This is a thing of
rags and patches; not necessarily a
criticism. It is predominantly a sampler
but unlike many such items intrinsically
works rather well. Only the Berlin,
Torke and Copland are 'bleeding chunk'
excerpts scalpelled out of larger continuous
sections of music. Otherwise the rest
comprises complete movements from larger
works or self-contained miniatures.
The material ranges from light to zany,
art song to music theatre, early to
contemporary, concerto to symphony.
The Copland, Barber, Berlin and Bernstein
are reassuringly well known; the rest
is not. There are sixteen tracks and
none of them plays more than five minutes.
They are sourced from the existing Naxos
catalogue.
The Copland
is taken a mite too fast by the Nashville
Chamber Orchestra although the broad
flowing statement at 1.09 sounds just
right. The Indianist piece by Cadman
is the equivalent of Cyril Scott’s
and perhaps more pertinently MacDowell’s
woodland musings. Ornstein’s
A Morning in the Woods (Janice
Weber), a big free-standing piece, is
close to Cyril Scott in its mood and
decoration. The Carpenter might
easily have formed the model for a hundred
Broadway dream sequences although cut
with some Straussian excesses. Farley’s
Rorem song disc has been criticised
in some quarters and she is, it is true,
rather breathy with a tendency to swallow
bits of words. Her Nightingale in
fact works quite well. James Buswell
II first appeared on the international
stage with his recording of the Concerto
Academico (part of Previn’s RVW
symphony cycle). He then reappeared
in 1998 with Naxos’s two Piston concertos.
Lately we have had a Barber concerto
from him. The Presto is taken
with due élan and saw-toothed
precision. After the approachable Barber
we must take our medicine with the Gloria
Coates movement. This is toughish
avant-garde going - strong on mood and
atmosphere. The movement from Hovhaness’s
Cello Concerto is untypically lyrical
and rounded. This is not one of his
nightmare processionals (Vishnu or
Mountains and Rivers Without End),
nor a Middle eastern epic (Majnun
or Saint Vartan), nor a Japanese
fantasy (Gagaku Symphony or Moss
Garden). Instead the music is uncannily
close to pastoral English. Bolcom dazzles
us through McKay’s Americanistic
Etude which laid the foundation
for or echoed various player-piano experiments
and jazz-shatter syncopations by Cowell,
Confrey, and Ornstein. The raspberry
rudeness of Alexander’s Ragtime Band
aptly enough leads into the Busby
Berkeley style Production Number
from Grofé’s Hollywood
Suite. The Bournemouth orchestra
is exactly in style. The sequence continues
with Bernstein’s Tonight
reminding us of the real strengths of
this Naxos production leaving aside
the weak casting of Anita. Florence
Price is the second woman represented
here. Her Song to the Dark Virgin
steers close to the shoals of the
salon but emerges unscathed - a strong
art-song. America has many of these
(try the songs of Cowell and Carpenter
on Albany). The Torke extract
is alive with rhythmic interest: drummed
and driven. Its lineage goes back to
Reich, perhaps also to Lambert and Nyman
and to isolated percussion gestures
such as those found in the finales of
the Piston Second and Schuman Third
and Violin Concerto. Sousa unblushingly
and unfeelingly tramples us down with
his The National Game. This is
complete with hallooing and whooping
uproar from the crowd (the orchestra?).
This disc is artfully
planned to intrigue and stir interest.
In this so it will have served its purpose.
Rob Barnett
BACKGROUND NOTE AND WEBSITE DETAILS
News and background on George Frederick
McKay from Fred McKay, the composer’s
son:-
The National Symphony of Ukraine will
begin recording George Frederick McKay's
Violin Concerto in late October 2003.
The Concerto was composed for Jascha
Heifetz in the early 1940s, and recently
had a performance with the Seattle Symphony
with Richard Hickox of London conducting.
The violin soloist with NSO will be
Brian Reagin, Concertmaster of the North
Carolina Symphony, who has a TV appearance
with Yo-Yo Ma to his credit. Mr. Reagin
has also been assistant concertmaster
at Pittsburgh under Andre Previn.
Conductor for the new recording will
be John McLaughlin Williams, who has
had tremendous success recently with
Naxos recordings of the works of McKay,
Carpenter and Hadley in the American
Classics Series. The new McKay album
will also feature Symphonic works based
on the American frontier, Ancient Music
themes from the 16th Century, and a
lively exposition of West Coast American
modern life. Professor McKay was the
founder of a Pacific Coast compositional
tradition at the University of Washington,
where he taught for 40 years. He also
had considerable influence in the Seattle
community and guest conducted the Seattle
Symphony on several occasions during
his career.
