Search - Edward Joseph Collins, Marin Alsop, Royal Scottish National Orchestra :: Music of Edward Joseph Collins, Vol. 4

A Regional American Composer Worth Hearing

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 12/15/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Edward Joseph Collins (1886-1951) was a regional American composer based in Chicago. He began his career as a virtuoso piano soloist and toured widely. But he had always composed, having studied in Germany with, among others, Max Bruch and Engelbert Humperdinck. As he matured his style veered more towards that of the impressionists, especially that slightly more astringent version that cropped up in the British Isles. The youngest of nine children of Irish immigrants, he maintained an interest in Irish music. His 18-minute tone poem 'Hibernia' (subtitled 'Irish Rhapsody,' 1929), the first piece on this fourth volume of issues of his music from Albany, is a loose set of variations based on the tune, 'O, the Taters are Small Over Here,' and it illustrates his mastery of orchestration as well as the increasing influence of impressionist techniques in his work. In some ways it is reminiscent of similar works of Hamilton Harty, the English composer and conductor, although the language is somewhat more adventuresome. The tune itself, one I never recall having heard, is haunting from the very beginning where it is intoned by English horn accompanied by two harps. I can easily imagine this piece being a popular concert opener for an enterprising orchestra.In the same harmonic vein, but using an African-American spiritual as its basis, is 'Lil' David Play on Yo' Harp' (1940). Written for his friend Alfred Wallenstein, later conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic but at that time music director at New York radio station WOR, it was originally for piano solo, but Collins arranged it for full orchestra. Only four minutes long and featuring, not surprisingly, harp solos, it is thoroughly delightful. 'Lament and Jig' (1941) again features Irish jig music based on a folk song indigenous to his native Illinois entitled 'El-A-Noy' (still the pronunciation of the state name for many of the state's citizens). It was commissioned by the Chicago Symphony for its 50th anniversary, it was one of twelve variations on the tune by as many composers. This variation, only two minutes long, is over almost before it begins, but manages to get your toe tapping.The big piece here is Collins's First Piano Concerto; he wrote three and the Third has already been performed by the same forces in an earlier release. Written in 1925 and premièred by the Chicago Symphony under Frederick Stock with Collins as soloist, it sounds almost Delian harmonically and in its somewhat elusive form. But in the third movement there are quintessentially American syncopated rhythms (not surprising, considering the movement's subtitle 'All'Americana'). There are engaging and memorable melodic ideas scattered throughout the piece; sometimes a tune will emerge, make an impression and then disappear never to be heard again. This may indeed be the mark of a young composer who has not learned how to marshal his ideas effectively. Be that as it may, the second movement, with its serene mood and lovely melodies (some of which DO stick around and get inside your head, particularly the one stated several times by the solo horn) is particularly effective, if a bit amorphous in form. Before this series began coming out I had never heard of Edward Joseph Collins. He clearly was one of those figures mostly active away from the New York spotlight and thus slipped into obscurity almost without a trace. We are in the debt of whoever is underwriting and managing this series of continuing recordings. The booklet notes indicate that there are four more issues in the works, including more of Collins's Irish-influenced 'Variations on an Irish Folksong' and 'Irish Rhapsody,' as well as his one-act opera, 'Daughter of the South.' And there will be a chamber music and a solo piano music issue as well. Marin Alsop, who seems to be everywhere these days, conducts the Royal Scottish National Orchestra as if she's known the music all her life. William Wolfram is the fine pianist in the concerto. The recorded sound is warm, spacious, lifelike.Scott Morrison"