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 |  |  | | | | Track Listings | | | Prayer: Suite for Oboe and Strings (Richards) | | | 1 I. Prelude and Invocation | 4:46 | | 2 II. Ecstasy | 1:17 | | 3 III. Petition | 2:50 | | 4 IV. Praise | 2:27 | | 5 V. Thanksgiving | 4:42 | | 6 Rendez-vous (Mogensen) | 13:46 | | 7 Dreamscape (Lentini) | 6:50 | | Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra (Blank) | | | 8 I. Allegro | 4:23 | | 9 II. Poco Scherzendo | 5:31 | | 10 III. | 3:00 | | 11 IV. Lento | 6:30 | | 12 Overture for a Happy Occasion (Blank) | 6:33 | | Total time: | 63:14 |
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| | | | | | MMC New Century: Volume VIII | | | Our Price: $9.95  | | | | Item Number: MMC2053 | | Audio Format: DDD | | Genres: Concerto\Orchestral | | | | Description | | Excerpt from the Liner Notes (by Mark L. Lehman)
Prayer: Suite for Oboe and Strings
Scored for solo oboe and string orchestra, Richards’ "Prayer" is aptly described as a “Suite.” It shows little interest in either pyrotechnical display or the sort of heroic contention between soloist and accompaniment typical of 19th-century concertos. Instead, emphasizing clean-lined counterpoint and concise forms derived from song and dance, Prayer harks back to Baroque models. The idiom, however, is modal with a distinctively Hebraic flavor, and the mood pastoral or reverent, with some kinship to such composers inspired by non-European cultures as Ernst Bloch and Alan Hovhaness.
Dreamscape
Inspired by a poem of the same name by Roger Zelazny, “Dreamscape” is a compact orchestral fantasy that despite its brevity–it’s only about seven minutes long–is packed with incident and emotion. It opens with a short flute solo whose chromatic but graceful lyricism generates the thematic outline for much of the music that follows. Quickly the work gains in tension and activity as the strings take over, uncoiling a sinewy and passionate transformation of the opening idea amid a complex contrapuntal fabric of biting, dissonant outbursts from brass and percussion.
Rendez-vous
The composer’s modest biography doesn’t prepare the listener for Mogensen’s astonishing assurance in handling the orchestra–nor for the potent, granitic monumentality he calls forth in “Rendez-vous,” his 1994 orchestral elegy. The basic pulse of this imposing fourteen-minute work is slow and deliberate; variety is achieved by layering on more active ideas at different levels of speed, at times quite thickly, at other points with pinpoint clarity. The language is rugged and uncompromising, but not disjunct, with the fundamental musical ideas having an elemental force and simplicity
Concerto for Clarinet and String Orchestra
Blank is particularly well known for his highly virtuosic music for violin and for clarinet, both of which he writes for with exceptional skill and imagination. Combining clarinet and strings is thus especially appropriate for this composer. His Clarinet Concerto, sponsored by a grant from the Virginia Commission of the Arts, was written in 1990. It is in four movements, the second and third of them linked, and lasts a little under twenty minutes. Despite the demands on the soloist–which include two fairly elaborate cadenzas–this is not really a showy work; it’s much more concerned with subtleties of form and affect.
Overture for a Happy Occasion
As its title suggests, Blank’s six-minute “Overture for a Happy Occasion” conveys very different sorts of feelings than his Clarinet Concerto. Festive and jubilant–and forthrightly triadic in harmonic concord–the overture offers complexity of another kind: a vibrant, buoyant, Chabrieresque panoply of brightly-hued instrumental combinations. This is orchestral merry-making in the grand manner, overflowing with expansive melody, rhythmic verve, and sumptuous color. Blank’s “happy occasion” is, at least on one level, a celebration of the orchestra itself–as if to remind us that this is one of the great and glorious inventions of Western civilization. |
| | | | | | | Reviews | | “MMC continues its splendid effort to see that American composers of orchestral music get heard. And what a wonderful job Messrs. Swoboda and Suben have done in leading these two excellent Polish orchestras to keep the mission on track.”
“Even before one gets a handle on the structural ideas in these works, an immediate impression is made that Messrs. Blank, Mogensen, and Lentini really know the orchestra.”
“…Mr. Blank’s big work on the disc-his concerto-impresses us as a composition by a mature master, with genuine ideas of his own…”
-The New Music Connoisseur |
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