McKay’s music was also presented by
leading conductors around the world,
including Leopold Stokowski, Sir Thomas
Beecham, Arthur Benjamin and Howard
Hanson. McKay's music was heard widely
on radio networks during the "radio
days" era 1929-1955, and is just now
returning to the classical airways through
two new modern Naxos recordings of his
orchestral and chamber works, which
have received very favorable reviews
from Fanfare Magazine, American Record
Guide and the internet's Classics Today,
which gave McKay's albums a "10" rating
for Artistic Content. McKay's students
have been quite successful as well,
with William Bolcom winning the Pulitzer
Prize and having his Opera presented
at the Met in New York in 2003 and composing
for films (Illuminata). Earl Robinson
also composed for films and had the
hit tunes, "The House I Live In" (Special
Academy Award), "Ballad for Americans,"
and "Black and White"(Three Dog Night).
Goddard Lieberson was the original record
producer for West Side Story and South
Pacific along with many other shows
on the Broadway scene, and was helpful
in having many of Leonard Bernstein's
classical recordings done. Ken Benshoof's
music is currently recorded by the Kronos
Quartet.
George Frederick McKay composed at least
70 works involving orchestra, and this
great treasury of American music is
just coming to light in this decade
following his 100th Birthdate Centennial.
Symphony Orchestras which championed
his music in the past have included
Indianapolis, Seattle, Eastman/Rochester,
National Gallery of Art (Smithsonian),
and the Standard Broadcasts with Carmen
Dragon. There were several performances
by the NBC studios in NewYork under
various conductors. Current broadcasters
of McKay's works have included Radio
France, BBC, CBC, WNYC of New York,
Classic 99 St. Louis, Classic KING Seattle,
Radio Australia, Minnesota MPR and dozens
of other NPR stations around the USA.
Part of this response has been due to
the attention McKay paid to Native American
themes in his Symphonic Work "From A
Moonlit Ceremony," which is a sincere
tribute to a religious ceremony observed
first-hand by the composer in the 1940's
near his home in the Northwest.
Much of the music recorded on this new
CD will be from the time when my father
was in his 40s, and really supremely
confident and at the height of his creative
powers; as well as being extremely happy
in his personal life with a family including
four young, energetic children to keep
things interesting. (I became the fifth
child) We are on track now to get a
very representative collection of his
works on modern recordings, with a number
of even more serious works potentially
to be recorded in the future, if there
is backing from some major sources eventually.
There is much material related to dance
that will be a treasure to be uncovered
at a later date, for instance. We have
had some hints that a very major string
quartet group may be ready to record
a McKay quartet soon, as well.
John McLaughlin Williams is doing a
marvelous job creating a new McKay orchestral
album with the National Symphony of
Ukraine, and has mentioned to me enthusiastically
that he has hit a "home run" to use
the American phrase (appropriately)
with several of the pieces, and we believe
this will be a real blockbuster of a
modern music recording when it reaches
the listening public.
John has completed three of the symphonic
works already (June 2003) and the Violin
Concerto will be done in late October
in Kiev. The concerto should be magnificent,
given a chance for thorough preparation
by the soloist, who is a very professional
player; and we have specially delayed
the recording to give him a chance to
meet his other obligations to the Fall
season of his home orchestra in North
Carolina. My father was a professional
symphony violinist as well as a composer
and conductor, so the concerto has an
added loving quality built in to the
piece.
This record will provide a much wider
range of experience in terms of the
works my father composed over his lifetime
and they will be ultimately very listenable,
in the tradition of Vaughan Williams,
Sibelius, and Respighi. We have listened
as a family to a Pastorale movement
from one of the current pieces that
have already been done and we are enthralled
with the beauty of it, some kind of
miracle that happened before I was born
and which I had not had an opportunity
to hear before. I mention Sibelius because
my father was trained to a certain extent
by Scandanavian composers (Sinding and
Palmgren) during the 1920s and was encouraged
to use true melodic material in his
compositions.
