My experiences of the
music of Michael Daugherty so far have
not been happy ones. His Metropolis
Symphony in particular exudes a
sense of the hopelessly futile. Alas
this disc does not change matters one
iota. There is no doubt he is well-served
by Naxos, who have enlisted the services
of the excellent Tim Handley as Producer
and Engineer of this disc. And percussionists
don’t get much more high-profile than
super-virtuoso Evelyn Glennie.
Perhaps the first phrase
of Naxos’s blurb that should set alarm-bells
ringing is the claim that Daugherty
is ‘one of the most performed American
composers of concert music of his generation’.
Well, that is because his music is accessible.
But there is nothing to go hand-in-hand
with that accessibility to give the
sound any substance, beyond perhaps
a certain craftsmanship.
Philadelphia
Stories is a Philadelphia Orchestra
commission. Providing his own booklet
notes, Daugherty describes this work
as ‘a musical travelogue of the sounds
and rhythms of Philadelphia’. It tracks
the course of a night, as the first
movement is set at dusk, the second
after midnight and the final one at
sunrise.
Parts of Philadelphia
have appeared before. James DePreist
and the Oregon Symphony put down the
first movement on Delos
; and
the third movement has appeared on a
Reference Recordings disc entitled ‘Bells
for Stokowski’. Like most Daugherty,
it is overlong for its materials so
hearing it in bits is possibly the best
way, if you have to hear it at all.
The first movement,
‘Sundown on South Street’ begins with
a gesture (like a shaking of maracas)
whose meaning is unclear. The ‘pop’
elements are, to my ears, hackneyed.
It quickly becomes clear that this is
music of empty rhetoric, just like all
the other music I have heard by this
composer. Antiphonally-placed harps
dominate ‘Tell-Tale Harp’ (the composer
describes this second movement as ‘an
arabesque for two solo harps and orchestra’).
Musically this is far better, with fairly
effective rhythmic play. This is flighty
and elusive, with elfin rhythms.
‘Bells for Stokowski’,
at 13’33, is by far the longest of the
three movements. Stokowski’s association
with Philadelphia is the stuff of legend,
of course. Daugherty imagines Stokowski
‘visiting the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia
at sunrise and listening to all the
bells of the city resonate’. Certainly
the bells are nicely recorded (as is
the uncredited solo violinist), yet
the music easily returns to its reliance
of succession of effects, often filmic
in nature. This, though, is over-long,
of that there can surely be little or
no argument. It might be fun to play
(it almost certainly is), but actually
listening to it is another matter. Which
makes the fact that it is excellently
played and equally excellently recorded
all the more of a shame. When the Colorado
players get together again with this
recording team with some contemporary
music … now that will be a record
to treasure!. (I note there is a Tchaikovsky
disc by the Alsop/Colorado combi that
would be interesting to hear: the Fourth
Symphony and Romeo and Juliet, 8.555714,
welcomed by Rob Barnett here on MusicWeb).
UFO is
performed here by its dedicatee. Evelyn
Glennie seems to relish each and every
challenge Daugherty throws at her in
his exploration of ‘unidentified flying
objects and sounds’ (the composer).
The first movement is entitled, ‘Traveling
Music’ and is ‘where the percussion
soloist, in the guise of an alien from
outer space, mysteriously enters the
concert hall playing a waterphone (http://www.oddmusic.com/gallery/om33000.html
) and a mechanical siren’. Hm. Maybe
there are echoes of Stockhausen, presumably
unintentional, in the ‘alien part’ (memories
of trumpet-playing spacemen in the foyer
of Covent Garden for Donnerstag aus
‘Licht’ come flooding back for no
good reason). Whatever, it is not long
before the music falls back into what
I would term ‘energetic meandering’
– plenty of notes going nowhere much,
and certainly nowhere particularly interesting.
So many notes Glennie had to learn …
The second movement
(there are five) is called ‘Unidentified’,
referring to unidentified metal found
at the scene of the ‘UFO crash’ in 1947
in New Mexico. So the percussionist
plays xylophone (virtuosically, here)
and ‘eight pieces of unidentified metal’.
Nice to have some mystery.
‘Flying’ (the third
movement) has Glennie on xylophone,
cymbals and mark tree (the latter new
to me … see http://www.bellperc.com/misc/marktree.htm
for an explanation. Wind-chimes, basically).
The highlight here is Glennie’s cadenza
late on in the movement, notable not
only for her virtuosity but also for
exhibiting her innate musicality and
sensitivity. The fourth movement is
simply entitled, ‘???’ and, says the
composer, ‘may leave the listener wondering:
is this another UFO sighting?’. It is
certainly atmospheric enough, contrasting
with the big-bandesque finale. Sometimes
this sounds like Daugherty is trying
to take on Bernstein in West Side
Story mode, and failing. Unfortunately,
the empty, dismissive gestures that
end the experience seem to sum it all
up.
Great production values,
supremely dedicated performances … of
music that manifestly does not deserve
either.
Colin Clarke
Evelyn Glennie (percussion) 