio Format: DDD | | Genres: Concerto\Featured Composer | | | | Description | | Excerpts from the Liner Notes (by William Zagorski)
Symphony No. 1 (“Emily”)
Symphony No. 1 (“Emily”) was composed in 1978 in fulfillment of a commission from Lawrence Leighton Smith and the Oregon Symphony Orchestra. “It was my first commission and I wanted to try a lot of things.” The symphony evolves from harmonic ambivalence to an unabashed celebration of tonality—an odyssey through the harsh intricacies of a five-voice canon on the half tone to the eloquent two-voice counterpoint that closes the work on a note of peaceful affirmation.
Lidice
The title of Funk’s 1973 work, Lidice, recalls Martinu’s symphonic poem, Memorial to Lidice. Both programmatic works chronicle the June 9, 1942 Nazi annihilation of the Czech town of Lidice in reprisal for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, “Protector” of Bohemia and Moravia, by members of the Free Czechoslovakia Army. Funk originally conceived his piece for piano and percussion a la Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. It was designed as a performance vehicle for himself and his Portland State University mentor, Tomas Svoboda. He later recast it for full orchestra, the version recorded here.
Concerto for Oboe, op. 57
Funk’s 1992 Concerto for Oboe, op. 57, was written for oboist Cynthia Green-Libby. Both it and the Concerto for Cello, op. 55 (“Homage to Jaqueline DuPre”), show a growing propensity toward instrumental recitative. His sustained “cadenzas,” as he calls them, are more on the order of Monteverdi’s through-composed operatic paragraphs (the largest component of his early-Baroque operas) than on the flashy nineteenth-century solo passages designed to move the music from a dominant-seventh chord back to the tonic. In Funk’s music the emphasis is on declamation, commentary, and moments of psychological revelation by an instrument that is, in the cauldron of his music, transformed into a human voice—a human character.
Concerto for Cello, op. 55 (“Homage to Jaqueline DuPre”)
The 1991 Cello Concerto uses instrumental recitative in much the same way as the oboe concerto. Its title, “Homage to Jaqueline DuPre,” however, provides a programmatic dimension. Funk at first thought of composing an opera chronicling her story, but later recast some of the material he had written into this concerto. |
| | | | | | | Reviews | | “Eric Funk’s music sings with the full-throated voice of romanticism, with a thorough command of the technique of mid-century European music.”
“The performers [on MMC 2033] are very good, especially oboist Martin Schuring and cellist Olga Ogranovich, in their concertos. MMC has elicited good, sympathetic performances of American music from yet another Eastern European orchestra (the Czech Radio Symphony, conducted by Vladimír Válek) for this fine, instructive release.
-American Record Guide: Stephen Hicken
"Who is 'Emily'? Funk doesn't know, or at least he's not telling; but real or imagined, she has inspired an effective, compact, seventeen-minute work in three movements."
-FANFARE: Raymond Tuttle |
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