The latest Naxos album (songs and chamber
music) is I believe probably more historical
in nature than a perfect example of
my father's overall compositional effort;
however there are some contradictions:
the songs unfortunately were not presented
in the full set which contains a very
lyrical piece based on Robert Frost
poetry which contrasts nicely with the
more tart numbers present. This was
due to copyright problems, although
my father does have a Frost work in
publication "Prayer in Spring" from
a much earlier date than this modern
work on the CD. The "Songs" were actually
a big hit in live concert recently when
presented in a more lyrical almost "cabaret"
style by a wonderful young grad student
in a concert at the University of Washington.
Female reviewers have tended to like
them better than males for some reason.
I know that my father's intent was toward
the "ironic" angle, rather than taking
all this too seriously. In a certain
sense the album has a large component
of Bolcom & Morris in choosing certain
works and their relative emphasis and
style of presentation.
My analysis of the Viola Suite is that
it is an emotional remembrance of my
father's family home and his parents
at the time when he was losing them
to old age. He used to talk about an
old "Grandfather Clock" that was an
integral part of the big old house he
grew up in, high on a hill in the beautiful
city of Spokane, Washington. I can hear
the beating of the clock in parts of
the suite, and there are certainly portraits
of family members present too, along
with the grief my father felt at seeing
them depart.
It is amazing that my father could have
ever produced anything miniature, since
he was physically kind of a big, rugged
fellow who liked boxing and swimming
as a youth, and really enjoyed living
"large" in the outdoor world of the
American West.
He did analyze himself as an "introvert"
or "bookworm" however, and was able
to concentrate well enough to write
books, and also be quite an excellent
orchestra conductor. The little pieces
from the 1920s are kind of a recent
discovery, things that he set aside
as "immature" long ago, but which turn
out to be wonderfully human and energetic
when heard 75 years later, as they captured
a very interesting era. The Caricature
Dance Suite is the more professional
of a large portfolio of these, and it
comes with a comic orchestra version,
and a very successful band version of
the Burlesque March which was his biggest
"standard" piece in publication.
There are so many titles yet to explore
(perhaps 800), that we are expecting
a lot of wonderful surprises. My father's
work with symphonic music will be very
interesting once more of the works are
available in modern professional recordings.
I recently found an old letter he wrote
concerning his conducting the Seattle
Symphony in the premiere of his "Sinfonietta
#3" (the music sounds a bit Wagnerian),
and his comment was that "I really gave
it to them" (i.e. the provincial audience
and certain academic types). So therein
we see a rather vigorous competitive
character emerging that he usually did
not wish to show publicly. Generally,
he was very much loved by the musicians
of the Seattle Symphony, who knew they
had a good thing going with a living
and vital composer present in their
musical community. I have not touched
on the political and social and philosophical
ramifications of this composer living
through several turbulent decades of
the 20th Century, but you can be sure
there is plenty of this!!!
The Sinfonietta #4 has a rather "dry"
title, and to look at the published
score you would think it was perhaps
just an academic exercise for the University
of Washington to publish it in 1942
as perhaps just a tip of the hat to
another struggling young American composer;
however, it turns out to be a wonderful
masterpiece, full of humor, youthful
experience and breathtaking beauty in
the Pastorale, as I mentioned (the Sinfonietta
was premiered by the Seattle Symphony
in 1942 also).
Of the Naxos Explore America CD;
it's really very pleasing and has a
very nice Hovhaness cello bit included.
Hovhaness and McKay knew each other
prior to 1970 and I met Hovhaness and
his wife at quite a few community concerts,
when both composers' works were played
here in Seattle during the 1970s and
1980s. I would drive up from Oregon
with my family to accompany my mother
to the concerts when my father's music
was performed. We have quite a few tapes
of chamber music of both Hovhaness and
McKay from those sessions, along with
music by other composers from the area,
like James Beale and Gloria Swisher.
Ken Benshoof was also performed in those
days, and currently his music is recorded
by the Kronos Quartet. He was one of
my father's students during the late
1950s to early 1960s.
Fred McKay
GEORGE FREDERICK MCKAY WEBSITE
http://ourworld.cs.com/gfm1999/myhomepage/tunes.html
The site features a photo of George
Frederick McKay as a mature composer
while he was at the peak of his career
as Professor at the University of Washington,
Seattle. This picture is from around
1956, when he was 57 years old. This
particular portrait was used for the
cover of the Piano Quarterly Magazine
in one issue around that period of time,
since my father was a favorite composer
of children's piano music pieces that
were regularly given nice reviews in
that publication.
NAXOS AMERICAN CLASSICS 8.559187 [56.08]