Search - John Corigliano, Lawrence Leighton Smith, Sidney Harth :: John Corigliano: Tournaments Overture; Elegy; Piano Concerto; Gazebo Dances

The Piano Concerto is the piece of substance here

Discophage | France | 01/10/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"The compositions gathered on this disc come from two sources: Tournaments Overture and Elegy (both written in 1965) were recorded in 1980 by the Louisville Orchestra conducted by Sidney Harth (who appeared in a number of Louisville recordings as violinist) and were first published on LP on the orchestra's famous label, Louisville First Edition Records, as LS 771 with Martinu's Oboe Concerto (the latter now available on a similar Louisville-Martinu collection, Bohuslav Martinu). The Piano Concerto from 1968 and Gazebo Dances from 1974, both conducted by Lawrence Leighton-Smith, were recorded in 1992 and 1993 and had their first release directly on CD, as LCD008, one of a small batch of ten which Louisville's First Editions Recordings published between 1989 and 1995 (listed on this site under two entries, Music of Corigliano and Corigliano: Gazebo Dances/ Voyage/ Summer Fanfare/ Prom Overture/ Piano Concerto). They were then coupled with the composer's "Voyage", "Summer Fanfare" and "Campane di Ravelle" (which I assume also got their first outing there, as I have found no trace of them among the Louisville LP catalog which I've collated).



Of these four works, the Piano Concerto (the only one not to be a premiere recording) is the most advanced in its language, the most demanding and ultimately the best. At 32+ minutes, it is also the longest work on this CD. On the opposite pole, the Gazebo Dances (after the open air band stands found in town squares across rural America) remind me of Otto Luening's Kentucky Concerto, featured on another Louisville CD from this short series, LCD006, which I reviewed recently (Joan Tower Island Rhythms, Otto Luening Kentucky Concerto, Sofia Gubaidulina Pro Et Contra - Louisville Orchestra): it is symphonic music for the barn, Appalachiana forty years too late - at least Luening's had the excuse of having been written in 1951. Tournaments Overture is a "brilliant orchestral showpiece", as they say, deftly constructed but stylistically veering between Stravinsky, Hindemith (the scurrying fifes at 1:34 are very typical), Broadway boisterousness and a lyrical quasi-Waltz also smacking of Broadway sentimentality. Elegy is a more introspective piece, rising to great desperate intensity, but, save the boisterousness, the same stylistic traits are present. Pleasant, but nothing original - granted, it would be unfair to demand of a young composer to be original in his first works, but even the models chosen by Corigliano to imitate were pretty backward looking by 1965. But that was probably implied already by his choice of composition teachers: Luening, Creston and Gianini - hardly cutting edge compositional personalities.



The Piano Concerto is something else: powerful, dissonant, busy, pounding, with a no-holds barred exuberance reminiscent of young George Antheil. There are also moments of lyrical repose in the first and third movements in which the more Romantic Corigliano resurfaces, at the risk of creating jarring juxtapositions. And let me make it clear that I have nothing against lyricism and Romanticism. I just object to repeating compositional gestures that were already clichéd and trite two generations before. Still the Concerto is a fine composition, worthy of almost any written in those years. The composer of Tournaments shows a remarkable stylistic development in the course of three years. How he could have - what word should I use? - reneged and relapsed into writing the Gazebo Dances 6 years later,will remain an enigma. Henry James once wrote something to the effect (I don't have the exact quote) that the creative process isn't about producing - it is about self-critical discarding. Obviously Corigliano didn't see it that way. The problem may also come from the very nature of the recording process, which gives a permanence to pieces conceived as Gebrauchsmusik, music for an occasion, that are better served when quickly heard, quickly forgotten.



TT 67:44, good sound, excellent notes.



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